I never mentioned my adventure from last weekend- Joe & I went backpacking, and it was awesome! I borrowed a giganto super-cool pack from Beth (Zula's mom & my neighbor reporter whom you don't know, Ann). It weighed about 25 pounds all loaded up. After driving the world's tiniest Saturn up & down the world's crappiest so-called road, including accidentally going about 10 miles more than was necessary, we arrived at the trailhead. I was just glad that the engine was still intact and we hadn't lost any major pieces of the car. When we got out, we were swarmed by mosquitos. ahhhh! Over the course of our 24-hour trip, we used about 2/3 of a can of bug spray.
Flint carried our water in a cute doggy pack (borrowed from Zula). And we headed up Mount Price on the Dingford Creek Trail, just north (?) of Seattle. The entire first mile was switchbacks, straight up the mountain. Whoooboy, are we outta shape! We made it tho, winded & alive & not too much later in the afternoon. The next 5 miles up and around the mountain were hard, but nothing like the first one, so it was a good hike. And incredibly beautiful, when I remebered to take a moment to look up from my shoes on the trail.
One time Flint got his pack stuck on a rock (well, lots of times), so he stopped in front of me. But he wasn't actually stuck anymore, so I gave him a shove to keep moving, but he was standing in kind of a hole, and he toppled over on his side because of the water in his pack. It was pretty freakin' hilarious. He got his revenge, tho, when we were heading back down the mountain and i was carefully picking my way between this little foot valley between two steep rocks, and he came running up from behind and took out my knees with his pack, sending me sliding straight down. I had to lay there until Joe came back to pull me up. I was like an overturned turtle. A muddy overturned turtle.
Anyway, we ended up taking the trail to Myrtle Lake instead of Hester Lake, because they weren't allowing campfires at Hester. We saw one couple hiking down on our way up. When we got there, there were 2 guys camping there. The next day, we say 2 other guys hiking up. So we saw a total of 6 people in this cool deserted wonderland. We found a spot next to the lake, gathered wood, & Joe, being such a man, started a campfire. We cooked dehydrated meals using Joe's new campstove (a birthday present from moi). It was awesome. Played some cribbage on a miniature board, finished up All the Pretty Horses, heard crazy-weird animal sounds, peed outdoors (ewww!).
We headed back down the next day after breakfast. It was a great, beautiful, leisurely and fun hike down for five miles. And then the switchbacks. O, the switchbacks. May I just say, Ouch? Going down was also, um, very difficult. I couldn't believe that we managed to make it up the day before. It seemed so impossible and steep! By the time we finally reached the car, I was just very glad to be sitting down, even if we were swarmed with mosquitoes and jostling back along that gravel-pit of a road. BUT... backpacking was awesome & I had a great time & I'm excited to do it again sometime!
Also had a good time just hanging out with Joe in Seattle. Went to a party, met lots of his friends, rode a ferry with Jessi, too, and had a yummy dinner on Vashon Island at a cute new downtown restaurant called The Hardware Store. It was a very good vacation! :-)