Jake & Brittany's Visit

Jake and Brittany came up to visit for 10 days from Aug 19-Aug 29. We were very busy while they were here. They arrived on Wednesday so straight from the airport, we decided to spend the day in Seattle. We had breakfast at 5 Spot, saw the Fremont Troll, visited the lochs, walked through Pike Place Market, and enjoyed dinner at the Crab Pot. On Thursday, we stayed local. We drove through Point Defiance Park and had lunch and a walk along Ruston Way in Tacoma. On Friday, we headed to NW Trek and then spent the day at home.

Over the weekend, we attended our 4-wheel drive club picnic at Lake Samammish on Saturday then went to church and Emerald Downs on Sunday.

Then, on Monday we did a 5 mile hike at Mt Rainier followed by a drive through the park and up to Paradise. Then on Tuesday, we drove down to Mt St Helens and spelunked through the Ape Caves. After that, we drove into Portland and had wings at Hooters (and yes, they were good). On Wednesday, we headed up to my parents' house and on the way stopped for wine tasting at Chateau Ste Michelle. Then on Thursday, we took a ferry to Orcus Island. Friday was another relaxing day at my parents' place with lunch at the Bellingham harbor and then a night of margaritas and Mexican food in Ferndale. On Saturday, we left early and dropped them off at the airport for their trip home. It was a busy week and we had a lot of fun.

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!

Mt Rainier Hiking

Yesterday, Terry and I decided to do some hiking at Mt Rainier National Park. We live close to the area and have been wanting to do more hiking so decided to go up there to take advantage of the great weather.

The first hike of the day we did Naches Peak Loop. It was 5.0 miles and took us exactly two hours to hike. We parked at Lake Tipoo and started the hike from the trailhead there. There was a small hill at the beginning of the hike but after that the hike was fairly level. I had read that the trail was popular and there was a chance of crowds, but luckily since we hit the trail early we didn't see that many people. The hike took us over highway 410 through fields of wildflowers. Once we were about half way through the trip, we were graced with great views of Mt Rainier. The morning light was amazing and we got lucky with the weather. When we arrived back at our car, we were surprised to see the parking lot full and tons of people milling around the lake. We were definitely glad we hit the trail early in the day and do plan on hiking it again in the future.

After the first hike, we decided to hit another trail since the day was still early. In the book I had, it described another trail in the Sunrise area that looped around the visitor center. It also described the trail as easy and 5.0 miles so we decided to try it out. The Sunrise Loop Trail started at the Sunrise Visitor Center went up to Frozen Lake, across to the First Burrough, down the back side of the Burrough to Sunrise camp then back to the visitor center. The hike was definitely harder than the first hike of the day with some steeper hills. There was one area that still had a snow patch that we had to navigate which was a little scary since one slip and it was a long way down a steep hill. The views of the mountain were amazing! It seemed like we were really close to it and I am sure the pictures don't do it justice. Coming back down the hill, Mt Rainier was to our back so we think if we did this hike again we would do it in the reverse direction to get the views in front of us going up the hill. There were more people on this trail then the first one but it still wasn't too bad. We hope to have decent weather in a few weeks and do this trail again with Jake and Brittany.