Camping at Lake Billy Chinook

Our friends Joel and Jenny invited us to go camping with them and Jenny's parents at Lake Billy Chinook. Neither Jaime nor I had been there before so we were excited to go. We left Wednesday morning and got back Sunday afternoon and it was one of our favorite camping trips we've taken!


Here's most of the group hanging out at the campfire. The drinks were flowing throughout the trip and everyone was throwing them back. It was a fun group of people even though most of them are Ducks ;). Fortunately a couple more Beavers (Kevin and Sabra) showed up later to help even the odds.


Here's more of the group (including Jaime of course). We had tents scattered around the couple campsites we had across from each other but everyone mostly stayed around the main site where the food, drink, and fun was located.


Here's our hosts Randy and Carol Coleman. They have been hosting this trip for a long time and they are real LBC (Lake Billy Chinook) experts. In the background you can see the ever present BIG BOAT and their H1 Hummer. It was an imposing campsite (especially with all the rowdy people ;) to say the least! A HUGE thank you to the Colemans for inviting us and supplying everyone with an awesome week of fun in the sun!


Joel and I were the last ones up a couple of different nights. One night (Friday I think) we got camera crazy and took a bunch of blurry pictures. Here's one that turned out for me.


While Joel and I amused ourselves, the girls whipped up some Rotelle and chowed down ... munchies anyone?!?


Here's Joel, Jenny and Carol showing the typical activity we participated in at LBC: floating around on noodles while soaking up the sun and enjoying cold beverages. It was really hot most days, we think at least one day was over 100 degrees!


Jaime found a new favorite beer, Tecate. Joel was our hook-up and brought a bunch of beer that we got at a great price... FREE! Needless to say we had sunscreen on almost the whole trip, but the Tecate and Miller Lite helped deal with the burnt spots that somehow did not get much sunscreen.


Some of us were drunker than others and here Kim is showing off the form that allowed her to pass out in the boat ... and stay there all the way back to the campsite.


Here's the two master cooks. Randy is whipping up a batch of his famous spaghetti while CJ is assisting. CJ's real specialty is breakfast, where he kept us all well fed and looking forward to the morning meal (not an easy task after all the drinks that went down).


Here's a close up of what the spaghetti sauce looked like. Randy has honed the recipe over the years to include a specific list of ingredients: any half empty bottles of booze and lots of spices. Ummm, I can still taste it (even though it was supposedly not as spicy as in years past).


And of course Carol and Randy came prepared for the aftermath of spaghetti night. Which was good because, it sure got the better of me ... after wolfing down three platefuls I made an unplanned trip to the bathroom as most of it came back up.


Hey look I made it into a picture! Just kidding, but it was hard to remember to take pictures while having so much fun. The pictures we did get don't do the trip or the people involved justice. We got to enjoy a new part of Oregon and meet some cool new people at the same time. Hopefully we can do it again next year!


So we stayed up too late, drank too much, played in the water every day, were treated to hot sunny weather and generally had way too much fun. A pretty perfect camping trip if you ask me!