Teanaway Trip

Shelby wanted to go to Pyramid, but there's still quite a bit of snow in the high country. So we decided to go to the Teanaway area out of cle elum off the Teanaway Road.  Here is a map of the area that shows how cool it is.  It's right at the base of the Stewart range and there are trails going every which way, as you can see:

Shelby and Jill and I thought we were going alone, but Chris and Nell came too, with their dog Xavi.  That was awesome.  Here we all are taking a break along the trail.

Here's some scenery:

This is Xavi.  He wasn't the only dog who came.  Penny came too (Shelby and Jill's dog).

The first day we hiked up to the ridge over from the Stewart Range and set up camp in a meadow.  There was a patch of snow in the meadow (pictured), but it had melted by the time we left.  The whole meadow was melting.  We were at about 5000 feet.

Here's Nell doing something or other.  It rained a lot that first day and we hid out in our tents trying to stay dry.

It got nice again in the evening.

So Shelby built a big fire and we sat around it:

The next morning it was sunny and we had good views of Stewart.

Chris and Nell went back home and Shelby and Jill and I continued.  We hiked up into the high country and ate a watermelon while looking at this view:

Then we climbed up:

And we looked at the Stewart Range.  Isn't this a nice picture??

This is the view from the top of our first big pass.  I emailed Meghan from here because I had 3G.  Go AT&T!

On our way down the "hard scrabble creek trail" into the valley at the base of the Stewart Range, things got pretty hairy.  The hardscrabble creek trail pretty much disappears on its way into the valley and there's no trail to follow.  So we bushwacked for 5 hours or so.  It was pretty rough going.

Here we are crossing a big river in the valley:  The dog had to swim on a leash, it was pretty funny.  The crossing was actually really gnarly.  Deep, rushing water.  But we made it across.

We camped out in the valley after a long, long day.  We were pretty exhausted after all the bushwacking, but Shelby made a fire and we cooked up some dinner.  The next day we started going uphill -- that got pretty hairy too.   At first it was okay.

Then we came to this meadow.

Then after that we started going up this gnarly scree wall.  I did some crazy mountain climbing, while Shelby and Jill took a slightly more sensible route.  Either way you went, it was pretty harrowing going.  Really fun though, I will admit.  I don't have any pictures of that.  But here are some pictures from the top:

The Teanaway Valley (or whatever it's called) at the base of the Stewart Range is a wild, overgrown place that is also really pretty.  We had a great trip overall. 

Camping trip at Exit 34 with day hike

We had some stuff to do on this weekend so we planned a short camping trip with Sam and Zack.  We had a nice time camping up at exit 34 (I don't have any pictures of that) and then the next day we went on a day hike.  Here is Meghan getting ready:

Sam and Zack pull things out of the trunk.

Sam has many pillows.

This is a waterfall we encountered on our hike:

Sam and Zack ponder the waterfall:

This was the lake we found at the top.  It was foggy at first, but then the fog lifted.  I forget the name of the lake.  We climbed out on the logs and ate a few things.

After the hike we got back down to Seattle at a reasonable hour and did some other things that weekend.

Family time in Massachusetts

I (Meghan) went to Massachusetts for a long weekend in June for a quick visit with my family, and Danny met me there at the end of his baseball trip.  We got to see many of my nieces and nephews, and of course, my parents.  But they don't like to get their pictures taken as much as the kiddos, as you can see.  

Darling Emma

Olivia playing with my phone and general (fun) chaos with the Lemke girls at my parents' house

Rylan, looking way too cute

Lovely Keira

Fiona, smiling big for the camera and then being distracted by a video game

Baseball Road Trip

Patrick, Einar and I took a road trip across the midwest to see different baseball stadiums.  Meghan stayed home.  We saw 7 stadiums in 7 days.  It was a great trip.  

Here we are in Chicago.  We flew into Chicago because Einar was staying there over the summer.  In this picture we are about to eat delicious barbecue on the shores of lake michigan (i think it's that lake).  The ribs here were really good.

Our first night we went to Wrigley Field and saw Cubs v. Red Sox.  The Red Sox won.  Wrigley was pretty cool on the outside.  It felt really historic.

But as you can see, the inside was not quite as nice.  It was cool because it was old, but not the greatest place in the world to watch a baseball game (bad sightlines, brown grass, etc).

We stayed at Einar's wife's parents' house while we were in Chicago.  After our first night there we drove up to Milwaukee to see Miller Park.  People were tailgating in the parking lot.  I've never seen that at a baseball game before.  Everyone was eating Johnsonville Brats and drinking Miller Light.  The atmosphere was really great and everyone was nice, but we couldn't spot a single attractive woman over the age of 30.  They are good looking up until that point but not after.

Einar and Pat at Miller Park:

After the Brewers game we drove back down to Chicago.  We stayed with Sarah's parents again.  Oh, by the way, it was 95+ degrees the whole time.  Go figure we'd end up driving through the midwest in the middle of a heatwave.

Next we drove the long drive to Detroit.  Comerica Park was probably the second-nicest stadium we saw.  It was really nice.  Detroit was pretty deserted, and things were cheap there.  Overall it seemed like a pretty good vibe though.  Lots of abandoned buildings and NO traffic (because they have way more infrastructure than they need at this point.  Here is Comerica:

After the game this sign was seen.  Classy.

Next we drove to Cleveland.  We played soccer and tennis at Cleveland State University and did some running.  It was really hot.  Then we went to Progressive (formerly Jacobs) field.  Man it was hot that day.  Cleveland had a lot of deserted buildings too.

The next day we drove to Pittsburgh to see PNC Park.  It was easily the nicest stadium we saw.  Part of that is that Pittsburgh seems like a really cool/vibrant city.  But the stadium is just gorgeous.  Not that different than most of the midwest stadiums, which tended to all be very similar, but just nicer.  Right on the river, great view of the skyline, etc. Check out this video:

Here's the Pittsburgh skyline.

And the river.

More PNC.

Here is Pat sleeping under a table after we watched the Miami Heat win the NBA Championship (after the Pirates game).  We stayed at a hotel near the airport.  We were able to find a lot of cheap/nice hotels using Hotwire.   Oh, I should also mention at some point that all this driving took place during a heat wave in a car with no air conditioning.  It was really hot.

The next day we drove to Philly, where we were supposed to watch Cliff Lee pitch.  But the game got rained out.  Check out this video of the thunder and lightning!

Here is the big tarp they put on the field.  I've never seen a rain delay before since we have a retractable roof in Seattle, and before that we had the kingdome.

We hung around for about two hours before we finally left.  They still hadn't cancelled the game at that point, but they eventually did.  Oh well.  We got to see the stadium anyhow.

After Philly we stayed the night in New Jersey, then drove to NYC the next day.  After a brief SNAFU at the Holland Tunnel, we made it downtown to watch soccer.  Oh, I should mention we were watching a lot of soccer throughout the trip because Euro Championships were on.  We watched a ton of soccer games.  So we were watching NBA finals, Euro Championships, and a baseball game every day.  Lots of sports.  Anyway, here is Einar in Washington Square.  

We met up with Pat's sister in New York, then went to the Mets v. Yankees game.  Citi field is okay, but not the nicest we'd seen.  It is similar to the old Shea stadium but newer.  We couldn't see the whole outfield from our seats.

After NYC I caught a bolt bus up to Mass. to visit Meghan's family.   Overall, we had an amazing trip. We may try to do another baseball trip some day because it was really very fun.