Lovely Leavenworth

Danny and I went to Leavenworth a couple of weekends ago to check out a potential wedding venue.  We invited some friends--Sam, Zack, and Sabory--for a hike and some camping.

We camped on Friday night at the Money Creek campground (this is the next morning)

Yes, I am in that sleeping bag!

Before checking out the wedding venue, we stopped by Lake Wenatchee State Park.  I'm not sure what I was doing in this picture...awkward.

But Danny looks good :)








After meeting up with friends and taking a short hike, we went to the top of Mountain Home Road and found a place to set up camp.  Here we are preparing dinner on Sabory's car.

Zack making a fire.

 Pretty views!

Epic solo trip

I took Thursday and Friday off last week planning to ride my bike a little bit on the eastside.  I got my bike fixed and picked it up in Tacoma on Thursday.  I then rode from downtown Tacoma out to Point Defiance Park to catch the ferry out to Vashon.

I missed the ferry and hung out on the beach for a little while.

I rode south to north on Vashon Island, then caught the ferry over to Southworth, where I rode up to Manchester state park and met up with Meghan.  We camped there Thursday night.

The next day I dropped Meghan off in Tacoma then drove out to the John Wayne Pioneer bike trail outside of Cle Elum.

But there was too much snow on the trail to ride very far.

So I drove out to the Teanaway River Road and road pretty much every fork of that road, about 20 miles in all. 

This is the end of the road right now, where the dirt road begins that leads up to the Navaho Pass trailhead and some of the other Teanaway valley access points (this is the next valley over from the stewart range).

The Mighty Teanaway.

Mt Stewart and friends.

Stewart

After that I drove out to the Columbia and hung out for a while at Wanapum State Park on the banks of the Columbia.

But I didn't feel like paying for a campsite so I drove out to Ancient Lakes, packed up by backpack, and hiked in.

The sunset

The next day I hiked around the Ancient Lakes basin for a while, then drove back to the Columbia to do another bike ride.  I wanted to ride through the Hanford site, but I decided to meet up with Kelly Sheridan that evening so I figured I'd save that ride for another day.  I parked at Rocky Reach Dam and rode up the Columbia to the Entiat River Road.  I had a great tailwind up the Columbia, but then when I turned onto Entiat River Road I was riding straight into a fierce headwind, slightly uphill.  It was slow going.  So I went five miles then turned around and rode back.  About 32 miles in all.

Then I drove to Leavenworth and up the Icicle Creek Road to meet up with Kelly.  I had a fun time camping with Kelly and all his climbing friends in the Icicle Creek Canyon in a parking lot.   The next day I woke up early and hiked a ways up the Icicle Ridge trail.  Then I went out to the 59er Diner for breakfast thinking I would ride up the Chiwawa River Road and see how far the snow went.

Well, it turned out I could only go 8-10 miles up that road, as far as Meadow Creek Campground.

It was a great ride, then I got to the end of the road.

After that I packed my bike back up and drove over the pass to Index, where I went for a run and a quick dip in the river before driving home.

All in all, I did 4 bike rides, camped out three nights, and did a good bit of hiking.  And it was sunny all weekend so I got a little sun tan.  It was a pretty great long weekend.

Nisqually

Last weekend we had a bunch of stuff to do in town.  But it was a beautiful sunny day on Saturday so we went to Nisqually wildlife reserve just to check it out.  It was pretty cool.

Here is the marsh.

The Nisqually River

The "Riparian Forest"

The unspoiled vista from the path

And the path.

We tried to go camping

Well, we tried to do a weeknight camping trip -- we left after work and drove out to the Capitol State Forest with our tents and everything.  Sadly, all the campgrounds were closed for the winter.  I guess we'll try again next week and plan ahead a little better to find a campground that's open.

Anyway, we went to the Mima Mounds, which is a weird geographic formation where there are mounds on the prairie. Check it out.

Then we walked through this forest.

Meghan and Jackie contemplate the Buffleheads

Whidbey Trip

Last weekend I had a trip out to the coast planned, but it was a big bust because the car broke down halfway between Aberdeen and Forks. The Honda is usually very reliable, but not this time. Bummer.

Anyway, this weekend we made it out to Whidbey Island. We saw my grandparents on Friday evening.

The next morning, we woke up early and drove out to Anacortes, where we met up with Jackie Boss. She cooked us a delicious lunch, then we headed out to Deception Pass. First we went to Rosario Beach and saw the Maiden of Deception Pass, a statue of a woman turning into a fish.

Next, we went to Bowman Bay and took a short hike.

We did some bird watching.

We checked out a wedding venue at deception pass, then we went out to Peter and Bonnie's house, where we enjoyed a delicious barbecue. I didn't take any pictures, but here is one from our trip out there almost exactly a year ago last year.

We spent Saturday night at Bill and Darlene's place, also on Whidbey. Bill cooked us a nice brunch Sunday morning.

All in all, a great trip!