Glamping in Goldendale

Before I left for Goldendale on Saturday, I was telling my roommate Ansley how I really like sleeping on a mattress and I like showering and using a real bathroom. I don't mind the fresh air, it's just that I like to be comfortable while I'm breathing it in.

"Glamping. You know, glamorous camping. That's what you want to do," she said. Yes. That's it! I want to glamp. I felt better knowing that there was a term for it.

I was nervous, knowing that my brother's standards for comfort are quite different from mine. But when I got to his place, it was not as bad as I had imagined. He and his girlfriend Audrey had planted lots of flowers and plants and a huge garden. It looked homey and somewhat familiar.

As I stepped out of my car, I almost expected Michael Landon to come walking out the front door. "Hello, half-pint!" He would say. And then we would go inside and he would pull out his fiddle and we would all dance.

It actually wasn't that much different from that. We walked inside and Michael (my brother, not the dead actor) built a fire in the woodstove. He turned on his iPod and started dancing in the little room while he made tea and hot chocolate for me and Audrey.

We climbed the ladder to the loft and played Trionimos and told stories. It was quite pleasant. I tried not to drink much, since any trips to the outhouse in the middle of the night would involve climbing down a ladder and putting on my shoes. That seemed a little treacherous in half-asleep mode. I waited until 6 am before I tried that. I needed sunlight.

The toilet was not as bad as I imagined. It was housed in a wooden structure outside, in the same building as the shower. It was a chemical toilet from some outdoorsy store and did not stink. On the door was tacked a picturesque postcard in a Ziplock bag, a fine diversion for the brain when you start thinking: Am I sitting in an OUTHOUSE?

The shower on the other side of the building looked almost exactly like Nellie Forbush's shower in South Pacific. In the morning when I got up, Michael asked me if I wanted a shower. "We can heat up the water now, or you can wait until this afternoon when the sun heats the water. Up to you." I wanted to be adventurous and try the outdoor shower in a metal tub with a ladle to pour the hot water on my head, but I wasn't quite up to it. I can skip for one day. It won't kill me.

By 9:00, Audrey and Michael had made homemade zucchini bread in their toaster oven, with fresh whipped cream, (whipped by hand!), hot chocolate and a really yummy Mexican dish with tortillas, eggs and a red chili sauce. Seriously, these two are amazing cooks - and they do it all without indoor plumbing. And this is how they live ALL THE TIME.

Anyhow, we had a delightful time. I even slept on a hide-a-bed that they have up in their loft. We watched movies and had delicious food and talked late while the fire burned out at night.

I like glamping. It is not nearly as bad as camping. And although I wouldn't want to do it every day, it's a nice vacation from reality, computers and beeping alarm clocks.