Anyone noticing/blessing my absence on social media action for the last 6 days need fear no longer, I’m back on-line after 6 days camping at Lost Lake, 950m up in the Oregonian Cascades. It was absolutely wonderful too, with the backdrop of old growth forest and the towering Mt Hood like one of those cheesy 70s wilderness posters that many of us grew up with.

Amazing wildlife, too. Just after I took the picture above, an Osprey dived to scoop a fish out of the lake and head back towards its perch. Our daily campsite routine was tolerated by ever entertaining chipmunks doing their chipmunk thing. The potential, if unrealised, appearance of a bear or even a cougar gave the stay a frisson we don’t get back in Northumberland.

Despite the compromises of staying in a camping trailer on a site with running water, (compost) toilets, garbage bins and a store, I do like the way camping makes you very aware of your relationship with nature and the benefits/impacts of modern life. There is no way we could have survived here for more than a few days without food supplies. Finite gas/electrical power and a single rubbish bag and the need to empty waste water manually makes it very clear what you are consuming/wasting.

The absence of my favoured deluge of bite-sized internet information forced me into doing something I’ve let slip recently – reading books properly, 50-60 pages at a time, rather than in 10 page chunks. I’ll be bringing something from one of those books, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, back to the business later in the week.

Anyway, this morning we’re packing for an afternoon flight and I’ll be home with the little ‘uns tomorrow. Blogging will continue slightly erratically for the rest of the summer.