Travels with The Rayman

We love Silver Lake.  It’s located on the road to Mt. St. Helens and it is where we are “camped” for four nights.  This is our third night.  What do we love about it?  Let me count the ways.

Weather – the days are warm, nights are cold.

Location – 30 miles from Blowback Mountain (Mt. St. Helens joke).  It is 10 miles from the freeway, Interstate 5.

RV park is ideal.  There are waterways encircling it.  There are hawks in the trees and maybe we spotted a bald eagle…too far away to see for sure.  The space between RVs is more than generous compared to the average RV park this summer.

Satellite reception.  We have it.

So, what did we do today?  Rayman got a haircut.  He looks much better now.  Just saying.

I worked on trust issues, walked the dog, blogged (and I’m still blogging).

The fun for the day was the kayaking.  We went to the office, filled out a form promising that we would hold harmless the establishment if we were to drown.  And then we went to the bank of the tributary about 200 yards from our RV, met a guy with the kayak and the oars and the life jackets, stumbled into the kayak and the guy shoved us off into the tributary.  Away we floated.  He mentioned that we would pass an island and if we were lucky we might see the one goat that lived on the island.  Okay.  Right.

So, we paddled around a few bends and by houses that were situated right on the water (sweet).  We went by the island and we heard the goat but never saw him.  By the time we emerged onto the main body of the lake, I was drenched.  My pants were soaked.  But it felt good because the breeze was warm and sun was hot.  We steered our kayak to a spot on the lake that afforded a view of Mt. St. Helens.  Very cool.  What wasn’t cool was that we left our cameras in The Dog House along with Beau.  No pictures.  But I think you can imagine how pretty it was.

In addition to us on the lake, there were geese and ducks.  And they floated right by us and didn’t mind our presence at all.  Very nice fowl.  They didn’t mind each other either.  Maybe the political parties should change their logos from donkey and elephant to Ducks and Geese.  This might inspire new behavior on the part of our elected officials.

But I digress.

On our way back to the RV park via the river tributary, we again went by Goat Island (that is what I named it).  We heard the bleating.  Is that what goats do?  So we paddled up close to the island, and there he was.  The goat, Billy.  While in our boat we saw the goat!!!  And you know what the goat did?  He talked to us and followed us as we floated by.  The entire length of the island.  Poor Billy boy was bored.  He lives alone on the island.  He wanted company.  So we hung out at the end of the island and conversed with him as one does.  “Hi Billy Goat!”  How are you Billy Goat?”  He talked back to us.  “Behahahah.”  It was a hoot.  We loved it.  I think he loved it too.

We made it back to where we started.  We struggled to get out of the kayak without any assistance (it was not pretty).  I went first.  This involved my standing up on a kayak still in the water, and placing my left foot on the ground next to the kayak without getting wet.  As I did this, Rayman and the kayak started moving away from the ground as I was standing on.  Have you ever seen the splits performed in such a manner?  “Rayman, move the kayak back!”, I barked.  “You are pushing it away!”, he announced.  OMG.  I thought I was going to fall in to the mud.  Luckily, he got the kayak heading toward my foot that was on dry land and I jumped out.  Then, it was his turn.  I hauled the kayak up on the shore and he sprang right out.  THEN the guy that set us off into the water showed up.  “Sorry I was late.”, he exclaimed.

We went back to The Dog House, fed the dog, and we all jumped into the car and headed to Castle Rock, the closest town.  Bought chicken and corn and came back to barbecue dinner.  It was grand.  I served it with the best fruit salad.  The watermelon, the plums, the nectarines and peaches were all perfection.  Oh, how lucky we are.  It was a great day.