Mossyrock, autumn camping

October 17-21, 2021

Here I go camping again, with Little Towhee, the bird, my friend.
We’re heading into the wild; it might be scary, it might be mild.
We’re looking for adventure and yes a little rest.
It’s always new and fun, and with Little Towhee along, it’s the best!

So, what is “Mossyrock”? You might think that with all of our Pacific Northwest rain (or at least the amount of rain we still get every spring, monster bucket loads of it!), you might think that every rock in the Pacific Northwest is mossy. And that could very well be true!

“Mossyrock” is actually the name of a town here in Washington State. Could be that they have a lot of rocks with moss on them, could be. But I read online that the town was named after a HUGE moss covered rock/pinnacle/cliff nearby. I wish I had known that when I was there; I would have found that rock and shared a photo of it with you folks.

Mossyrock is not a big town. It covers .68 square miles. The 2020 census reported 768 people living there, nine more people than what the 2010 census reported.

Importantly for me is that just across peaceful Mayfield Lake from Mossyrock is the Ike Kinswa State Park. It’s gorgeous. Lots of trees, lots of space between campsites, lots of birds, lots of quiet and courteous neighbor campers.

Mossyrock and the Ike Kinswa State Park isn’t far from my home … maybe a two hour drive. I hitched up the trailer to the truck at the storage lot around 1pm.

Before pulling out of the storage lot and onto the road, I stopped to check the trailer lights … and I wanted to take the photo above. WHOA, the truck and trailer are moving! WHOA, Little Towhee must be driving … that bird! Towhee, stop, stop! You can’t see over the steering wheel! Yikes. Stop!

Sigh, ok, she stopped and when I opened the driver’s door she just cheeped at me happily. Little Towhee, you move over into the passenger seat or up onto the dash, don’t do that again! Scared me witless. Ha, she just kept on cheeping happily. That bird! 🙂

We headed out onto the road, and then on down the road, with me behind the wheel this time. After a comfortable drive, we arrived at Ike Kinswa State Park.

I’d not been here before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect although the online info seemed most promising. We drove in to find our campsite.

I found that I had reserved a wonderful campsite, absolutely perfect.

The blacktop on the left of my rig in the photo above continues on through the campground, but my campsite was in the woods with almost no neighbors in sight, much less within hearing.

 

Notice the posts placed in the ground along the edge of the blacktop. I was sure those were placed there so no one would drive their RV or car or truck into the area around the picnic table and firepit. But Little Towhee (that bird) had a different idea of why those posts were there. They were a perfect perch that a Towhee bird could sit on and listen to and talk with the other birds in the forest. How cool is that?

While Little Towhee was busy making friends, I leveled the trailer side-to-side, and then leveled the trailer fore-and-aft, and I plugged in my power cord to the power pedestal.

I hadn’t noticed when I drove in, but when I walked to the pedestal, I found the entire top part of the pedestal was on the ground and the wiring inside very dangerously exposed. I checked it completely, first visually, all the wires and connections. It looked like the wiring was ok, just that the metal hood was off. I hooked up a digital multi-meter to several spots among the connections and the readings were ok. So I hooked up my trailer’s extension cord to the pedestal (there is a safety device inside the trailer that shuts the circuit off if anything is amiss) and everything checked out A-ok. So I unhooked the extension cord, then put the metal hood back on the pedestal … using a good amount of Gorilla tape to hold it on.

Then I plugged the trailer in again and everything was still ok, the read-out inside the trailer was well within safe range. The pedestal wiring, safely covered by the pedestal’s hood, was now safe from critters and debris and from rain, etc. It might not be pretty, but it was safe and funtional.

I drove to the Ranger station and let them know about the damaged box/hood. A technician came out later that afternoon, saw what I’d done, checked everything again, and said my work was perfect and good to go. He would be ordering a brand new complete pedestal and would install it on the afternoon of my departure, five days hence. But he would stop by again and make sure everything was ok. And he did just that … three times that week. I really appreciated that even though I was comfortable with my work.

So! Already a bit of an adventure! 🙂 But I was safe and sound, with electricity in the trailer, with internet, heat, lights, outlets to charge phone and camera and laptop and the trailer batteries and run the water pumps, etc. I am so spoiled.

Home sweet home.