Metzler Park, Clackamas Co.

We spent the weekend at Metzler Park in Clackamas County. It's about an hour from home and it's part of the Clackamas County park system so it's a little under the radar. 

County parks are great places to go if you're trying to get away for the weekend.  They're sort of like a cross between National Forest campgrounds in terms of quiet, and state parks in terms of facilities. They seem to attract people who just want to go out and enjoy a campfire with an extended friend or family group. So, lots of kids ranging around on bikes and scooters, and busy picnic pavilions. Unlike the larger state campgrounds, it's more of a "tents, popups, and small trailers" vibe than a "dozens of rolling hotels" vibe. 

Metzler also has a small network of trails, so we spent Saturday morning wandering around those, walking along a small river, then ranging along a meadow and up onto a ridge. We heard a hawk, saw a few robins, and a banana slug crossed our path. 

Late Saturday a big thunderstorm rolled through, which chased a lot of tent people off. We drove into Carver for dinner. 

It's looking like we are going to sell our Clipper trailer. We like it, but it's a little large, there have been issues finding storage for it that hasn't involved bits of it being stolen, and it's generally more than we need. We never did sell our smaller teardrop, so we're going to make a few fixes to that, added a small solar power system, and keep it. It's basically a ruggedized box with a queen bed, a galley, and a front rack big enough to hold a Yeti. It's small enough that we can keep it in our driveway. 

I think we have one more trip with the Clipper, though, up into Washington for Al's birthday in a few weeks.