Elbe Work Day

Today, Terry and I headed down to Elbe OHV park to do some trail maintenance with our 4-wheel drive club, the Timber Tamers.  The morning started great by breakfast with our friends Mike and Claire Jennings.  It was nice to start the morning with a good breakfast among friends at our house.  From our house, we headed down to Elbe hoping for snow. 

There was a little snow on the grounds when we got to the parking lot, but not too much.  There was definately more mud than snow.  We had a small showing of Tamers, but enough to get done what we needed to do.  Rudi, Dirtball, the Jennings, Greg, Terry and I were all there.  We spent the first part of our day doing the usual trail maintenance.  We opened up some of the water traps to help drain water off the trail and fixed some by-passes.  We also had to fill in some rock in a few areas where the slickness of the trail was causing people to decide to make by-passes, which is a problem.  The trail is much easier now than when we got there this morning, but until people stop making by-passes, we have to have one easier route for people to choose. 

The trail was quite busy today and we saw a lot of interesting people pass us as we were working.  We had to help several out who broke, or had other issues making it to the top.

After some trail repairs, we decided to do a little wheeling.  It was really pretty out with a light dusting of snow, but not too much that made the trails any more difficult.  After a short trail run, we headed back to try and make it home before dark.  Overall, we had a great day and a good start to Terry's birthday weekend!

Fall Sunshine in Orting

Yesterday, Terry and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful fall weather and head down for a walk/jog along Orting Trail. We parked in downtown Orting and then headed up the trail. It was SO pretty. The trail borders a river in the beginning and jogging along the water with a blue sky and the changing colors of fall was amazing. I wasn't excited in the car on the drive down, but I felt really good once the workout was over. We ended up going for about an hour on the trail, but we aren't quite sure the distance. Sometime, we want to ride our bikes there so we can get an idea of how far different landmarks are from downtown.

Bad Blogger: September ReCap

I have been horrible at blogging lately which is weird since we have been very busy doing fun stuff. I do want to do a quick overview of our September this far. So, going back to Labor Day weekend, Terry and I headed out to Lake Wenatchee State Park. We were a little disappointed about the proximity of the lake to the camping sites. We did find one site we would like in the future as it was very close to the lake, however, the loop we were in was far from the lake and day use area. We stayed Friday night there and fell asleep and woke up to rain. So, after one night, we decided to head down to Taneum and spend the rest of the long weekend with the Tamers. We snagged some seats on Sunday for a little trail ride where we encountered snow on the high ridge. It was chilly, but a fun weekend.

The weekend after Labor Day was Team Trophy Challenge-Washington (TTCW) that our club hosts. It was the third year of putting on the event and a ton of fun. We had 16 teams (I think) of 2 rigs and 4 people. The teams spend about 24 hours on the trail completing tasks during the day and looking for punch buckets at night. Our task this year was to a side hill winch task. We were there until about 11:15PM waiting for teams to finish before we were able to head back to camp. However, on the way back down the gravel road, on of the teams took a corner a little too fast and ended up down the embankment. There was a large group of us that helped winch the Jeep up and luckily everyone was okay. As we were about to go back to camp, Dan-O and ScramblerMike drove up on a mission to rescue some Toyota guys who had gotten lost and broke. Terry jumped in with Dan-O to help with getting them back to camp and didn't return until about 6:30 on Sunday morning. We had an exhausting, but fun weekend and can't wait until next year!
Then, last weekend was Operation Shore Patrol (OSP) at Ocean City State Park. Terry and I headed down on Thursday and enjoyed the sunny Friday around Ocean Shores. My parents and most of the Tamers arrived on Friday. Then on Saturday we headed out for the beach clean-up. I was surprised, there actually wasn't that much garbage on the beach. On Saturday night, our club put on the annual steak dinner that everyone seemed to enjoy. After that was the raffle where we won a gift card to 4 Wheel Parts, a ARB hat, and a T-shirt. On Sunday we packed up and headed home, stopping at the casino on the way out to watch the first half of the Niners vs. Seahawks game.
Once we were home, we unpacked a few things and then headed to the airport to pick my brother up. On Monday, Danny and I headed up to Mt Rainier and did the Naches Peak Loop hike which was a nice 3.5 mile hike that gave amazing views of Mt Rainier. It was a perfectly clear morning for the hike. On the way back at the house, we stopped and got tacos from the bus that were amazing. Once Terry got home on Monday, we headed up to Seattle for the Ben Harper w. R7/Pearl Jam concert. We had burgers at Dick's before the show and then walked over to Key Arena for the performance. Both bands put on an amazing show and we were entertained watching the guy in front of us try to pick up the drunk girl who had previously vomited into her purse.

On Tuesday, Danny and I headed down to Ruston Way in Tacoma and took a little walk and had a great lunch before dropping him off at the airport to head back to Texas. The weather was amazing for the first day of fall and it was good to be able to enjoy the day with him. Then, yesterday, I started school. I am going back for my degree and certificate in Social Services/Mental Health. I was a little nervous about starting classes again, but have always enjoyed school and my classes seem pretty good. I guess that is all that has gone on this month. I will try to be better about posting in the future.

Elbe Work Day

Yesterday, Terry and I joined our 4-wheel drive club, the Timber Tamers, down at Elbe OHV for some trail maintenance and a little wheeling. We opted to simply drive the Jeep down since it is only about an hour away and we didn't want to haul the truck, camper and trailer down there for the day trip. We left a little early so we would have time to do a little shooting at pit before anyone else showed up. We both shot Terry's new S&W .357 for the first time and I fired off a couple from my Kel-Tec 9mm.

Most of the group was at the parking lot at Elbe close to 9:00. In the staging area, Penny noticed she was getting a flat tire, so before we even hit a trail, they did a quick tire change. (Notice Penny's Jeep is being held up by a winch line coming from Mark's Jeep to her roll cage.) We started the day by painting the winch point sign on the top of our adopted trail. Then, we put a little more rock on one side of the trail in hopes of it stabilizing the rock that was already there so at the first rain it all doesn't end up at the bottom of the trail. We were lucky to be able to use a small tractor to load the rock behind our Jeep and bring it where needed which saved on some manual work (thanks DNR).

Mark, aka Dirtball, was a big help supervising the trail maintenance

After the trail work, we ran a couple trails. Terry had fun playing in a little rock garden and before long, Mark wound up ripping a hole in the sidewall of one of his tires. Luckily, Gary was good with plugs and they were able to limp it back to the trailer. The rest of us did a few more trails and found a mud hole before heading out. Overall, we had a great day out with friends!

More New Paint

I painted the office in our house earlier this week. I already had the paint purchased when I painted the front room and wanted to get the office painted before Jake and Brittany came to visit. Now, we just need to get the French doors installed.

On Tuesday, I emptied the room. Terry and I were both amazed at how much stuff was crammed into the small room. I am sure you won't be too surprised since it looks horribly cluttered in the pictures (which it probably was and I was just in denial about). After I had the room empty, I did a coat of primer on the walls. Then, after dinner, once the primer had a chance to dry, I painted the room blue. I really like the color, but Terry is having a difficult time getting used to it. I read somewhere you should paint your home office blue since it helps inspire creativity, so I thought I would give it a chance.

Yesterday, as the state of Washington was dealing with record breaking heat, I brought everything back into the room and organized it some. I went through both file cabinets and got rid of old documents and also decided I wanted three separate areas in the office for the different tasks. I wanted the desk for the computer, one table for scrapebooking and the other table with my knitting, sewing and cross-stich (also to house my cookbooks). I had some issues on where I wanted to place the furniture since I did want to move it around some but the position of the cable outlet on the wall limited on where I could put the desk. I think I like how I have it arranged for now, but if I get sick of it, I can always change it again.

Zeus had a hard time with the high temperatures. I felt bad for him and tried to help out by giving him a cold bath. First, he proceeded to drink the bath water when I first turned it on. Then, he hated the cold water. He is normally good during baths, but I use warm water and he definitely wasn't a fan of the cold water (even though he was hot and panting). Well, enough chatter, I hope you enjoy the pictures of before and after (and one of Zeus trying to keep cool).

Elbe Father's Day Run

Our plan was to leave early Friday morning and head down to Elbe to ensure we got the area needed for camping with the Timber Tamers. We met Gary and Lori S at Safeway in Graham at 6:30 on Friday morning and started the short drive to Elbe. It started raining sometime late Thursday night and proceeded to rain almost all day on Friday.

We finally arrived at Elbe OHV and tried to open the gate so we could get set-up in the camping area and the gate code didn’t work. Hmmm, déjà vu? Terry and Gary took off and eventually returned with Nancy from the DNR who also didn’t know why we couldn’t get the lock to work since we were trying the right combination of 1-1-1-2. Finally, she decided to try 0-1-1-2 which worked. Once we got the gate opened, we were able to head back and get set-up near the shelter, which meant, we had a place to stay dry.

There were a couple big rounds of wood in the back that Nancy said we could chop for firewood. So, I decided to chop some wood while Terry got some of camp set-up. It was hard work, but totally worth it. After we got some wood into smaller pieces, we were able to get a fire going and warm up. Since it rained most of the day, we just relaxed around camp and tried to stay dry. Terry and Gary took a quick trip up our trail to get an idea of what trail work needed to be done the following day in the afternoon. Eventually, Billy showed up with his tractor as well as Lori Y, Mark, Tom, Penny and Tom’s parents, Art and Mary. For dinner, I made tacos and salad for Terry and me. It turned out yummy. Terry ended up heading to bed early while I stayed up talking with people.

On Saturday, we got up and dressed ready for a day on the trail. Our club has an adopted trail at Elbe, Sunrise, that needed some maintenance. There was a silt trap that needed to be cleaned out and some by-passes that needed to be blocked. With everyone’s help, and the tractor, the work got completed quickly. Around noon, we headed back to camp and I made some lunch for Terry and me. Then, they headed out to do some trail runs. I decided to stay back at camp with Zeus. Midday, I noticed the frige in our camper wasn’t working and the hot water heater was showing an error as well. It turns out, we had ran out of propane in both tanks. Luckily, Lori S had an extra 5 gallon tank in their camper we were able to borrow and Dan-O was around to help get hooked up to our camper (it was heavy and I was a little too short to get it lifted into the storage area). I didn’t sleep well on Friday night, so took a quick nap and got some reading done while they were gone as well.

Terry was excited when they came back that the Cherokee did so well on the trails and the ARB in the front was finally working. They ran the Busywild and survived. When he got back, I made hot dogs, chili and macaroni and cheese for dinner. It was a hit for us and we had enough leftover to feed Dan-O who showed up solo for the night. Zeus even got lucky with his first beef bone to gnaw on courtesy of Gary. Terry and I both stayed up talking with the club members before showering and heading to bed.

On Sunday, everyone slept in and slowly got up and started to get things packed for the trip home. Gary, Terry and Steve (a guest in a black Sami) took one more quick ride out in the morning. I was anxious to get home and out of the mud so stayed back at camp and got everything packed up while they were gone. When Terry got back to camp, there was only minor packing to do as well as getting the Jeep loaded onto the trailer. We finally were packed up and ready to head home around 3:00 and made it home within an hour. It was a fun trip even though we got rain almost all weekend. It’s nice being so close to home and look forward to going back in a few months.