Pics from vacation

Here's a sample of pictures from our trip:

Chris looking at the paragliders that are about to take off of the slope.


The start of our hike around Mount St. Helens.

This is the kind of weather we encountered for the majority of our day.

This is the view of the mountain we got as we started back towards the car a few hours later.

This the slab that we climbed on the whole day we were out at Leavenworth. The hike up to this was a bit crazy. We were likely about 700-800 feet above where our car was.

He can't resist stopping to smile for the camera :)

This is the river flowing through the bottom of the valley.

Coming to a close

We only have about nine more hours in the Pacific Northwest before flying back home. I have to say that even though I've been having a really good time out here, I am looking forward to being home.

Yesterday while Chris was at his meeting, Brent and I hung out around the Pike Place Market. That is the market that houses that crazy fish stand where the guys throw the fish back and forth to one another while they're wrapping up someone's order. There's always a crowd around them. After Chris got back, we headed out to a Thai restaurant that apparently Brent has taken Chris a few times. With stomachs full, we went back to Brent's for a while and packed up for an overnight trip.

We met Adam and Ildiko and camped overnight at Camano Island, which is about an hour north of Seattle. It was a very interesting night including people at different camp sites shouting at one another and a couple of kids trying to cut down a big pine tree (all of which I slept through). Unfortunately Chris woke up with the beginnings of a horrible migraine that pretty much put him out of commission. While he tried to relax in the tent, the rest of us walked down to the beach and watched the dogs play fetch.

Adam and Ildiko have two dogs: Jackson (a border collie/lab mix) and Omar (a Kelpie). Jackson absolutely loves the water - once he gets in, he doesn't want to come back out. Omar is a little bit more leery of the water given a not-so-pleasant experience when he was a bit younger. So the way they played fetch was that Adam threw a stick out in the water and Jackson would swim for it and bring it back to about five feet from shore where Omar would be waiting for the handoff. Omar then brought it back to Adam. It was so funny to watch!

Now we're back at Brent's place where we'll hang out until our flight which takes off at 12:25am (ouch). I'm really hoping that I can figure out a way to sleep on the plane. I have a feeling that we'll be sleeping a lot tomorrow!

Camping...well, kind of

Adam, Ildiko, Chris, and I (and the dogs!) headed to Leavenworth, a crazy German village-themed town near the place where we planned to climb. We went to this one campsite (KOA) which was not what I was expecting at all; I thought we would be lucky to have an outhouse, but everything was paved, there was a swimming pool and hot tub, and the main office was a place where you could buy pretty much any foodstuff you might want. Definitely not what I was thinking of doing. But it was fun to swim when it was hot.

So after being in the car for about five hours or so in hot weather, we got to the campsite with the hopes of climbing, but it was not to be. I ended up getting a migraine from (I think) a combo of the heat and not eating lunch until 3. I was miserable. Eating helped though. After we checked in, we headed down to where the trail to the climbing site started. We hoped to get a sense of how long the trail was to the site. By the time we got there, I truly could not handle the heat and luckily, the boys offered to go check out the trail while Ildiko and I drove some teenagers back to their car after a long hike. After we dropped them off, we all headed back to the campsite for a swim in the pool.

The next morning, after a late start and the rest of my migraine later, we headed up to the trail. The sun was glaring and I thought it would be another horrible day. But everything turned out for the best. The hike up to the site was very scary to me because it was very step and there was a lot of loose dirt.

We got up to the site without incident (luckily) and the wind picked up, making it not very hot at all. We ended up being able to climb two routes each on a big granite slab. It was bit difficult to trust my holds at times because there weren't really hand holds at times, but the texture of the rock made for some great climbing. Chris got some good shots (so I hear), so hopefully he'll be able to get those up soonish. I'll post some pictures when we get back.

Now we're back in Seattle. We're planning on meeting up with Adam and Ildiko tomorrow afternoon to spend some time near the coast. This has been a great vacation so far, so thanks for planning everything Chris!

Off to camp

Today we went climbing at Frenches Dome - great rock and beautiful views. I completed a 5.10b, and considering I haven't climbed one of those in the gym for a very long time and because the route was a lot longer than any in the gym, I'm pretty proud of it.

Tomorrow we're heading out to camp and climb some more. We were supposed to head out tonight when we got back, but we were all pretty tired (translation: we were lazy). For some reason the thought of being in a car for four more hours after traveling one already and being wiped out didn't sound appealing to us.

We'll be back in Seattle Thursday night, so I'll post about our climbing trip then!

St. Helens: I hear it's beautiful

We headed up for a long hike today at Mount St. Helens. When we looked at the temps last night, it said cloud cover and high of 70. When we got to the observatory, we noticed that it was downright chilly and there was a thick blanket of fog concealing the mountain. The new forecast was a high of 55. Even though we never did get a clear view of the mountain, it was a great hike and there was plenty of other scenery. Besides, we bought postcards at the gift shop so we know what it looks like on a clear day.

The greatest part of the entire trip came when we got home and I discovered I had sunburned a line on the middle of my forehead because I was wearing a bandanna. It looks so ridiculous and honestly, I'm perfectly embarrassed about it. Good thing I have long bangs!

When we get home next Sunday, I'll post some pictures. And Mom, I got you a present :)

By the way, Chris posted about our short time in Seattle and our trip down to Portland.

Hello Seattle!

We landed last night at about 11pm (1am Central). I found out that I definitely cannot sleep sitting up in an airplane seat. I have such a hard time sleeping on my back (so much of a hard time that I rarely do). So after basically tossing and turning for the duration of the flight, I thought I would be absolutely exhausted, but after Chris's friend Brent picked us up at the airport, we ended up staying up until about 1.

After staying up really late, my body decided to return the favor of treating it horribly: I woke up at 6:30 and couldn't fall back asleep. Chris had the same problem (but he had a migraine too), so we both got up and started reading. I got started on the baby blanket I mentioned in a previous post. I'm afraid that I might be done with it over the course of a few days. But no worries: there are plenty of knitting shops in Portland and we're going to be camping next week for a couple of days.

We just got done having breakfast at a pancake place. I had cherry crepes - amazing!!!!! We'll be taking a train down to Portland tomorrow morning, which I'm super excited about because I have a feeling we'll be able to see some great scenery! Happy 4th!

VACATION!!!!!

We're flying out tonight to Seattle! Then it's off to Portland (and maybe Canada?) for relaxing, hiking, climbing, and camping. But mostly relaxing.

I've brought along a couple of books and the baby blanket I talked about earlier to work on (in the hopes that they won't confiscate crochet hooks as easily as they might knitting needles). I am soooooo excited!

I will try to post while I'm out there, but know that I will definitely be posting all about it (including lots of pictures) when I get back.

Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend!