Tag: Glamping

Camping in the Plague-free 14th Century

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Stamps-With-Foot and I spent part of the recent holiday weekend camping in a south-western Washington hay field pretending with a wink and a smile that it was 1340.

We have some friends that are big into the SCA and asked us to come along.  At the mention of playing dress up, my wife was all in.  I spent most of my time cooking and washing dishes and I made it over to Merchant’s Row for a few purchases.  I got way too involved in construction techniques of the different tents and campers (kind of want my own Gypsy Vardo) and camping accouterments and MAY have made a pest of myself at one booth deciphering the geometry of the tent fly.  There are times when I am too nerdy for my own good.

Anyway, we had a nice time away from a house full of boxes and projects.  It was great to see our friends and it made my wife happy to get to dress me up in pretend pleasant clothes.

Candle Box build

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As part of my on-going campaign furniture project I decided that I needed a small box to hold beeswax candles and a few candle stick holders. I contemplated spending way too many hours crafting a small box with dovetails or finger joints, but good sense and my travel schedule won out and I happened on a wooden 2-bottle wine presentation box at Goodwill while I was there perusing for candle holders and baseball bats (for my lathe). I found four nice small Indian-made brass holders that fit in half the box with just the right amount of patina and beausage. I glued in a plywood separator in the middle of the box and cut down a piece of 1/4″ plywood scrap to cradle the holders. I glued that into one of the halves. A coat of red mahogany stain was rubbed on the outside and the box was finished off with two coats of polyurethane. An appropriately dinged-up brass handle was a sourced for $0.50 at a local reclaimed hardware shop and the box is now ready for a safari, Glamping, or romantic dinners in the back yard, etc..

Campaign Furniture Love and Build

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

I am a sucker for campaign furniture – the real stuff not the 1970’s MDF, lime green crap with cheapo plated straps and corners applied. Nope, I am talking about furniture that could have been broken down and loaded in a wagon, put on a mule, or strapped to a camel and toted around the world to reside in an officer’s tent in the high mountains of the Hindu Kush, the plains of the Ganges, or on the savannas of the Rift Valley. There is a single modern volume – now out of print – that I have checked out of the local library (through inter-library loan) 4 times and have scanned it in it’s entirety. I also have a 19th century catalog that is printed on pulp paper and completely falling apart that I peruse a good bit. I have even planned a couple of days off while traveling around seeing particular pieces and collections: there is a small shop in the Charleston, SC antique district that I spent hours in and while in London last year I found a shop that I wanted to move into. To tempt me even more, I have read rumors that Chris Schwartz, author of The Anarchist’s Tool Chest, is working on a new book and I am vibrating with anticipation.

There is a bit of both romance and leisurely comfort when one spends time afield surrounded by real furniture. I have a couple of original pieces, but they were dear enough that they cannot leave the house and won’t be spending any time glamping with us in the summer or in a high-country elk camp. Instead, I have been working on some modern versions that can be thrown in the back of a truck, hauled at high speed down goat trails, and opened up like Optimus Prime to reveal stout, useful, pleasing furniture. I have a source for solid wood shipping crates of different sizes that I have cut, stained, altered, and added to for this purpose. The limiting factor in all of this, is that every single piece has to break down, or fold up so that everything together fits in the bed of a small truck: 4’X6′

Right now, I have the cast iron cookware box, a candle box, 2 small tables, and a field desk done. I am 90% done with the wet bar (you NEED booze while glamping…) and an oil lamp/lantern box. The camp kitchen is in work, but will not be near complete or usable by the time we move. I have also designed a linen trunk, small chest of drawers, and a full-sized bed, but these haven’t even been started. The Campaign Furniture build is an on-going task and I hope to finish it all while we are in France. We are actually contemplating using it to furnish our guest room there.

Cast Iron Camping Cookware Box

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

In my on-going project to build the finest glamping/campaign furniture kit in the Pacific Northwest, I have added a custom box for holding all of our cast iron and campfire cooking gear.  It all started out with a wooden box I picked up at a garage sale that was full of a cast iron camp set that had been used once.  We have added a square fry pan, pot lifters, trivets, stand-off, roasting sticks, a grill, bacon press, a 12″ lid, and corn-shaped bread pan.  I had thought about including all of it in my camp kitchen, but it would have made the unit so heavy that I would have needed a winch to get it off and on to my truck bed.

The box that it came with was just a roughly tacked together crate, but it had potential.  I spent a couple of hours adding trim, remaking the lid, adding reinforcement, and painting it a deep red.  To Finish it off I added brass pipe handles and brass closures.  It is still not light, but one person can carry and move it.  The “new” box holds all the aforementioned gear, looks snazzy, and doubles as a seat for around the campfire.

A summer glamping trip to Mt. Adams, WA

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All the rain, cold, flu and grey skies have me reminiscing about warmer weather and adventures we had this summer:  Stamps-With-Foot and I were working and traveling like mad.  We were almost burnt out, needed a break and deciding the embracing arms of Mother Nature were in order.  A couple that we hang out with was also in a camping state of mind so we planned a little weekend trip to the big woods.  A lakeside campground on the slopes on Mt. Adams was chosen and my brother-in-law and his lady friend were invited as well.

This was not a hike ten miles with all our crap sort of outing.  We packed up the truck with all our Glamping goodies and bits and drove south one Friday afternoon after work.  5 hours later (traffic, road closures, notes tacked to trees, a campsite change, a lying GPS, etc…) we pulled into camp with good wine, cold beer, salmon fillets and steak waiting for us…  This is how all camping trips should start!

We slept in and when we finally did find the initiative to leave our queen sized blow-up bed, we were greeted with a crystal clear lake and a postcard view of the mountain from the door of our tent.

It was a weekend of no cell phones or e-mail, but lots of cast iron cookware, campfires, smores, beer, scotch, laughing, panoramic views and relaxation.  Just what the Dr. ordered after a really hectic week.

Travel and Camping in the Land of shiny vampires…

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Every summer, my son and I go camping. Some years his sister has gone and my wife has started joining us, but there is a lot of quality father/son time.  Discussions swirl around knights, swords, native American tribes/practices, foreign places/peoples, battles, gvns, more sword talk, camping skills, camp cooking, and the merits of boxing/judo/Krav Maga/etc…  This year, The Ruminator and Stamps-With-Foot conspired against me and planned a trip to Forks, Washington to visit the Twilight tour stops.

The plan was to drive from Seattle to Forks, visiting La Push, and then completing the circumnavigation of the Olympic Peninsula – going from campground to campground.   The trip coincided with both Quileute Days and the Squim Lavender Festival – I have a soft spot for lavender.  I believe that the side trip to Squim was more of a bribe than anything else as our rainey destination and reason for going didn’t really speak to my heart.  My sweet, sweet wife, all her friends, my daughter, and most of the women I know are enamored with the sparkling undead.  I prefer my vampires to erupt into flames when exposed to sunlight, but I am old-school like that.

We packed the new truck, Tater, with tents, bags, rain tarps, food, cast iron, ukeleles, wood, sleeping pads, water, more tarps and headed west like 21st century hillbillies.  Our first night was spent near a WWII concrete anti-ship fort – we had to explore the depths and gvn emplacements twice in 24 hours…  Before heading to Squim, we stopped in downtown Port Townsend and explored the wooden boat center and some of the shops.   Another bribe.  Wooden boats and I have an unrequited love affair.  I can’t have one because I already have a wife and a full-time job, but that doesn’t preclude me from lusting over teak decks, tight joinery, and the naughty brass bits…

The rain came our second night of camping and never really left.  There were dry hours where we cooked and played dueling ukuleles, but for the most part the next 4 nights were an exercise in trying to keep from getting soggy.  Brodie was along for his first Talley Family camp-a-thon and was not amused.  All he wanted to do was sit with his mommy and crawl under the dry blankets in the tent.  That whole thing in the books about Forks being the rainest place in the lower 48 rings true for me.  We were there in the summer and never dried out, I can only imagine what it is like in the depth of a long grey winter.

Quileute Days was a side stop on our way to the Pacific coast and LaPush.  The Ruminator just HAD to swim in the ocean and no amount of persuasion about it being cold, really cold, would change his adolescent, made up mind.  After running into the surf and getting slapped in the chest by the first arctic-cold wave, his eyes got huge and he came up gasping for air.  He stayed in until his lips turned almost blue and we had to drag him out.  I have a sneaking suspicion that his next trip to the coast will involve a wetsuit.

Forks is a former logging town that is full of nice people who still seem a little bewildered by all the attention.  Two shops really stand out in my memory (aside from the Twilight one): a tackle shop that had the same organizational system as my grandfather’s garage: “I know it is here somewhere….”  mounted fish on the wall, a stuffed mountain lion, and a dog sleeping in her spot by the door.   The other shop was an eclectic mix of junk shop, antique store, book store, coffee shop and sandwich counter where we had lunch.   If you go to Forks – dragged by your significant other as well – you cant miss the latter; it is on the same side of the street of the now closed Twilight store and just to the north.

This summer taught us a few things:

  1. Full-on luxury glamping is awesome when you arrive, unload and stay in place, but sucks when you move every night.
  2. Zombie Gunship played on an iPad in the backseat makes the miles fly by and nary a “Are we there yet?” is uttered.
  3. Brodie hates camping, the woods, rain, campfires, and the ukelele.  Hates.
  4. Stamps-With-Foot makes a mean gumbo!
  5. The idea of spending time in the “Wettest place in the lower 48” sounds MUCH better than it is.
  6. I am more awesomer at checkers than my son
  7. Lavender ice cream is amazingly yummy
  8. Flailing about with bullwhip kelp is a fine way to get into trouble
  9. Bacon fried in a iron skillet over a campfire is another proof the God loves us and wants us to be happy.
  10. Future summer outings will be less Cormac McCarthy’ The Road (soggy,cold,dirty) and more Endless Summer or Smokey and the Bandit.

What I Want Thursday – 8/2/2012

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Below are the things that I find are present for me today:

1. More time with my children.

2. I want to stick to my new diet and workout schedule and not fall off the wagon and back into the cookie/café Mocha/lethargic/big-belly abyss.

3. For my wife to finish some long ago promised sewing tasks for me.

4. More book shelf space at home. We read more and more on our kindles and have sold many, if not most, of the paperbacks that have filled our lives for years and we are still completely out of space for our books. There are stacks on the floor in both of our home offices, to-read piles on each night-stand, fiction and history filing the living room book case, literature lined up on the basement hutch, cookbooks on the bottom shelf of the china hutch, and single volumes littered across the normally unoccupied spaces of our small home. We more shelves, not less books!

5. A finished kitchen

6. Painted lawn furniture

7. Filson Medium Travel bag. My son and I went to the Filson factory store and I fell into love/lust over this piece of luggage. I know that sounds weird, but I fly a LOT – I am a Platinum SkyTeam frequent flier member and a Gold OneWorld member. Quality, attractive, roomy, useful luggage is a necessity.

8. A cigarbox electric Ukulele for playing blues with a slide.

9. A proper car camping/glamping kitchen set up.

10. A few books: Passions:The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson; The Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook; Paris Between the Wars 1919-1939: Art, Life & Culture; Ernest Hemmingway bio and a two books of his letters (1&2), etc…

11. A Truck bed full of wooden wine/port crates/boxes for a couple of open projects at home.

12. To give Heifer International a menagerie of animals. That is my charity goal for the year. I want to save, gather, raise, find as much cash as possible to give to Heifer International by the end of 2012 for the purchase of bees, goats, cows, water buffalo, chickens, trees, training and hope. It will provide animals and knowledge that will change lives for the good. I will add a link or a tab on my front page to a fund status page/counter and update it as the gift grows.

Campaign Furniture

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

Charleston, SC is one one the places that makes Marta Stewart go all weak in the knees: it is antiques heaven.  I had just finished reading a post on the Lost Art Press Blog about a shop there that deals mainly in campaign furniture (a type of furniture made specifically for travel and/or military campaigning and something that makes  my inner Martha breathe heavy), when I got the serendipitous news that my J-O-B was sending me there for a few days. Well then…  I had one afternoon off and I drug a couple of coworkers to the antiques district downtown and hunted for the shop.  My, my, my….  The proprietor had original pieces from the British Raj that he let me fondle and covet.  I really wanted some personal alone time with a specific teak and wicker lounger.  Me, the chair, some port, candle light, and sweet, sweet love….

I am in the process of building my own campaign-style camp kitchen, chairs, table, and wet bar to take with us on the Lukowski-Gahagan-Talley Glamping trips planed for this spring and summer, where roughing it means the mushrooms are crimini instead of chantarails.   I snagged a few ideas from the shop and some additional research that I am incorporating.  I will post when somewhat complete, but in the meantime, take a look at some of the pictures I snapped and have included below.

Glamping

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

On a recent weekend, Stamps-With-foot and I met some friends at a campsite on the slopes of Mt. Rainer, situated next to a clear, cool, rushing river.  It was a welcome vacation from my iPhone, computer, the J-O-B, projects at home and was an adventure is truly luxurious camping: glamping.   We had soft warm double beds, million dollar views, canvas recliners, teak side tables, flowers in vases, steak for dinner, champagne both nights, a hardwood fueled fire, fresh pastries, good wine, table cloths, linen napkins, and a curtained canopied dining room. There were even antique Japanese pearls presented and worn (thanks for upping the b-day present giving bar Dave… you dick).  The only thing that separated it from a Victorian safari was the absence of white jacketed & gloved natives and the whole killing of endangered species thing.

All we brought to this gathering was a family sized tent, an air mattress, a set of cast iron Dutch ovens & griddle, some yummy food, good booze, and very sharp kitchen knives.  Our Portland friends added all the rest of the good stuff.  My normal camping experience often requires a nasty 10+ mile uphill hike (both ways), carrying all my junk (with most of the wife’s as well) & 25+ pounds of climbing gear.  Evenings and EARLY mornings are often spent hovering over a tiny stove to warm up some dehydrated crap-surprise, sleeping in a tiny tent, on a thin short blow-up pad, pumping my own water, and waking up to instant coffee. It might be age talking, but I think that I might prefer the linen napkin approach.   I am now plotting my own glamping plush set up.  Next time we all go camping together, it is going to look like a Moroccan Pasha has come over for a weekend – walled tents, plush pillows, curtains, chests, and feasting…

I feel the need to mention that the next time I see Dave I am going to hit him square in the taint for upping the ante with the amazing pearls…  Stamps-With-Foot is now expecting antique Japanese pearls, wrestled from the jaws of a giant clam by a tiny woman diver who held her breath for like 15 minutes and fought, almost to the death, for the prize… Yep, SMACK!! right in the baby-maker for this one David.   I hope your wife treated you well for the thought and originality of your beautiful gift, as you will soon look back on those halcyon nights of pleasure with non-functioning fondness.