James’ grandparents have owned a rustic cabin on oceanfront property in Quilcene for the last 30 years. They are generous enough to let us borrow it every once in a while. The beach is brimming with oysters and clams. To get to it you have to boat or hike in. There is no electricity. The running water comes from a nearby creek. The bathroom is an outhouse in the woods. We hunt for some of our food while we’re there, and cook just about everything over the fire pit. It doesn’t get much manlier than that, now does it?
Granted, the hunting we do is dropping crab pots to the bottom of the ocean and picking clams and oysters up off the shore. And, if we’re really lucky, James will catch a fish off the shore. I’ve only seen it happen once though. Some might not think of this as traditional hunting. Regardless, it takes work to pull the pots up, cook the crab, clean the crab, and then eat the crab. Same goes for the clams and oysters. But, they’re worth the work. There’s nothing like fresh (and free) seafood.
The longest traveled award goes to Matt Kellen this year. He flew in from South Africa to take a break from his missionary work there. The rest of us came from Bellingham, Bellevue and Tacoma.
While we’re at the cabin, we usually take on some insane project. Previous projects have included a driftwood fort (which we later burned down), bonfires as large as houses, restacking rock cages around the cabin, and a monster slingshot that can shoot rocks the length of a football field or farther. This year we moved the stairs in the front of the cabin to another spot on the deck. It took some serious engineering and manpower. The creek had risen up and destabilized the stairs over the winter. They were unusable. We took care of that though. We even added a few touches of our own to give the stairs character. (The picture below shows the stairs we moved, and if you look closely the bottom stairs are made of rock, driftwood and sand.)
Granted, the hunting we do is dropping crab pots to the bottom of the ocean and picking clams and oysters up off the shore. And, if we’re really lucky, James will catch a fish off the shore. I’ve only seen it happen once though. Some might not think of this as traditional hunting. Regardless, it takes work to pull the pots up, cook the crab, clean the crab, and then eat the crab. Same goes for the clams and oysters. But, they’re worth the work. There’s nothing like fresh (and free) seafood.
The longest traveled award goes to Matt Kellen this year. He flew in from South Africa to take a break from his missionary work there. The rest of us came from Bellingham, Bellevue and Tacoma.
While we’re at the cabin, we usually take on some insane project. Previous projects have included a driftwood fort (which we later burned down), bonfires as large as houses, restacking rock cages around the cabin, and a monster slingshot that can shoot rocks the length of a football field or farther. This year we moved the stairs in the front of the cabin to another spot on the deck. It took some serious engineering and manpower. The creek had risen up and destabilized the stairs over the winter. They were unusable. We took care of that though. We even added a few touches of our own to give the stairs character. (The picture below shows the stairs we moved, and if you look closely the bottom stairs are made of rock, driftwood and sand.)
The only downside to this year’s man weekend was that it landed on the same weekend as my five-year anniversary. Let me ask you this, “what kind of wife lets her husband go to a man weekend on their anniversary?” The answer is, “the best wife ever.” For those of you who were at man weekend, if you haven’t said thank you to my wife for letting me go, now is as good a time as any.
I look forward to many more man weekends in the years to come. I only hope that they never land on my anniversary again.
Here's a funny video of Taylor mimicking a crab.
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