What adventures have we been up to this week?

Sorry fans, but we've been on no crazy hikes or adventures this past weekend. So I'll just have to explain a "normal" week to you and hope that you like it.
On the bike path to work there is one part of the sidewalk that is almost completely flooded out. Fortunately, there is a 1-foot gap that usually is dry. There is some drainage problem on the hill there so the puddle stays there and festers forever. Anyways, on the way home sometime early in the week (or last week?) I noticed another biker coming the other way and we were timed such that we would collide right at the 1-foot wide safe passage. Always eager to show off my mountain biking skillz, I turned off the sidewalk onto the grass beside the flooded out section to allow the other guy to take the dry sidewalk route. Of course, I didn't realize until too late that the puddle was not localized to the sidewalk but extended out into the grass as well. The grass was not growing out of solid earth at all, but rather a deep mixture of soft, fine mud. Instantly my bike sunk about 6 inches and slowed down dramatically. I hit it at high enough speed so as to be able to ride through it (as opposed to stopping in the middle and tipping over), and my fat tires churned up the foul mixture into the air with the most delightful "SPLUSH" sound. I had my eyes ahead of me the whole time, but judging by the mess I saw all over the sidewalk and road the next day, I'm sure I must have sprayed not only the other biker but also the cars on the busy road right next to us. So how did I fare? Well, I had the splash guard fender things on both of my wheels so the mud was mostly deflected from me (likely to the dismay of the other biker and cars), but I did not escape unscathed. One of the pedals must have hit the mud and caused a bit to spray up on my calves and knees. The mud also jammed up the brakes so they made a terrible loud noise when applied - causing everybody to turn around and look. If you saw a guy wearing shorts (well, don't you wear shorts to work, too? :) ) with wet brown crud dripping from his legs, what would you think? If ever you find yourself in such a situation, here's what you do - find a paper bag to put on your head and cover your face, or get home as fast as possible and don't make eye contact with anybody.
My bike still has mud all over it, but I plan on not cleaning it as a symbol of pride.
Mountain bikes are supposed to be muddy :)

The moment you've all been waiting for! part 3

And last but not least..........


Day 5: Sunday


This morning we watched one of our favorite movies, "States of Grace: God's Army 2." Before you go buy this movie, try renting it from the library, since whenever we see it at Deseret Book, it is like $30. We rented it from the library, yes they had it at the public library here in WA. Then we went to church, which everyone seemed to enjoy very much. After a short break at home, we headed south to Auburn to visit family who live there. Anne has a cousin, Francine who we stopped and visited for literally 10 minutes. They seemed like a really good family, and they were also hosting Anne's uncle (and Francine's dad) France and his wife. After that "hi-bye" visit, we headed to Uncle Keith's house for dinner. It was so tasty: salmon and steak and potatoes and salad...you get the picture. We had a good evening of games and talking. A good time was had by all.

Day 6: Monday


This was the non-nature day of the vacation: We braved down-town Seattle. As soon as we got off the freeway, we realized why we try to avoid going there: you can't turn anywhere you want to!! All we wanted to do was turn left, is that so much to ask? When we did finally get to where we wanted to go (the water front) we first hit up the curiosity shops. Those are fun, just because they are so jam-packed with weird stuff, literally from floor to ceiling, I always notice new stuff when I go there. Then we walked over to the aquarium, with the new entry room finished. We had fun at the aquarium, but it was a little too crowded for my taste. After seeing the octopus, sea otter, and sea lion feeding, and all the other stuff, we hit up the "must-see" Pike's Place market. The first time Jeff and I went there we were sorely disappointed, so I had only been back one time since, which is when my family was visiting. This time, Jefferson thought it was better then he did the first time. It's a lot bigger than we had originally thought. We liked looking around at all the stuff that people were selling. Anne bought us a pretty picture from a lady. It's a Monet-esque rendition of Mt. Rainier. We saw the famous fish throwers, wandered some more, then headed home. We made dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs, then just chilled out more this night while Clyde, Anne and Leanna packed. The next day I went back to work early in the morning and Jefferson dropped his family off at the airport.

We had a great time with them. We love to have company, so whenever any one wants to visit, just let us know!

The moment you've all been waiting for! part 2

The story continues with ...

Day 3: Friday

This morning, we met Keith and Carole Lee, Clyde's brother and sister-in-law, at Snoqualmie Falls. We all hiked down to the bottom of the falls, enjoying the perfectly ripe blackberries on the way down to sustain our energy :) At the end of the boardwalk, Jefferson was feeling rebellious, so he climbed over the fence and got down on the rocks. Of course we all had to follow him out to the rock closest to the falls. (If there's one thing I know about Jeff, it's that he loves to jumps around on rocks). For lunch, Keith treated us to dining at the Salish Lodge, which is the hotel at the top of the falls. It was delicious! After lunch, the adults were game for more hiking, but we kids were tuckered out, so we led the hikers to the trail head for Twin falls and headed back into town via Costco. At home Leanna, Jefferson and I watched "The Prestige," one of the best movies I've seem in a while. We visited with Keith and Carole Lee for a while when they brought Anne and Clyde home and chilled out for the rest of the evening.

Day 4: Saturday

This morning the ladies did some more grocery shopping, while the men hit up Lowe's for some home improvement projects. Clyde and Anne bought us more wood to use as flooring in our attic and a screen door (the door is still on back order, so Jeff and I are on our own to install it, wish us luck!) Clyde gave Jefferson lessons on how to use our circular saw to cut the wood in half, since it was too big to fit in the attic when they bought it. Leanna and I watched, "She's the man" while Anne made cherry pie and read. Leanna has a friend who lives up here and they had arranged to meet each other at the mall. So we dropped her off there, and took Anne and Clyde to the Bellevue Botanical Garden. It is very beautiful and FREE! Like Olympic National Park, it is different every time I go there. This time, the fuchsias and hydrangeas were in bloom, both are very pretty flowers, see. We enjoyed walking through the different parts of the Garden, and it was a perfect way to pass the time while Leanna hung at the mall. Clyde treated us to Orange Julius when we went back to pick her up. At home we watched, "Disturbia" which was another good movie, but to me was also scary. The boys did more work on the attic, getting in all the flooring they bought. It looks great and gave us a lot more usable space up there. Then we made Japanese curry for dinner and finished the pies for dinner on Sunday.

The moment you've all been waiting for! part 1

As many of you know, we recently hosted some of Jefferson's family. We loved having them here, and we did surprisingly many things in the short time they were here. It was "a bite of Washington" vacation. Here's a look at what we did:

Day 1: Wednesday

After showing them our condo and grabbing some samiches for lunch, we went to the Microsoft company store and visitor's center. There are some interesting exhibits and good deals on software there. My personal favorites are the timeline of Microsoft (featuring geeky pictures of Bill Gates) and the touchscreen monitor. With that thing, you can scroll around the screen like Tom Cruise does on "Minority Report." Next, we went blueberry picking at the farm nearby. Unfortunately, Leanna had a run-in with a hornet or two. They looked really painful, but she toughed it out after getting some ointment. On the bright side, we did get a lot of really tasty berries and other fruits/veggies for a good price. Lastly, we went grocery shopping, made enchiladas for dinner and looked at our pictures.

Day 2: Thursday-Olympic National Park and Dungeness Spit

We woke up early, made sandwiches and headed to the Olympics. It was pretty cloudy this morning, and really chilly. They were surprised how cold it was in the middle of August! (Yet another reason I love living here) After disembarking the ferry, we headed to stop #1: Lake Crescent. Here it was also very cold. We ate our lunch here and took in the quiet stillness of the Lake and surrounding mountains. Pile back in the car, and it's off to Hurricaine ridge. It was still cloudy at this point (even more cloudy than when you were here, Mom), but we were hopefull that at the top, we'd be above the clouds, so we could enjoy the view. Not so. The coulds were so thick, that we didn't realize we were at the visitor's center until we were almost in front of it. So there was no great view across the valley:( Undaunted, we decided we'd still hike to the top to the ridge. This was a good choice, for several reasons. First, there were so many different kinds of wild flowers, which at least kept me entertained. Second, where the wind from the valley on one side of the ridge met the clouds coming from the ocean-side there was a big wall of moisture. It was an interesting site. Third, along the trail, there were times when the clouds would clear up across the valley and we had a view of the mountains. There is just too much beauty up there to capture it all with a camera (but this picture might to it justice :P). A quick stop at the visitor's center and head off to the last stop of the day, the Dungeness Spit. Here we mostly goofed off (note Clyde's picture) and collected rocks. After our fill, we headed back to the ferry, ate dinner at Baja Fresh and went to sleep.

Mount Si, conquered

About 30 minutes from our condo towers the rocky Mount Si of the Cascade mountain range. We were planning on hiking it last week after the company picnic, but we started the picnic too late and stayed too late. We could have stayed home and prepared it more for my family's visit this week, but I'm sure they won't mind a few unfinished house projects strewn about.
The weather looked somewhat ominous with some gray clouds floating around during the start of the ascent, but we figured the sun would come burn them away soon. Almost the entire 4 miles up we were surrounded by thick forests, so although we were gaining elevation fast, there were no great views to be had. Not that thick forests aren't beautiful, but when I'm climbing ~3,600 ft, there better be more than just that. Near the top we encountered the clouds that we were hoping would disappear. The resulting fog was very thick and made some parts of the forest look very mysterious. And the clouds kind of smelled, too...
Suddenly, we were out of the forest and what we thought was the top. The trail goes to some jagged rocks and we saw a few other hikers chilling out and eating snacks. Then we found out that there was an enormous rock behind this pile, and that was the true top. They call this last rock the Haystack, and signs all over warn of danger for those who want to climb it. These warnings apparently scared off all the other hikers and we started climbing by ourselves. We took it nice and slow, but eventually made it to first ridge. With sheer drops surrounding us, we were very careful and Vanessa just sat down refusing to go anywhere further. I of course had to climb a little more to the true top (don't wanna appear weak in front of the ladies...). At the true top, I looked 360 degrees around and it was like standing on a deserted island encompassed by an ocean of clouds.

Every now and then a hole opened up in the clouds and we could see the cities far below.

Despite growing pain in our knees we ran down most of the trail and that was quite fun. We were nice sweaty messes by the time we got to the bottom and then promptly replaced our burnt calories with super-sized fast food and headed home.
We did a couple minor house projects as well - new blinds, new light switches and plates, etc. Our legs are very sore today - maybe I'll take the car to work tomorrow instead of riding my bike. More pictures of course on the picasa site.
Vanessa perching precariously

8 mile loop
3600 ft elevation gain
And I think this was the first hike that Vanessa complained more than I! :)