Ed. Note: This is a personal entry on my recent trip to the mountains of Southern Oregon. If you enjoy Almost Fit, please leave a comment or consider having Almost Fit delivered to your inbox. Thanks.

As the title of this post indicates, despite my best efforts to the contrary, my camping trip at Umpqua’s Last Resort was a dietary success.

After 7 days of camping in the mountains of Southern Oregon and then 3 days at an incredible ocean view rental on the Oregon coast, I have returned unscathed by the scale.

In hindsight it would have been interesting to write down what I ate and drank during our excursion, but I was too busy playing and hiding from the sun. However, here is what I remember:

Friday: Beer. Beef. Beef with Beer, and a side of chicken. A slice of squash, chased with a beer. Packaged ice cream bar (be still my beating heart). Lots of almonds and a beer. Oatmeal that included flax seeds. Tortilla chips and beer. Beer with a side of sour cream and onion potato chips. Peanut butter and apricot jam on 12 grain bread, with beer.

Saturday: Beer. A “cheeseburger hotdog” (don’t ask what’s in it - I didn’t). Carne Asada with guacamole, cheese, salsa, and a flour tortilla. Beer. Strawberries, blueberries, and cherries. Several beers. Gran Marnier, and a shot or two of Woodford Reserve whiskey. Followed by beer. And almonds. Ice cream and cake.

Lather, rinse, and repeat for the next 5 days.

You get the idea.

Mix in a random watermelon cracked over the rocks at the swimming hole, multiple green salads, and some eggs and bacon for breakfast, and you have a portrait of a workable vacation diet, including indulgences.

Fortunately for me, it was blazing hot, which meant I spent a fair amount of energy trying to stay cool in any way possible. This typically included swimming, dam building (building a swimming hole) and jumping from rocks into ice-cold rivers, as well as hiking to incredibly beautiful waterfalls and lounging. And while I’m not certain that lounging counts as exercise, when it’s in the 90’s I think just about any motion burns calories, including fanning yourself under a shady tree.

On the fishing side, sad to say there wasn’t much to be had. We drove up a fire trail to a local lake only to be greeted by a shore full of dead fish. Apparently there had been an algae bloom in the local lakes and it was killing the fish. I haven’t confirmed that, but it was what I was told by a friend who had read it on his way up. At any rate, very little fishing took place, but that was alright - even just making the mindspace for it was peaceful. In a sort of Zen substitution for the serenity of fishing, I spent a good amount of time creating natural art pieces, such as the cairn pictured above.

Other random activities of note: I spent a fair amount of time working on my ukulele skills; my wife and her mother are both oil painters, so they worked on paintings for the new cabin (3 generations of painters in that photo); we had a dedication ceremony for one of the cabins to commemorate the passing of April’s great-grandmother last fall; and last but certainly not least, not a single case of poison oak was had, which is a big accomplishment with two active children.

Our next stop was Port Orford, Oregon, for a taste of France. Stay tuned.

Oh, and I haven’t forgotten World Domination…Soon. Very soon.

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