Travels with Walter: hikebikepaddle

Ferns, moss, Walter, and water on Mt. Spokane

It has been sort of a busy weekend. On Monday I continued to work on the yard, Seth helped me get the dog kennel back together (a huge, heavy structure I made myself years ago), and did a bunch of overall home maintenance stuff. Tuesday started at 6:30am with a bike ride along the Columbia Plateau Trail from Cheney to Amber Lake. It was only around 23 miles but by the time we got done it was really hot. We had a good time, though sometimes I forget how frustrated I can be at times riding on gravel. We saw a lot of animals: lots of water fowl, snakes (two alive and one dead), deer, chipmunks, cows, two coyote, an owl, and an osprey. We had breakfast at a bench overlooking Amber Lake.

Then, I went home, took a nap, and hooked up in the late afternoon with Michelle and Sparky for a paddle at Fishtrap. We went almost to the end of the lake, well past the Narrows, but turned around because it was getting late. I am glad we did because much to our surprise there was a current on the lake. We turned around and started paddling and we just started looking at each other funny, like wondering if we were sensing the same thing. We even had our backs to the wind. It was so weird. It let up as we got into the wider part of the lake, but was still not as easy to paddle as the other way.

Today I went for a very short hike with Walter to Mt. Spokane. It was short because after the third thunderstorm to roll through, we decided to bag it and take our soggy butts home. Lots of thunder and hard rain. We hiked on the Loop road and along 100. I was going to head up 110 when we got back to the 100/110 junction but that was when the rain started again and I was feeling done. It was fun to be out with Walter and he had a good time running around sniffing everything.