Our 2024 NAMA Camp Adventure

Sandy and I have attended quite a few mushroom events over the last few years. The farthest driving event we attended was to SOMA (Sonoma County Mycological Association) Camp in January 2023. It was held at the CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) Retreat Center in Occidental, California. We also drove down to Brookings, Oregon for their mushroom event in November of 2023. At each of these events, Sandy gave classes on how to make her clay mushrooms. She really enjoys teaching but committing to host an activity also hampers one’s ability to “fully” enjoy the event. So, when Sandy brought up going to NAMA (North American Mycological Association) Camp right after the Mount Pisgah Arboretum Mushroom Festival, I was somewhat hesitant to say yes. The NAMA event was being held in Randle, Washington at the Cispus Learning Center. It had already been a busy week of activity and NAMA started on October 31st, four days after our festival. Since we had never been to a NAMA event and we wouldn’t have to be home for Halloween, it started to sound pretty good. My only condition was that we would be there simply as attendees and not pre-committed participants. I just wanted to remember what it was like to just show up and enjoy an event without having preestablished responsibilities. With agreements in place, we set out for NAMA Camp on Wednesday, October 30th. And, to set the stage for what we experienced, I put together this little NAMA rap ditty.

It was early Wednesday morning on a really rainy day,

We started driving north for our NAMA getaway,

A five hour drive with a stop along the way,

You can’t drive through Portland without a delay,

We made it to our rental house around midday,

We didn’t stay at NAMA camp but weren’t far away,

A cabin in the woods is where we went to stay,

It had a very nice location and a cat that was a stray,

NAMA Camp started early on a soggy Thursday,

It was quite cold and rainy but we didn’t dismay,

We went to several mushroom talks and a morning foray,

All the mushrooms that were found were put on display,

Some with crazy names that were quite hard to say,

NAMA really got things rolling early Friday,

Many hard working members with little time to play,

Volunteers that did it all and put in a long workday,

More events to choose from than iPhones on eBay,

We were served lunch and dinner but something went astray,

It was on the last night of the dinner buffet,

I was hoping for a nice wild mushroom soufflé,

They served fake chicken as their vegan entrée,

It looked like sole-of-shoe and was an eerie kind of gray,

Like from some old TV dinner on an aluminum tray,

Someone over nuked it or used a Death-Ray,

I’ve seen more attractive road kill on a busy Freeway,

The wine helped a lot and the salad was OK,

Looking past the food it was a great time anyway,

We drove back home on a cloudy Sunday,

I grabbed my sauté pan and made a mushroom flambé.

As you might have surmised from my little rap ditty, the buffet meals were certainly not the highlight of this event. The buffet was set up with two separate lines for omnivores and a single line for vegan/vegetarians. The buffet offered a diet specific main dish along with a build your own salad bar section. For dinner, the first two nights featured a basic pasta dish, which was surprisingly made without any mushrooms. The last night featured chicken and reconstituted mashed potatoes for the omnivores and something unrecognizable for us vegan/vegetarians. The chicken went over fairly well with those who partook but the alternative choice remained mostly in the large serving pan on the buffet. There was no label defining what was in that pan and guesses were all over the map. Needless to say, those of us with alternative diets focused on the salad section of the buffet.

Now, to be fair, I do not know that NAMA was directly involved with menu choices or food preparation as the group that runs the Cispus Learning Center provided all of the cook staff. As NAMA events are held at various venues, each facility they use comes with their own rules and staffing requirements. I also hope assume menus vary at each NAMA event.

While the buffet was somewhat lack luster, the evening social gatherings put on by NAMA were very well attended and excellently done.  The NAMA Culinary Committee provided the food and drink. Fun and great conversation was the order of the night. It was the perfect way to end each night and allow everyone to wind down and just enjoy each other’s wild mushroom experiences. And yes, chat a little about the nights buffet selection. Otherwise, we sampled various drink recipes (alcohol was optional) ate popcorn, mushroom dishes and whatever else other tables were featuring. Everyone had a great time and many kudos go to the Culinary Committee and to the volunteers that made these gatherings a success.

Going beyond all things food and fun, the NAMA event also featured talks by expert Mycologists like Michael Beug, Christian Schwarz, Danny Miller, Alan Rockefeller, Noah Siegel and many more.  In accordance with the NAMA Voucher Project all the mushrooms collected from more than 20 forays were identified and catalogued in an iNaturalist project. Select specimens were then dried and submitted to the NAMA collection at the Chicago Field Museum Herbarium.   The dedicated NAMA Voucher team spent countless hours and deserves a great deal of thanks for their efforts.

Sandy and I participated in several forays during the event. Our first foray outing, designated as Group 3.0, had a less than perfect beginning. We had rented a Honda CR-V Hybrid and volunteered to drive to the foray with Elli and Christa, who were looking for a ride. It took us about 5-minutes to get to our vehicle, load our gear into the back and drive to get in line behind the other cars that were going. Unfortunately, our foray leader forgot the cardinal rule of “no car left behind”. As they say, the train had already left the station.

Fortunately, the foray leader had passed out a direction sheet to each driver but as we found out, the directions were incomplete. After guessing wrong several times, we did finally make it to the foraging spot where other cars were already parked. Being left behind, we decided to declare our independents and elevate our designation to Group 3.5.  Additionally, we also decided to hunt for specimens across the road from the others. Our resourcefulness, talents and dedication to serious collecting paid off as we found and documented a diverse number of mushrooms for the benefit of science.

We had also signed up for a workshop entitled “Beginning Fungal Microscopy” taught by Eugene’s very own Susie Holmes. Susie is one of the founding members of the Cascade Mycological Society and a biology faculty member at Lane Community College where she teaches mushroom biology and plant science courses. Susie did a great job at getting a group of microscope novices to feel like real scientists. She was assisted by CMS member Scott Clarke, a Senior Staff Scientist at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Scott brought along a Thermo Branded EVOS M7000 Imaging System which he stole borrowed from work.

Scott’s digital images were amazing but you miss out on the fun of maneuvering your slide around to try and find the object you’re looking for under a classic microscope. Sandy did great at that as witnessed by the above picture’s top-right insert. Sandy held her cell phone over the eyepiece and took a picture of what was on her slide. There were several red elliptical thingies with lines and stuff on the inside of them. To find the actual scientific description, you can always register for Susie Holmes Biology of Mushrooms class at LCC.

Take care and happy mushrooming,

Ron

P.S. A link to more NAMA Camp pictures.