Travels with Walter

Seasonal and Other Changes

2011-12-21T23:17:00.001-08:00

Tonight is the Winter Solstice; the longest night. It is really my only holiday of the year. It is the beginning of the new year for me, a time when the sun starts to shine more and more. This year has brought a lot of changes with it, mostly within myself.

It has been almost 4 months since I have posted anything. There are lots of reasons. Recreation has been limited by money. Even I am feeling the pinch of the economy in a field in which I should not. Recreation has also been limited by time. It seems there is never enough. But mostly it has been limited by my health. Nothing horrid, but enough to keep me feeling down. After my surgery in March it took me a long time to recover, mostly due to hormone changes. I did not start feeling normal until sometime in August. Also, after my surgery I started to have a lot of pain in my right knee (I think they twisted it when I was unconscious). I have had a bum left knee for quite a few years due to a nasty ski accident, but it was never enough to really slow me down. But the right one messed me up. I have done very little hiking this summer. Chronic pain changes the whole game of life. My autoimmune issues have been a problem as well, but I am getting those under control, mostly with diet.

But.....fifteen days ago I had arthroscopic surgery on both knees. HOLY CRAP WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!!!!! I was coming home from work in complete agony. I feel amazing!!!!! The surgery was a piece of cake. Anyway, because of the new season (and the new lease on my knees) I have been looking ahead to the future and looking back at the past.

I am on the cusp of turning 47. There are some things that I really want to do. I want to go to Alaska, I want to climb Mt. Rainier, I want to visit the Arctic on the summer solstice, I want to spend the night in the red rocks of Utah, I want to paddle in the Everglades, I want to visit a tropical rain forest, I want to do another backpacking trip in Colorado, I want to ski into the backcountry by myself in the winter and spend a couple of nights in a snow cave, I want to see the waterfalls of Havasupai.

But I am also looking back. Walter's mom, Ruby, died on December 31st, almost a year ago. She was my first poodle, the one who forced me to love the breed. That sucked because it was unexpected and horrid. But I got to paddle on FDR lake, sleep on the beach at Priest Lake, spend the summer solstice on the water with my buddy Walter, paddle down the Flathead River with Nancy and Walter, visit Glacier National Park on a whim, and spend time at Jean's cabin on Priest Lake in October.

I also acquired a new friend this year. After Walter's mother died I started thinking about Walter being the next generation to go. I have never bonded with another creature the way I have with Walter. It is sort of spooky how we can read each other's thoughts. We just really click. I think a big part is that I kept him inside of my shirt the first 72 hours of his life and fed him from a bottle and rubbed his tummy with a damp washcloth to get him to pee and poo. After dodging phone calls for 3 months about a homeless poodle puppy, I finally gave in. His name is Arlo. He is going to be close to 100 pounds when he is done growing. Walter can walk under him. I am going to need a bigger canoe.

My main trip this fall was our yearly pilgrimage to the cabin at Priest Lake. It is really heaven for us both. We took Walter, Elliot, and Arlo. Since Arlo is still a pesky puppy we took his crate along and lots of chew toys. We took some walks but mostly just read and slept. I do not have the energy that I had last year. I am hoping to get it back soon, though. Walter and I have a camping trip planned for January so I gotta get some fast mojo. Anyway, here are some pics from various things this fall. Happy New Year!

The boys on the dock

Chillin' in the mountains

My new old bike in the shop

The boys in the woods

Adorable Biggie asleep on the couch

A tree on my car

Lupine in my garden

Boys in the car

Arlo's first haircut at his new home (he actually laid down on the grooming table and fell asleep)

Paddle Me

2011-09-15T12:21:00.001-07:00

Yeah, that is lame but I could not think of anything more clever. But I have been doing a lot of paddling lately. My knees have been really bad lately and I have not been up for much hiking but have been more than happy to use the upper body.

Yesterday Walter and I went for our first paddle on Lake Roosevelt. It was great. The day was warm but not too warm and I was able to get in a quick swim. We launched a Porcupine Bay on the Spokane Arm and paddled upstream (no current that I could tell). We saw a bunch of deer and I actually saw one pooping. They squat when they poo!! I was surprised. I thought they would just raise their tails like cows. We also had a weird toad thing too. I pulled up to a beach to have some lunch and there were thousands, yes, thousands of toads right along the water. Some of them jumped into the water as I pulled up but most just scattered along the beach. I tried to get a picture but they just look like pebbles. It was seriously weird.

Deer on the bank

Our lunch spot

Cool hills

Porcupine Bay boat ramp

In all I think I paddled about 10-12 miles round trip. I tend to stick with the shore when Walter is in the boat with me just in case we swamp. But I did do one open crossing of the river to check out a beach. I found some nice places to camp when the water is low. There were only a few fishing boats out, and before we put in I helped a guy get his boat back on his trailer. That was fun. I have decided that I would like to canoe the entire length of Lake Roosevelt. It is only 130 miles long. I probably will not do it all in one shot.

Last week Walter and I went camping at Lionhead on Priest Lake. We camped right on the beach which was cool, but I recommend avoiding the sites near the camp host bathroom. They smell and the fan is loud. We were planning on two nights and I had lugged along the canoe for a bit of paddling. Right before I started to unload the canoe on afternoon #2 I decided to call home and check in. Nancy has had a Baker's cyst behind her knee and it finally ruptured. It was very painful and her doctor told her to stay off her feet. That is impossible to do in this house so I packed up and headed home. But I swam a lot and Walter and I took some nice walks.

View from inside the tent

Our camping spot

Two weeks ago I took an after work kayak paddle down the Little Spokane River with Michelle and Carol. It was Carol's first time so that was totally cool. I had not paddled my kayak in a long time and since I have been doing a solo canoe I decided I like the canoe better. I have more positioning options in the canoe.

Michelle and Carol

And then the week before that, Michelle and I went to Horseshoe Lake and I finally got to see the Devils' Well. It is a big round basalt pool on the side of a hill. I am not sure if it is a vertical lava tube or if it was formed by swirling water...lots of swirling water. Anyway, it is cool and I always wondered where it was.

Devil's Well

Michelle by the waterfall

The waterfall

And then somewhere in there I took a nice trip on the Spokane River above the 9 mile dam. The water is going down already so I had to get the canoe down a pretty steep bank. Tons of birds, lots of sand bars. The current was pretty swift paddling upstream so I had a good work out. I paddled from 9 mile dam to the 7 mile bridge. Does that mean I paddled 4 miles?

High water line

One of my old swimming spots from a past life

I am not ready for summer to end. It seems like it just started. I want to go camping a few more times before it gets too nasty out, and I would like to take a paddle overnight to Kalispel Island at Priest Lake. I love Priest Lake but it is getting way too developed with too many boats. Despite protests, there is going to be a new housing development of 14 houses up by Lionhead and the Thoroughfare. Bastards.

PS Sorry about the bad pictures. I take the crappy camera in my pocket when I paddle.

Paddling the Lower Flathead River

2011-08-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

The River

It was a bucket list trip. The lower Flathead River begins at the southern end of Flathead Lake and ends up 70 some miles later joining the Clarkfork River. We (Nancy, Walter and I) covered 54 miles from the Buffalo Bridge outside of Polson, MT to the Perma Bridge at Perma. The river is wide and blue and meanders through some amazing landscapes. It was so lovely that my mind goes back to it multiple times a day.

We had planned on spending 4 days on the river. Our friend Janis helped us with the shuttle so that we would only have one car to deal with at the end. We took the big canoe (19 feet long) so we could take comfort items. We also took along 12 gallons of water, almost 100 pounds, because I just could not bring myself to drink the river water even if filtered or boiled (lots of agricultural run-off). The river runs through the Flathead Reservation and a tribal permit is needed for camping and for floating. I think for the two of us it was around 60 dollars. Camping is where ever you can find a spot. The Mission Mountains are visible for most of the trip, as are steep and rugged white cliffs similar to the Missouri River. We did not see much in the way of mammals, except for LOTS of cows, but the bird life was amazing. We lost track of the bald eagles. There were also hawks, osprey, heron, buzzards, killdeer, kingfishers, ducks and geese, tons of swifts with their mud nests up on the cliffs, and cormorants hanging out on the branches of dead trees. Every raptor nest that we saw had orange bailing twine wrapped in it. The water was a clear aquamarine and the sky was robin egg blue. It was magic.

The first day we paddled about 16 miles in a little over 2 hours. The river was a lot higher than I had expected and running really fast. The west side of the river was full of cows but we did find a nice spot on the east side among the juniper and sagebrush. Best thing of all, there were no mosquitoes!!!! Because of the fast river we decided the next day to take a lot of swimming breaks and we slept in and did not leave our campsite until around 11 am. But as we paddled we started talking about making the trip a bit shorter and maybe spending the last night at a campground. Then we started wondering if we could cover the last 38 miles in one day and it became a challenge, especially after we thought about heading to Glacier Park when we were done. Crazy, but that is what we did. The scenery flew by and we did very little paddling until the last 5 miles or so when the current basically died. It took us 8 hours to complete 38 miles and that was with numerous stops for photos, swimming, and bathroom breaks. Walter was fantastic the whole time, curling up in the boat and sleeping.

We arrived at the take out at Perma around 7 pm and just slept in the suburban in the parking lot. We watched a great lightening storm to the north and shooting stars through the windows. Next morning we got up and drove to West Glacier.

The end of the line with Perma bridge in view

Unloading

The Park

I have been to Glacier Park many times but Nancy has only been there once. It took about 2 hours for us to get from Perma to West Glacier with a stop for gas and to use a real bathroom. Our lovely house sitter Jamie agreed to stay on the job for another night so we had two nights in the park. Because we had Walter with us and it was warm during the day we did not go on any hikes. We drove up to Polebridge and the wonderful bakery the first morning and then spent the rest of the day at Apgar campground just lolling around. The next day we drove to the Going to the Sun road to Logan Pass where we were unable to find a parking spot so we turned around and headed back down, stopping along the way to look at pretty things.

The Range

On the way home we drove through the National Bison Range, which we could see from the river during our trip. We took the 19 mile scenic drive which was cool. It went up on a high ridge and we could see our river. We saw way more antelope than bison but it was a totally cool experience. The entire trip was so wonderful and it was cool to just wing it and deviate from the plan. I could have spent another week or two just roaming around.

Priest Lake and South Skookum

2011-06-30T20:25:00.000-07:00

It is very rare that I am ever able to get out of town two weeks in a row but it just happened. Last week Walter and I went up to Beaver Creek on Priest Lake to celebrate the Summer Solstice and get in a bit of paddling. It has been a very long, cold and wet spring here in the Inland Northwest and I have been craving the sun in the worst way.

Trip #1

Walter and I left town Monday night as soon as I got off work and made it up to Beaver Creek with about an hour of daylight to spare. My elation with getting out was tempered by finding out that my favorite coworker, Lorri, in the Tri-Cities passed away unexpectedly and horribly on Sunday morning. I am very sad for her, her children and grandchildren and for the coworkers who spent the majority of their time with her. I feel sad for myself as well because I feel that we were starting to become friends. We had made plans to get together on my next trip to Richland to talk about her trip to China last fall and I found her to be an amazing and interesting person. Since Morgan’s death 7 years ago I have put up a nice wall between myself and others. After she died, I lost several friends because I guess my hell was too much for them. One was my BFF which compounded my agony. After attending Lorri's memorial service this past Monday I now know that I missed out on getting to know someone pretty special.

The campground at Beaver Creek was pretty empty which made me happy. It is still too cold up there for most folks. We did a lot of paddling on Tuesday early afternoon, paddling south along the big lake to look for possible campsites. Tuesday evening the lake was pure glass and we were the only ones on it. On Wednesday I carried the canoe down the ¼ mile portage to save going up against the current. The night before I paddled around the breakwater fence and into the river which had the stiffest current I have ever experienced there. It got a lot better after Caribou Creek. I was able to actually paddle up the creek about a mile until the current was too hard to go against. There were a couple of riffles that gave me a thrill. I was worn out by the time we hit the upper lake so I just turned around and paddled back to the portage for the uphill climb with the boat. I made the portage in one trip, even with all my “shit, I’m in the water” emergency clothing. Walter is getting a lot more comfortable in the boat and actually laid down for a bit and put his head on the gunwale. It was so cute. I had planned to stay for 3 nights but decided to go home Wednesday so I could have some time at home before heading back to work on Friday.

Put-in at the Thoroughfare

Freaked me out: in front of a cabin

Along the breakwater fence

An empty lake except for the crazy woman and her poodle

Cool cabin art

Looking up the amazing Lion Creek valley.

Wally looking tough

One of the many wonderful beaches

Trip #2

This afternoon Nancy and I got back from two nights at South Skookum Lake near Usk in the Colville National Forest. Neither one of us had ever been there and I just happened to find it on a map. I think it is my new favorite place. It is just a little bitty campground with about 30 sites, some of them walk-in along the lake. The lake is tiny with no motors allowed and no beach. Only 5 of the sites were occupied Tuesday night and 2 on Wednesday night. The weather was pretty good with some wind. We took Walter and Elliot with us. Or should I say, Walter and I took Nancy and Elliot with us.

On Tuesday night we were in the tent and heard a loud splash and then some really heavy breathing. It was too dark to see but I think it was a moose. One time Morgan and I had backpacked to a little lake up near Sandpoint and we heard a very similar noise. We stuck our heads out of the tent and watched a moose swim across the lake in the full moonlight. It was also during the Perseids meteor shower and it was pure magic.

Nancy and I took a lot of little walks with the dogs but no hikes. We both read and slept and I tried a little fishing but did not catch anything. Nancy had a good time until Wednesday night when she got a bite on her eyelid. Her eye swelled shut and looked terrible. She has been doing ice and benedryl and it is starting to look a bit better. She has bites all over. I have one on my belly and that is it. We have decided to invest in some new sleeping mats. The ones we have are for backpacking and they are just not working for our 46 and 55 year old bodies. I just took a muscle relaxer.

I only have one full weekend off in July. I took a bunch of extra on-call shifts so I can pay for a canoe trip down the Flathead River in August. If Nancy can really get away we will go to the Flathead. If she can't, it is a solo trip for me to Mt. Ranier. It will be cheaper to do the solo trip because of the house sitter, but a river trip is much more fun with someone else (less paddling). I will probably fit in some day trips here and there. I will go insane if I don’t!

Elliot

Walter

Nancy

View out the back door

The perfect spot

Law & Order: Farragut State Park

2011-05-21T20:50:00.000-07:00

Walter and I usually take a spring trip to Farragut State Park in Idaho. It is a lovely place to go before Memorial Day and after Labor Day (mid-week is always best). We went to Farragut this past week and had the craziest camping trip of all time.

We got one of our favorite spots in the Whitetail Campground and had been there for about an hour when we heard a loud truck pull into the spot next to us. Then a really loud motor started up and this guy started tearing through the campground on this weird 6 wheel amphibious vehicle. Later when Walter and I were taking a walk the guy talked to me and asked if dogs had to be on a leash. I told him yes. He had three dogs and no leashes. Then he took off in his truck, came back and then left the dogs tied up with ropes and chains. The dogs howled and cried. He was gone for 2 hours. When he came back he untied them and they promptly ran off and he could not find them. Then he left again (I found out later he kept driving down to Bayview to the bar).

Meanwhile, the park rangers were looking for him and it was sort of like the Keystone Cops. Oh, and did I mention that he had a lawn mower in the back of his truck but no camping gear? The ranger found one dog, a puppy, under the trailer of some other campers. While his dogs were running around they kept coming over to my spot and Walter was not happy. He kept coming back and then leaving, missing the ranger each time. Finally he came back around 9 and was yelling at his dogs and running the engine of his weird little vehicle.

I was not afraid of the guy even though he seemed nuts, but I was very irritated. I wanted to go to sleep so at 10:00 after listening to him for far too long, I packed up my tent and went to a different campground. I left a few dishes, my tarp, and two chairs there. The plan was to go to the office in the morning and see if he was staying another night. If not, then I would stay in Whitetail. The next morning he was gone but had left his 6 wheeler. He had evidently been driving it through the campground over picnic tables and boulders. He had also left with my dishes and chairs.

In the end, the park ranger finally caught up with him and gave him some citations and kicked him out of the park. The sheriff showed up as well and I filed a report about my stuff (just to cause him more trouble). There was valuable. My sister and I fished one of the chairs out of the garbage at Glacier several years ago but I had a sentimental attachment to it. They found him at the bar but I do not know the end of the story. The sheriff and I played phone tag and I have not heard back.

I ended up moving to the Waldron Campground and finally had some peace and quiet by noon. Then I took a nap. Walter and I had a short hike in the afternoon and a nice dinner and fire. And it was really quiet. The night time temp was in the 30s so we snuggled up under a couple of sleeping bags. We left early so I could make it back to town by noon for a work meeting. Not sure when we will be getting out again. The weather has been pretty crappy. The lowlands are flooded and the higher elevations still have a lot of snow. I am totally ready for some hot summer days.

Recovery

2011-04-29T17:33:00.001-07:00

It has been seven weeks since my surgery and I am feeling pretty good (except for the sore knees from my hike yesterday). Walter is doing well, too. It has taken me a long time to get back into doing things. Here are a few of those things...

Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area: Grand Coulee Dam created a massive lake. Three weeks post surgery Walter and I drove over and checked out part of the lake, some campgrounds and boat launches. I did a little walking around at Porcupine Bay and Fort Spokane but not very much. One of my plans for the summer is a couple night canoe trip on the lake. There are lots of places to camp on the shore. Currently the water in the lake is really low to allow for snow melt in the mountains. The pool is usually full by July so it will be a late summer trip.

Porcupine Bay

Old oven at Ft. Spokane. Probably used by the Chinese cooks.

Ouch

Hawk Creek waterfall. When the water is up most of the waterfall is gone.

Miller Ranch/Fishtrap: One of my favorite early season places to hike. Wide open spaces, lots of early season plants, and solitude. This was my first hike taking both boys by myself. They did great. A good time was had by all.

Cute poodle boys

First buttercups

The lovely lake

Cool volcanic rock spot

Unlucky ungulate

Hog Canyon: The trailhead is across the road from one of the Fishtrap Lake trailheads. Nancy and I spent the day there. It was a typical spring day with sunshine, rain, hail, etc.

Hog Lake

Old ranch

Iller Creek: beautiful urban hike up a ravine to a ridge that looks over Spokane and the Palouse. We did the loop hike and my knees were screaming on the way down. Way cool rocks at the top that are the size of houses.

Escape!!!!

2011-03-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

On March 7th I had all my reproductive parts removed. It has been a weird and wild ride. Evidently I had quite a mess inside; endometriosis, fibroids, cysts, and adhesions all wrapped and twisted around my intestines and organs. I really do not remember much of the first few days. I spent one night in the hospital and then Nancy brought me home. The morphine totally messed me up. I was shaking uncontrollably and really anxious. It is weird to think about being completely sedated and have people do things to you. I remember rolling into the surgery room and looking around and thinking, "This place is a dump." Then the next thing I knew I was in another room trying to remove my oxygen, then rolling through some other doors to a hallway and Nancy was there, then magically in another room and being slid onto another bed. I was given a spinal block before surgery so I was not in too much pain from the waist down, but my throat felt like I had swallowed fire from being intubated.

It has been almost 2 weeks and I am feeling a bit sore. I pulled something a few days ago and went in to make sure I had not done any big damage. Everything is fine but I need to keep taking it easy. I have a very hard time staying in one place for long and if I am not able to get outside I start feeling a bit insane. Yesterday I was able to get out in the sunshine for a bit. Nancy and I drove to her friend Ron's house in Springdale to look at an old barn he wants torn down. Nancy and her brother and I might make it a project this summer. There is a ton of salvageable lumber and we are going to build a garage this summer. The barn is huge and half of it has collapsed so I am not sure how safe I feel about taking it apart. But after we left the barn we took the long way home and checked out some access spots along the Spokane River.

I found a couple of good put-in spots just upstream from Little Falls Dam. There is a good one up river at Long Lake dam but often the current right there looks problematic for paddling against it. If I am going to do an out and back on moving water that I am not familiar with, even with a slow current, I prefer to start downstream and paddle up, then paddle with the current on the way back. The distance between Long Lake and Little Falls dams is 4 miles and it looks beautiful. This summer Walter and I are going to check out more of the lower Spokane River and Lake Roosevelt. We drove back to the highway from Little Falls Dam on the Spokane Reservation side. It was very cool. We crossed a really cool creek with ducks and two heron in it. I tried to get a picture of the heron as it was flying but missed it. The water in the rivers and the creeks is really high. We have been having a lot of rain and mountain snow melt.

I figured the snow would be crappy by the time I was able to ski so a few days before my surgery Nancy and I had a lovely 12k trip up at Mt. Spokane. It seems as if this winter has gone quickly. I am feeling very anxious to take off with Walter on a camping trip. Nancy and I have also talked about a spring trip to the Olympic Peninsula. There never seems to be enough time. Oh, and Walter just turned 9 last week!!!!!! He was the world's cutest puppy and we fell in love with each other instantly. Or at least I fell in love with him. He got too chilled after birth and we thought we were going to lose him. I carried him around in my bra for two days to warm him up and get his strength back so he could nurse (on his mother....not me!!).

I will probably be able to drive in a few days so I think Walter and I will go exploring around Lake Roosevelt if I am feeling up to it. I also have some sewing projects I am working on. I finished Walter's new coat last night. He looks so cute in purple!!! Anyway, here are some pictures from my outing yesterday. Being out in the woods by the river, even if it was in a car, lifted my spirits tremendously. I did not realize how much I needed it until I got it.

Ducks

Pool above Little Falls Dam

The other part of the pool above Little Falls Dam

Condom Tree

Long Lake Dam

Snow Shine

2011-02-09T20:57:00.000-08:00

Walter was a huge hit on Mt. Spokane the other day. I had a last minute afternoon desire to wander around in the snow with my favorite little buddy at our favorite mountain spot. Weather in town has sort of sucked recently but the mountains have had tons of snow. We did not walk too far, about 4 miles but it was a good work out. We hiked from the snowmobile parking lot up to the picnic area on the main snowmobile road (only saw 3 snowmobiles which was good). We met some folks at the picnic shelter who were quite taken with Walter. They had never seen a dog wearing pants before and had to take his picture. After we had our Scooby snacks we headed down 135 back to the parking lot. The day was nice and sunny and very cold. Walter seems most of the time to be an eternal puppy. He gets so excited when he sees my yellow backpack and when we start hiking he just goes ape shit and dances and jumps around. He is quite amazing for almost 9 years old. I love it when we are driving home and he sleeps so sound that I can hear him snoring from the back seat.

Our adventures are going to take a bit of a break due to real life. I found out yesterday that I have a something on one of my ovaries so on March 7 I am getting the whole shit n' caboodle pulled out. My family history for cancer is very grim, but my doctor said the ultrasound images do not look like what he generally sees with cancer (though he was quite fascinated with my cancer genealogy and had to make a copy of it). I keep trying to stick to that sentence. When I do start to worry I tell myself, "Hell, Aunt Helen had ovarian, colon and breast cancer and she is still kicking at 95!!!!" Anyway, I am going to miss 3-4 weeks of work and I doubt that even with the time off I will be able to do much in the form of recreating. But then again, perhaps it would be good to recuperate in a cabin in the woods snuggled up with my buddy Walter. That just might be the sort of rest I will need.........

Looking towards the campground and the top of the mountain

Looking towards Spokaloo

This meadowy area is one of my top favorite spots on the entire mountain.

Borax

2011-01-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

Last week on one of my days off I went up to the Idaho/Montana border for a little cross country skiing. Walter stayed home because I was hoping for some good kick and glide and did not want him to have to run the whole 7 or so miles. The skiing was actually rather slow because of the snow conditions but I had a good time and a good work out.

The old Milwaukee-Seattle rail line over the pass is a great place to nordic ski if you are not too hung up on grooming or snowmobiles. Part of the route is groomed by the downhill resort and that was great, but the rest was pretty rough. I started at the pass and skied east to the Borax tunnel. For the first time in my life I saw cougar tracks in the snow. There were tons of deer and bunny prints crossing the trail down to the St. Regis River so I figured the little kitty was well fed. They looked less than a day old.

The floor of the tunnel was a sheet of ice so I did not venture in too far. The last mile was done in the dark and I was hoping for a bit of full moon action but it was behind the mountains. Still, I did not need my headlamp or anything.

Indian Creek

2011-01-10T19:49:00.000-08:00

Last week Nancy, Walter, and Elliot and I went up to Indian Creek along Priest Lake for a few nights. It was lovely. We stayed in one of the state park cabins...two rooms but totally tiny. The cabin we stayed in was the only one that allowed dogs. There is electric heat and lights but no cooking inside so we cooked on the porch; also no running water and the toilet was a bit of a walk. I highly recommend using a propane stove which will work well regardless of the outside temp, and extra plug in lamps. Each room had an overhead flourescent bulb that did not add to the ambiance.

We took our skis and snowshoes but spent the first day reading and napping. A few days before we went we had to put Ruby, Walter's mommy, to sleep. It was unexpected, dramatic and horrid so we were both a bit spent from that. On the second day I did a bit of skiing. The park grooms several miles of trails but I skied on part of them and then down the Cape Horn road towards our friend's cabin. It snowed most of the time we were there and it was nice to sit and look out the window. I had a small outdoor fire one night which was nice. Nancy was really into reading and sleeping. Walter and Elliot were ok with that as well. We left just as it was starting to rain so it was all perfect timing.

Skiing along Cape Horn Road

Indian Creek

The boat ramp. There were actually people out fishing one day.

Slackers

La Niña

2010-12-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

Merry Solstice!!!! Here is to the sun's return!!! I missed the eclipse last night due to intermittent clouds combined with total exhaustion. Things have been a bit crazy around here lately with work, Seth, Nancy's mom dying, and getting ready for the Solstice ritual which is happening tonight. My health is getting better. It has only taken a year but my vitamin D level is up to 40. A year ago it was 7 which is pretty darn low. I am on some new meds and even though my guts have turned to hamburger I am feeling pretty good. I have actually been going to the gym and am getting back to my usual workouts.

The snow looks very promising for this year with several feet already covering the top of Mt. Spokane. I have been cross country skiing twice and on a couple of hikes. Last week I spent the afternoon up at Mt. Spokane and had a lovely time. The snowmobiliers lost use of the Inland Paper lands so the roads are being groomed for skiers. Mica road is fantastic and there is a lot less blue exhaust in the air. I was skiing on the road as the sun was setting and there were about 10 crows following and circling me. The racket was intense and the whole thing was just weird.

Christmas will be low key with just the three of us hanging out and watching old Simpson's Christmas episodes. I have picked up some on-call shifts so not much extra time off for me. I am posting some random pictures from the past few months. A couple are from our annual trip to Priest Lake in September. The weather was awesome and I got to take a very cold night time skinny dip. Pure pleasure.

Broken Bubble

2010-11-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

Last week was a total bummer. Over a year ago Nancy and I picked up three "breeder" dogs from this horrible f*&% head in Montana. This was our second go around with that idiot. Elliot came from the first batch of 3 we got. The last batch included two females and one male. The male and one female both went to absolutely fantastic homes. One of the mothers calls us all the time to give updates. Bubble was a different story completely. She had originally come from a puppymill in Idaho that was eventually busted. She was then acquired by the f*&% head as a breeder, but because Bubble had never had any human contact no one could do anything with her. She basically had to be caught whenever it was needed, which was probably never. My guess is that shit for brains probably groomed her only once and that was before we picked her up.

Finding a home for Bubble became a challenge. She needed someone very experienced with dogs. It took a few months before she would actually come into the house if we were standing by the door. We were never really able to pet her unless she was upstairs on a dog bed, and then she was terrified. We had to corner her for baths and grooming and taking her out of the house was impossible. When we had her spayed we had to get her into a crate and carry the crate out to the car. Other times when she needed a vet we had the vet come to the house. A leash sent her into a complete frenzy. And she was a biter. Most of it was when she was scared, which was a lot of the time. Nancy, our house sitter Jamie and I had all been bitten by her and I was afraid that she was going to remove my sister's face when she was here to visit. Seth got the worst bite after she ran up behind him and bit him in the leg as he was walking out the door. We never found anyone willing to put in the time or who had the experience to deal with her. We even tried putting her on doggy drugs. There were numerous times when I was afraid of her.

Last week, after mulling it over for about 9 months, and giving Bubble our time and effort for well over a year, we had the vet come over and put her to sleep. We could have easily found her a home on Craigslist, but she would have been abused or ended up euthanized anyway because of the biting. All of this happened, her birth and life and death, because some shitballs were using animals as a source of income, as a commodity. She was supposed to be a bitch producing 'oodle puppies for the 'oodle fad. Instead she had a miserable life. I am so angry. Another sad part of it is that in the big picture, her life was not as horrid as many dogs on the planet. As far as we could tell she did not seem to have been abused, just given about as much regard and attention as a goldfish in a bowl at the fair. When the vet came over I had to leave the house and let Nancy take care of it. It has been a weird few weeks.

Walter and Elliot have been on a few walks, but nothing very big. My old camera pretty much bit the dust so I bought a new one. It is fancy. A Nikon Coolpix L110. The best thing about it is the telephoto and macro ability. Here are some pictures I took out and about Spokane. One set is from the Japanese Garden where I went when Bubble was being put to sleep.

I took this picture standing in the same spot as the one above. The is a zoom of the cutbank that is across the river from where Elliot and Walter are sniffing around. It is full of holes from the swallows.

What I have been doing...

2010-10-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

Sup? I got on this train (ok, not really this train but one just like it)...

I arrived in this town...

I hung out with these people...

I worked on these projects...

The truck and the big tree hanging over the garage (and once again thanks to my brother for risking his life to climb around the power lines)

I got my first shiner...(I also had some cuts and a goose egg on my forehead)...

I watched this sunset...

I had a short layover in Chicago on the way home and goofed around downtown. I walked from Union Station out to Navy Pier and then took the water taxi back to catch the train...

GNP

2010-09-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

Nope, that is not Gross National Product but it could be. I just got back from a lovely trip to Glacier National Park. ABSOFRICKINLUTELYLOVELY!!!!!! I went with my favorite sister Ellen (I only have one sister...that I know about...my father was in the military). We spent four nights camped at Apgar, our favorite campground in the park. This trip we spent a lot less time driving around and more time relaxing, though we did drive up to Logan Pass and to Polebridge, and to Kintla Lake. I learned something very important. Chevy Aveos are not suited for the Kintla Lake Road. But we made it anyway with Ellen keeping the screaming to a minimum. Kintla Lake was beautiful and amazing. I really want to go back there with my canoe. The bakery at Polebridge was wonderful as always. Lake McDonald perfection, Avalance gorge stunning. It did not rain on us the first night or the first full day, but then it cut loose and rained most of the rest of the time. One afternoon after getting drenched at Avalance Gorge and the cedar grove we drove to Whitefish for dinner. Our favorite spot is McKenzie River Pizza. Good shit. I still smell like garlic.

Even though it was rainy and the clouds were low we hit up Logan Pass and Going to the Sun road before we left the park. The clouds swirling and dancing around the tops of the mountains was breathtaking. Tendrils of mist were sweeping up the valley, hitting the tops of the mountains and then dissipating on the other side of the divide. While my sister was sensible and sat in the car away from the snow and sleet I took a stroll up the Hidden Lake trail. I was just going to walk around on the little paved path but was pulled higher and higher. For a long time I was the only person around. I had a weird thought. If you climb Mt. Everest (or K2...whichever one is really higher), there is no more up on the whole planet. That is it. I wonder if those folks then get bored or don't give a shit about some hokey little hilltop in the Ozarks. Or Logan Pass. I would hate for that to happen to me. But then again I am pretty sure I am not climbing in the Himalayas.

So here are some pictures. I am just going to slap them on in no order but they are from the drive to Polebridge/Kintla, Lake McDonald, Avalanche Gorge, and Logan Pass.

Mooney

2010-09-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

Things have been a bit low key for the past couple of weeks. On the 24th Nancy and I went for a full moon paddle on Fishtrap Lake. I do not have any pictures because; a) it was dark and b) I forgot the camera. It was darn cool. The moon was full and the cliffs around the lake were a glowing blue. A heron buzzed over us twice about 10 feet above. It was unbelievably cold and luckily I had some extra clothing in the back of the car. I love paddling in the dark even though it is rather eerie. I guess that is part of the draw. We paddled around 6 miles and got home around 1:00am. Last week we also took a little hike up at Mt. Spokane. Yup, I forgot the camera that time as well. We picked huckleberries and had a nice picnic.

I found some really cool spots the other day. It started out with a trip to Mt. Gear to get some bear spray. Walter went with me because he likes to visit everyone there. Then I decided to go down and check out the river above the 9 mile dam to see if the water level has gone up. I have been wanting to paddle there but the water has been too low. It is still low so we walked around on the bank for a bit. Then I decided to go check out the river below the dam. I ended up taking a 60 some mile detour. I found all sorts of cool places before the river dumps into the Columbia. I think I have been in that area once or twice. I checked out a couple more dams and found a really cool wildlife area called the Devil's Gap where Walter and I got out in the rain and went for a walk. Yesterday I stopped by Northwest Maps and picked up a good Spokane River and Lake Roosevelt/Columbia River map. I feel like a whole new world just opened up for me not far from my house. The area between 9 mile dam and Fort Spokane is definitely going to be on the "too explore" list.

But before I do that...I AM GOING TO GLACIER PARK!!!! I am totally jacked. It is one of my favorite places on the planet and late summer is my favorite time to visit. And I will be there soon...

The Priests

2010-08-20T15:18:00.000-07:00

Walter and I just got back from a quick but very restful and fun trip to Priest Lake. I packed for a possible stay at the upper lake but decided to wait until I got up there to actually figure out what I was going to do. I arrived at Beaver Creek around 11:00 am and decided I was too tired to do anything. I only had one full day off last week and worked this past Tuesday at my on-call job so I have been a bit tired. I put the tent up and Walter and I immediately crawled in and took a snooze. All the rest of the day I either went on short little walks with Wally around the lake shore or I read (The 19th Wife). I stayed outside reading until the moths were flying around my head lamp. At some point in the night the coyotes started howling and it sounded like one was very close, possibly on the road right behind the campground. The wind was blowing really hard all day and I could hear the waves on the lake. The campground, often a RV, ATV, generator, 10,000 children circus was very quiet.

The next morning I was packed up, fed, and on the water by 9:00am for a paddle to the upper lake. To reach the upper lake from where I was, I had to paddle across the bay and either go around a big breakwater fence or portage over the sand spit to get to the thoroughfare, the river that connects the lakes. At 9:05 the wind started in again and by the time I got to the breakwater there were white caps. I broadsided the canoe on the beach and several waves rolled over the top and dumped a bunch of water in. There was a guy who had paddled over in a row boat and he was using his oar to put sand in the boat for ballast. He did not have a life jacket with him.

The thoroughfare had calm water but the upper lake was a bit breezy. We stopped at Geisingers and hung out and talked to some nice folks who had just spent a couple nights up there. They said that that the wind the day before was pretty bad. We hung out at Geisingers for a few hours just sitting on the beach, walking around, and swimming. Then we paddled up the lake a bit but the wind was picking up so we headed back to the thoroughfare.

I have to say that I was absolutely shocked at the number of motor boats. In a 30 minute period there were at least 25 that came into the lake. There were jet skis, a big ass jet boat with the big engine thing on the back, a couple of house boats and people water skiing and tubing which I thought was illegal on the lake. There was a blue oil exhaust haze hanging over the thoroughfare. Really a shame. I passed at least 15 more motor boats on my way out, most of them not clear on what "no wake" means. Too bad. I think the lake should be off limits to motors but everyone we went past seemed to find Walter's presence in the back of the canoe rather amusing.

Because of the wind I toyed with thought of carrying my stuff up the portage trail and walking the 3/4 mile to the boat launch at Beaver Creek. It would have taken me two trips up the 1/4 mile portage trail. But I figured this was a good way to see what the boat and Walter could handle. The water is pretty shallow along the shore and I figured that if I had to I could walk the boat back to Beaver Creek but that was not necessary. The waves were between 2 and 3 feet with white caps but the boat and Walter did great. I promised Walter and Happy Meal if he did not fall or jump out of the boat. He got his burger even though he is vegan.

The morning waves from the sand spit

Number 36

Quiet thoroughfare from the sand spit

Upper lake from Geisinger beach ...before the motor boats showed up

St. Maries River

2010-08-15T22:48:00.001-07:00

On Thursday Walter and I headed back to Idaho for a paddle on the St. Maries. We put in right in downtown St. Maries where the St. M river dumps into the St. Joe. It seems like I have been spending an awful lot of time in Idaho. The river is really mellow and just meanders along with lots of oxbow turns. The weather was a bit less than ideal but we paddled for a few hours until the wind picked up, the sky got a bit ominous and the leaves on the deciduous trees started curling up. It never did storm though. After the paddle we sat by the river and had dinner (cold quesadillas). I got off work early tonight because my caseload is down and went for a lovely paddle on the Spokane river. I put in by Upriver Dam and paddled to Donkey Island where I took a darn cold swim in my skivvies. I have still been having trouble with my vitamin D levels. I am on my third round of mega dose. It seems that I go on the loading dose, finish the ten weeks, start to feel better, go on the maintenance dose and then crash. My levels have gone from 11 to 24 and then to a whopping 25 three weeks ago. My rheumatologist wants me at 75 minimum. I sort of feel like I have missed a bit of the summer because I have had to push myself to go out and do thing. Hiking has been out of the question for the most part. Currently I am not taking any medication for the lupus because at this point it is too hard to tell what the cause of the joint pain is. I have been back on the big dose of D for almost 3 weeks and am starting to feel better. The suckiest part of all this has been the deep bone pain which seems to be easing up a bit.

At any rate, here are some pics of the St. Maries.

The St. Joe and St. Maries rivers

Really wild spawn on a log. The log was covered in about an inch of goo with thousands of egg clusters that go down into the water about a foot. The cells look really divided but the color out of the water looks weird. My guess is they will not hatch. I wanted to call Molder and Skully to come take a look.

Nasty sky

Cute little snake at the put-in. You probably need to click on the picture so you can see the little guy.

Pretty

Bobble Head Bike Ride

2010-08-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

This past week I worked in Kennewick again. The company paid the hotel bill so I did not have to drive home late so I took my mountain bike with me for a little ride along the lower Columbia Plateau Trail. I have been on the northern parts quiet a bit (it runs 130 some miles from Spokane to Pasco) but never on the southern end. It was quiet an adventure. The first 2 miles from Ice Harbor Dam were on good gravel, much like the bits around Turnbull, but after that it all went to hell. The trail is an old rail bed and it is still covered in rip-rap that even sucks down fat tires. It took me 4 hours to go 20 miles. At one point the basalt gravel was so thick I just got off and pushed my bike because it was faster. There is a big park (already forgot the name) that had the sprinklers going on the lawn so I rode through those for a bit to cool off. I felt like I was 10 years old. The trip was fun, the weather was in the 90s when I got back to the car around 1:00pm, the scenery was cool, and I took back roads all the way back to Spokane. I finally visited a lot of little towns I have only heard of because they all have a band and float in the Lilac Parade. I checked out the Kahlotus tunnel which was pretty cool.

Basalt road bed

Ice Harbor Dam on the Snake River

Way cool basalt layers...this is about where a coyote ran in front of me for a bit

View

Ummmm.....like, no problem

Other stuff.......

The week after my dog bite along the CdA river trail, Nancy and I took the boys back up along the North Fork for a couple of nights of camping. We stayed at Big Hank. If you do not like dogs running after you in the campground, do not go there. The campground host is one of the biggest idiots I have ever met...they were her loose dogs that kept chasing us. We still had a good time though it rained the first night we were there and I thought we were going to freeze to death. I wore and hat and gloves to bed. We visited Fern and Shadow falls and took a drive up to the upper reaches of the river. Mostly we just rested and read...and napped.

A cool spot along the river near Magee work station. I waded across the water (up to my waist) and decided that I have to go back there to camp one of these days.

Behind the falls (not sure which one)

Why look, it is raining

Did we really get all our crap and two big dogs in that car?

Benewah Lake

Walter and I took a nice day trip to Benewah Lake. The lake is really shallow but there are tons of fowl, heron, osprey and even a couple bald eagles. Walter is getting the hang of the boat and does not move around too much. He likes to look over the edge and watch everything going on. I am not sure what he is going to do the first time a we see a moose in the water. It will most likely result in both of us getting wet.

Wally in his spot behind me

Under the train bridge

The St. Joe River valley

Nancy and I also did a great bike ride along the Trail of the Coeur d' Alenes. We did not do the whole thing this time. We started at Heyburn and rode to Lane (where?). On the way back we stopped at the ice cream shop in Harrison. We were both feeling sort of silly and kept seeing things that cracked us up.

Stack of bikes on the back of the car

I think this is a warning but it just makes me hungry for pizza

Yes, that is a pay phone on the island

This was in the hallway at the casino gas station

Sharps container in the bathroom of the casino gas station

Daytime Tricks, One Night Stands, and a Bite in the Ass

2010-07-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

No, I am not dead. I took my computer apart quite a few weeks ago and in the middle of the project was distracted by a shiny object and never got back to it. My mother got a new computer and wanted the address of my blog so she could see what I have been up to so I put it all back together today and decided to update. Hi Mama!! The late spring and early summer here in Spokane has been horrible. We had 300% more rain in June than normal. It has been horrid. The temp last night got down to 34 degrees in some parts of the county. Most of my adventures have been day trips in between storm systems. Walter and I have been camping 3 times but never for more than one night at a time for various reasons. This post covers stuff from mid May through yesterday from newest to oldest.

Upper Coeur d' Alene River Trail: This is where the bite in the ass comes in. Yesterday Nancy, Walter and Elliot and I went hiking in North Idaho along the North Fork of the Cd'A river. It is so incredibly beautiful. We hiked somewhere between 8 and 9 miles. The temp was in the 70s and the sky was mostly clear. It was a wonderful reprieve from the horrid weather we have had. About 3/4 of a mile into our hike we stopped at this fantastic overlook to take some pictures and look down into the river valley. Walter and Elliot were on their leashes as normal. Out of nowhere I heard this man yell and a boxer (not on a leash of course) ran up to us. Elliot and Walter freaked out and the dog and Walter were nipping at each other. In the process Walter got me in the ass by mistake, at least I am pretty sure it was Walter and I hope it was a mistake on his part.

The bite as of this morning: it was really more of a pinch and scrape than a puncture

Moose along the river

Nancy and the boys on the trail

Nancy and the boys at one of the many beautiful little creeks we crossed

Amazing view

There is a little speck in the river below the cliffs that is some guy fishing

Nancy checking out what is below the cliff but too scared to stand up and look

What she was looking at

Incredible

The boys in the back of the car

Paddling Bonnie Lake: Last week my buddy Michelle and I went for a paddle to Bonnie Lake. To get to the lake you have to paddle up Rock Creek and into the lake. The narrow and shallow creek keeps large boats out. Animal sightings: balk eagle, 3 heron, buzzards, cows.

Michelle at the put-in

The meandering creek

Creeping through the tules

Cool basal arches

Big beaver dam

Sullivan Lake: Three weeks ago I had a plan to camp at Sullivan Lake up by the Canadian border for 3 nights. I had everything ready so Walter and I could take off as soon as I got off work on Monday. That morning right after getting up Walter barfed. Nancy kept an eye on him and he seemed a little off but kept down his breakfast and dinner so we headed out anyway. We got to the campground around 7:00pm and had just enough time to sit and listen to the night settling in before we hit the sack. All night long Walter's stomach made horrible noises and his gas was enough to send me into shock. The next morning he would not eat his breakfast and then barfed while I was eating mine. The campground host did not have any pepcid (though she did give me two tums which I am not sure dogs can have) so I drove into Metaline Falls to the grocery store. They only had Pepto Bismol which I bought and gave to him. Walter has a history of GI issues, most of which have been serious. Two years ago after having a towel removed from his stomach I had the vet tack his stomach up so it would not twist when he gets bloaty, a frequent problem that is solved by sticking a tube down his throat. So when he did not perk up I said something like, "F*#K" and packed up and came home. We had a vet appointment the next morning and low and behold he was just fine. But it ended up ok I guess because then it rained for three more days.

Pretty Sullivan Lake

Sicko at the campsite

Marie (Muddy) Creek Trail: Having been stir crazy due to the rain Nancy and I planned a day hike along Marie Creek in Idaho regardless of what the weather was going to be like. Hell, we have rain gear, who cares if it rains. What I had not anticipated was the mud. Most of the trail up to the top of the ridge was under several inches of water and was a mess; mucky, slippery, hideous goo. We had fun anyway.

My knees within the first 3 minutes of the hike. I slipped jumping over a creek.

Nancy at our resting spot where I took off my pant legs and washed them out in the creek

Walter

Elliot. This was the only minute of sunshine on the hike. Elliot's legs are pure mud from the knees down.

Paddle at Medical Lake: Nancy and I spent a couple hours paddling around on Medical Lake one day. I am totally loving my new canoe, though because of the cold Walter has only been out once. It should be warming up sometime...

Priest Lake: I think this was right after Memorial Day. Walter and I went up to Beaver Creek Campground for a couple of nights. Yes, it was raining and I knew that it would rain on us, but it never occurred to me that it would rain as hard and as much as it did. We got there on Tuesday late afternoon and set the tent and tarp up while it was just sprinkling. Then around 1:00am all hell broke loose. I had set up the big tarp (12x12) and it was not big enough so I hooked a bunch more smaller ones to it to stop the blowing rain from coming in. I cooked breakfast (cous cous and pea pods pictured below...yeah, the only picture I took) and then decided to take a drive in the car and dry out. We checked out some other campgrounds, went to the tiny but cool museum at Luby Bay and bought coffee in Nordman. It rained all day, non-stop, tons of rain. The ground was so saturated that I put Walter up on the picnic table so he would keep dry. I was sitting there thinking about how much fun I was not having and realized that one of my core beliefs is that it is not necessary to suffer to build character. So at 7:00pm I crammed my soggy gear and stinky wet poodle in the car and drove home. But I did see an elk and a moose and heard an owl hoot all night. He was probably bitching about the rain.

Walter's first ride: Walter had his first ride in the canoe at Fish Lake. Nancy went along and sat on shore ready to help us out if we swamped. The canoe is very efficient to paddle. The trade off is stability, but it is pretty good compared to my kayak. Walter did really well and neither of us got wet. Fish Lake is tiny, shallow, and pretty warm so it was a perfect first spot. I started out with Walter in the front but every time he would move I would try to anticipate the movement and compensate for it. Then I put him behind me and ignored him and it worked much better. We just need more practice but only when it is warmer and ending up in the drink won't freeze us.

Walter in front

Walter in back

One night at Farragut: We had another one nighter at Farragut. I was really busy and we just took off for a quickie. It was great until it started raining.

Palouse and Snake Rivers: My first real paddle in the boat was in mid May. I worked in Richland one day and the company paid for a hotel room so I did not have to drive back late. I took the canoe with me. I got off work around 6:00, checked into the hotel and was about to head down to paddle in the Columbia River around a cool estuary when the thunder and lightening started. The next morning I got up early and took a detour to the confluence of the Palouse and Snake Rivers. It was splendid. I had no agenda and just spent my time paddling up and down the Palouse and then into the Snake a bit. It was a tad windy but not enough to keep me on dry land. After the paddle I stopped off at Palouse Falls. I had never been there before. I was truly moved by the sight and sound of the falls. It was magic.

Rainbow after the storm

Getting ready to set sail

Muddy Palouse River water on the left, clearer Snake River on the right at the confluence

Astounding. There were actually people sitting at the base of the falls on the left but they are so tiny you can not see them in the photo.

Maiden Voyage: My first paddle in the canoe was at Fish Lake. It was very peaceful. And cold. And started raining. Oh well.

First Fire

2010-05-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

Since I have been back from my parent's house I have had a lot of firsts. Walter and I had our first of the year camping trip, a short little stay at Farragut in between horrid spring storm systems. We also had our first walk out in the sagebrush at Escure Ranch near Lamont, Washington. We had never been there before. I finally picked up my new canoe from Mountain Gear and have been waiting (not so patiently) for a pocket of calm air to take it out for my first paddle. I just keep waiting. I have my fingers crossed for this afternoon. And I got rid of my stupid Blazer that was designed for 19 year old males and bought my first blue car. Here are a bunch of pictures that are in no apparent order.

Walter posing at the giant head at Farragut State Park in Idaho

Missouri sunset

Our warm and dry conversion Suburban. Note the extension cord which powered a space heater and lamp (it was damn cold and dark)

The new car and canoe waiting for winds below 30 mph

Beginning work on the garden (I am way back in the corner with the tiller) Things have grown up more and we have had quite a variety of wildlife in the backyard. There is the nightly covy of quail, a red tail hawk, tons of squirrels, nut hatches, gold finches, purple finches, chickidees and stuff I cannot even remember. It is too cool.

Coulee at Escure Ranch. It is owned by the BLM and is a fantastic spring hike back to Towel falls on Rock Creek.

Being silly

Looking down at the waterfall. The creek was too high and mucky for me to get too close for a good shot. The falls are about 15 feet high.

Down in the Valley

Last Minute Ticket

2010-03-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

Yup, I am back in Illinois for a somewhat unexpected visit. Six weeks ago (was it really that long?) my sister called me in the middle of the night to let me know they had to have the paramedics pick my dad up and take him to the hospital. He had all sorts of things going on; kidney failure, high fever, confusion (he kept asking where his horse was...he used to ride a horse to school when he was a kid), and total muscle weakness so bad that he could not feed himself or stand. He was in the hospital for a week and then went to a skilled nursing facility for rehab for five weeks. After we had a good idea of when he was coming home I decided that I needed to take some time off and come help out and make sure the parents could manage. I have been here 5 days. Within the first 24 hours of him getting home I had to call the fire department to come get him up off the floor. That was fun. I got him up on his knees but that was as far as the two of us got. It took 4 burly guys to haul him up. Since then though, he has been doing quite well and we actually had a 5 hour outing today (chiropractor, McD's, and Walmart). Hell, this is the midwest. What else is there to do? My job was so cool and let me take my sick leave to be here. I will be here another week or so and Pa and I are having therapy sessions each day. Tomorrow we are going to work on standing balance. He does not know it yet.

Before I left Spokane Walter and I were able to have a nice day out at Miller Ranch walking around in the sagebrush. The vitamin D has been amazing. I feel like an entirely new person (except I have a cold now). I think I have been ailing for a very long time, perhaps for the last year. So here are some pictures of Walter. I have not taken any pictures in Illinois yet, but the Mississippi River is flooding so I am going to go check it out tomorrow.

Cool basalt Devil's Tower thing

Teasel

Grassy valley

Fishtrap Lake through the trees

Way cool sunset

Still a way cool sunset

Immune

2010-02-21T20:08:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago I started feeling a bit off. I was feeling very fatigued, grouchy, and a bit down. Then I started aching and waking up in the middle of the night stiff and in pain from my neck to my toes. Great. So I limped off to the doctor already pretty sure of what was up. Sure enough, after an 8 year hiatus my lupus symptoms are back and my antinuclear antibodies are elevated. And to top it off I have a pretty significant vitamin D deficiency (no surprise given this northern latitude and lack of winter sunlight). I am getting weekly D treatments and awaiting a referral to the rheumatologist. My hunch is that the vitamin D deficiency triggered my immune system to go nuts, hence the lupus flair-up. I have had to force myself to get out and do things, even ski or snowshoe. I am back to hot baths in the morning to get me going and hot bath at night to help with the pain. I changed my work schedule around to work 5 eight hour days instead of 4 ten hour days and no trips to the Tri-Cities. I could not hack it. On really bad days I come home at lunch and take a nap. I seem to have a bit less fatigue now than a few weeks ago but no real change in pain level. In addition I have to have hand surgery again to remove another calcification on an MCP joint. It is no big deal though. Last time I got some great pain meds and took out my own stitches.

I have done a bit. Nancy and I have done some short ski days, Walter and I went snowshoeing a couple of times, and on my 45th birthday in January we drove over to Lake CdA to watch the eagles and then go for a walk up Beauty Creek. We did not get to see any eagles flying but we could spot about 15 in the trees above Wolf Lodge Bay. That was cool. Walter is doing well. He had a pretty good check-up with Dr. Tammy but needs his teeth cleaned and is developing cataracts. He is only 7 so I am surprised about the cataracts. So here are some pictures of stuff we have done lately. Once I start feeling better I will be out running around more. The canoe is almost paid off and the lakes are melted. Walter can't wait. Good thing since the snow is starting to really melt in the mountains.

Skiing

I am totally into the whole Russian scarf thing now. Scarves are SO HANDY!!!!

Nancy in her fancy knickers and wild socks

Beauty Creek and Eagles

I was so amazed by the ice in the creek that I could not stop taking pictures (you should be able to click the picture and see a close-up)

There are four eagles in this picture. Honest.

Hiking/Snowshoeing

Nancy stripping down to the base layers because it was so warm. On this day the snow was so melted and packed we did not need our snowshoes

Bare ground at 4,000 feet

Poodle Parade

Tired boys on the way home

Decas Horribilis

2010-01-01T00:47:00.001-08:00

Well, I am glad that decade is finally fucking over. Not all of it was bad; it was the decade during which Walter was born. He has been the highlight. Nancy and I attended First Night Spokane again this year and had a lovely time. At midnight we stood in front of a bonfire in the middle of Spokane Falls Blvd in the rain and watched the fireworks. I honestly had a sense of relief that we were entering a new decade, even though I have never put too much concern into arbitrary time. The past ten years has honestly been hell: Morgan dying, Nancy and Seth moving to Mexico, grad school, Morgan dying, Republicans, poverty, war, Morgan dying.

I have had some good hikes in the past year, been on a few camping trips, spent a lot of time in the sunshine but the year, like the decade, has been dominated by one central event. In May, on what would have been Morgan's 23rd birthday Nancy and Seth and I had an interment ceremony at Greenwood Cemetery in Spokane. Until then Morgan's ashes had been here at home. Making a decision was too difficult but we slowly began to talk about it and come up with a plan. I guess we just needed the time because it was so big. Deciding on a monument was also difficult but in a way very comforting. We managed to acquire two of the last spots in the older section of the cemetery and also one of the most diverse; just across the road from the Japanese section and over the hedge from the Jewish area. Morgan would be so jiggy with that. She used to like going to the Jewish cemetery to see the Hebrew words and the stones on the markers. Many of the head stones in our section are from the 1800s. We researched Victorian grave customs and designs and came up with a plan. But in the end, we changed it all around and created something strictly Morgan.

I am not sure I can put into words what the act of memorializing Morgan has done. Perhaps it is another piece of peace. Something lifted for me, but in the same act of release there was a new understanding of the depth of our collective loss. I know it brought the three of us together with our grief. We were able to have a lousy Christmas together this year and actually talk about how lousy we felt. There is always a huge elephant in the room when the three of us are together for a special occasion. It should be a quartet, not a trio and there is nothing we can do about it.

Nancy wrote the poem based on some Victorian styles. She wrote it to be the point of view of the the three of us individually.

This is a name Morgan gave herself. We found the name and title written at the beginning of one of her journals.

Thanksgiving in Montana

2009-12-16T19:13:00.000-08:00

Yeah, it was a few weeks ago. Oh, well. For T-Day, Nancy and Walter and I went snow shoeing on the Montana/Idaho border. The snow was so packed and wet that we did not actually need our snowshoes so I guess we just went boot shoeing. We did not go anywhere with dramatic scenery but it was nice and quiet. We ran into a couple of people on skis and the backcountry patrol hauling someone out behind a snowmobile. The day before we had gone on our first x-c ski at Mt. Spokane. That was fun as well. Today Walter and I were going to hit Mt. Spokane for snowshoeing but it was raining up there. It did not sound too fun. I am not sure what Christmas is going to bring. I am still working in Richland once a week so my weekends are short. My Solstice Choir performance is this next Saturday and I have to say this is the best sounding choir yet. We have 21 women in the choir this year. I am very excited. So here are some pictures of skiing and booting.

Packed road/trail near Lookout Pass (actually an old railroad bed) looking toward Copper Basin

My most favorite pack of all time

Sign in Wallace

Big moose tracks on Mt. Spokane. Evidently the day before a cougar had killed something at one of the trail junctions.

Nancy as the clouds started rolling in.

The first trail junction at Mt. Spokane

Walter's Christmas Gift

2009-11-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

Walter and I have been lying a bit low the past month. We have had our usual little hikes at Dishman Hills and along the river but no out of town jaunts. Instead I have been driving to Richland, Washington once a week to do some extra overtime work for my company. This is in part to get ahead on some bills and to pay for Walter's Christmas present...a new canoe.

When Walter was a wee lad I had a tandem kayak that had adjustable seats and was perfect for solo paddling with a dog on overnight trips. Alas, for some reason we sold it. My big giant tripping canoe, at 19 feet, is too large for me to paddle myself and Walter does not fit into my tripping kayak with me. The northwest is full of fantastic canoe tripping locations. Since I have decided that I am no longer such a fan of backpacking, this is a great way of getting out on our own while being able to lug a bit more comfort with us (the real reason backpacking has fallen out of favor with me...I like chairs, thicker sleeping mats, and extra tarps for getting out of the rain). The canoe is currently on order and layaway at Mountain Gear and will be here sometime in February. I am splurging on the lighter composit model and ours will be an ivory color to hide the scratches.

On a related note, Walter has been having some emotional issues of late. I have had him since before he was born. He was crate trained from birth. All I had to do was point to his crate and he would get in it. Over the past few months, he has developed some anxiety about his crate. He runs and hides, even jumping over the gate on the staircase and over the furniture. Once in his crate he shakes and slobbers and is a general mess. He must be in a crate because he gets into things (one time he ate a pillow). The only thing different is that Bubble is here now but this started before she came along and has been getting progressively worse. I have tried everything I can think of from different blankets to keeping any other dogs out, making sure the crate was light so he could see in it better, moving it to a different spot. For one week he ate in the crate at meals and went in willingly but that changed as well. So Walter went to the vet the other day and we are trying some anti-anxiety meds. Something must have happened when he was in the crate and now he associates it with that. The hope is to lower his anxiety enough to re-establish a new association. He has always gotten a cookie when he gets in and now he will not eat them when he is in there. It is so weird. Perhaps I have given him some sort of Mama's boy complex or something. We are doing a one month trial with the drugs as well as trying some retraining so we shall see.

The snow has been dumping in the mountains the past week so skiing and snowshoeing will be happening soon. I pulled Walter's snowsuit out of a bag this morning and his little nub tail started wagging energetically. He has not even seen it for two years! Crazy dog.

Nomadic Poodle

2009-10-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

I think this is the longest I have gone without posting. Walter and I have been out and about a lot and time to sit down and post has been at a premium. Aside from doing fun outdoor stuff, I spent a lot of time in late August and September working in the garden and in the kitchen doing some fun canning. Carrots anyone? I usually have a billion pounds of tomatoes to can but they did terrible this year. My knee issue post trip to Upper Priest Lake has not resolved completely so I will be having an MRI (pass the Valium). It is probably a bunch of meniscus rattling around in there. As long as I do not move or sit still it is all ok.

But back to important stuff. Here is what Walter (and sometimes Nancy and Elliot) and I have been up to in the past month not necessarily in order.

Flathead River Valley, Montana

Being the crazy people we are, Nancy and I drove over to the Flathead Valley to pick up some unwanted poodles from the horrible puppy mill woman. This is the same place that Elliot came from. We got three from her. Really, I just want to beat her senseless. She has absolutely no idea how horrible her actions are. No, the dogs are well fed but that is about it. She is breeding every kind of Oodle you can think of. Of the three, we still have one. Poor Bubble. She is basically feral but has come a long way. She is now in the house with us and follows the other dogs around. She will still not let us willingly touch her but she does not run as far away when we try. She has the same vacant look Elliot had at first but now he is our giant bouncy love muffin. The drive over and back was very beautiful along the Clark Fork and Flathead Rivers. The bison were out near Lone Pine which was cool.

Flathead River. I have a desire to take a paddling trip down this river next summer.

Bison outside of Lone Pine

Bubble as of yesterday after a bath and haircut

Bitterroot Valley, Montana

Walter and I went over to Montana again to Lake Como in the Bitterroot Valley. For some reason I have never been south of Missoula and was frankly astounded by the beauty. The valley has a strange smell that I picked up the second I turned right off Reserve Street in Missoula and kept getting a wiff of the whole weekend. It is a mix of sweetgrass, juniper, and cow poo. There is a state park at Lake Como that is usually wild in the summer with jet skis and wild parties but it was almost empty when we were there. The first night we stayed in the more primitive campground and we were the only ones there. It was a bit on the dingy side. Then the next morning we found the nicer campground down the road so we relocated and hung out with the old set in their RVs. The lake was nice and warm for a swim. We drove into the hamlet of Darby and poked around. The town has old west building fronts. We went to the old west mini mart for ice cream. We drove the back roads from the campground to Hamilton along the Bitterroot River on the way home. It is totally beautiful.

Walter just before our swim

The Bitterroot range

The river

A cute sign made by a child. The dog drawing looks amazingly like Walter

The lovely valley

Sea Level: the Pacific Coast

We took a VERY quick trip over to the coast to deliver one of the poodles. We delivered the dog (Topaz) and camped for the night at Ocean City State Park. The weather was wet and windy but that was ok. Nancy and Walter and I snuggled down in the back of the suburban. We were planning on spending two nights since we were there but the woman called us the next morning at 7:00am and wanted us to pick the dog up. I think the woman wanted a perfect out of the box dog. She was upset that Topaz did not know what to do with a ball. Screw her. Topaz now has a wonderful home with a family that lets her sleep in bed with them and does not care that she is not perfect. On the way home we stocked up at Trader Joe's and had a wonderful picnic at Lake Easton in the Cascade Mountains.

Walter's first trip to the ocean

Nancy giving a marine biology lesson to a stray child she picked up on the beach

Walter and mama snogging on the beach

Pretty Topaz at Lake Easton

Deep Creek and the Spokane River

We have spent a bit of time hiking, biking, and paddling around the Spokane River. It is close beauty. Highlights are the wonderful rock formations at Deep Creek and a moose that was just a few feet from our put-in around the other side of a huge willow. It scared the crap out of me. Deep Creek is just magical and the Centennial Trail from TJ Meenach to Nine Mile is my favorite section. We were going for a ride every couple of nights with a swim in the river part way through.

The moose has just his head sticking up above the water under the willow branches. I SWEAR, IT IS REALLY THERE!!!

The Deep Creek bridge and beach were I used to spend tons of time in the summer swimming from sun up to sundown.

Nancy in boat

Priest Lake

Nancy, Elliot and Walter and I took our annual trip to Jean's cabin at Priest Lake. The weather was unreal. We did some paddling and exploring and spent one entire day just sitting in lounge chairs on the dock. We explored the waterfalls and waterslides on Lion Creek and I even ventured a swim. But man, it was cold. The falls and the waterslides are amazing and each set of slides and falls have deep pools under them all the way down the valley. We found several great places to camp along the creek if the urge should ever strike us. But it was nice having a cabin to retire to at the end of the day. Below are pictures of Lion Creek, my cold swim, and the lake.

Cool tree trunk

Other Fantastic Things:

Nancy, Walter and Lily on a hike at Riverside State Park

Looking down at the Lake City from Mt. CdA (with Mt. Spokane in the background)

Changing colors on the Caribou Ridge Trail

Nancy on Mt. Spokane, not sure if it is summer or fall...shorts or long johns?

Yaak River, Montana

2009-08-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago (yup, I am slow again) Walter and I took a little trip to Northwest Montana and took our friend Fabiola along who was visiting from Mexico. I had never been there before so it was a treat for all of us. This time Nancy stayed home and worked in the garden. We stayed at the Whitetail Forest Circus campground on state route 508. The river is totally cool and there were very few people around. We did not do any hiking because of my leg. I have not had an MRI done but my doctor thinks I tore my hamstring. I am not sure I tore anything since I don't really remember a sudden onset, just a slow freight train of pain after our backpacking trip. I was treating it myself with ultrasound and stuff and getting some assistance at work from anyone with some spare time, but none of us really have time to work on each other so I got a referral to have therapy somewhere else. I need more than just sporadic treatments.

The weather was absolutely wonderful for the first 8 hours, then it rained like hell the rest of the time. It was fun anyway. We took a nice drive up near the border on some bumpy dirt roads, collected rocks from a cool creek, and read and slept a lot. Fabiola does not care what the weather is like as long as she is not in Mexico. We had lunch at the Dirty Shame Saloon http://www.dirtyshamesaloon.com/in the hamlet of Yaak (I had the grilled cheese which was pretty darn good). It was interesting. It used to be a wild ass biker bar and is now just a bar. When we walked in some folks were watching FOX news (should have been the first clue we were not in Kansas anymore) and Obama was giving out congressional medals. I could not hear all of it but I heard the name Harvey Milk (I am pretty sure he was not there) and one of the guys in the bar said, "They are giving a medal to a gay?" Oh well, even stupid people need a place to live.

On the way home we took a detour through Troy and down highway 56 along the Cabinet Mountains. ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!! We stopped by an old growth forest and checked out some other campgrounds along the way. It is a pretty cool spot for me to file back into my brain.

Yaak Falls. They are a series of falls but we did not go down and look at the lower ones because the weather was hell

Right behind our camping spot

Just down a bit from out site

The river through the trees

Fabiola

Walter trying to stay out of the rain

Collecting rocks

Dirty Shame Saloon

Bull Lake

Bull Lake looking the other way

Walter at Bull Lake

Fabiola hugging a giant tree

Me kissing Walter inside of a giant tree

Cabinet Mountain Wilderness

Inch by inch

2009-08-11T11:13:00.001-07:00

While Nancy and her feet were sailing around the San Juan Islands, I stayed at home with the dogs and worked in the garden. It blows me away that the garden was just a clear swath of dirt 4 months ago. Nancy and Seth have done a lot of work making flower beds and pathways. It was my turn to do some fixing up, weeding and painting.

Backpacking self discovery

2009-07-27T22:49:00.001-07:00

Nancy and the boys getting ready to hit the trail

It has been several years since I have been on a backpacking trip. Backpacking has always been a huge love for me. After 16 years I finally got Nancy to accompany me on a trip to see the wonders and joys of carrying your stuff into the wilderness and living a minimalist life for a few days. I did, however, discover something about myself. I no longer enjoy backpacking.

Let me explain. I love the hiking. I don't mind the heavy pack...well, I mind it a bit more than I used to. I love the cooking not-so-hot meals on a one burner stove under the canopy of trees with no one else around. I love being able to strip off my clothing and jump bare ass naked into a freezing lake. All of this is over shadowed by missing really cushy sleeping mats and chairs. My body no longer enjoys sitting on the ground. I can't get comfortable enough to enjoy my book.

My hips hurt, my shoulders hurt, I can't sleep...

I never thought it would come to this.

Here is what happened. Since it was Nancy's first trip (first of many I was hoping), we strapped on the packs and hiked to the top of Upper Priest Lake. I figured that would be a good one for her; six miles with only one serious hill at the very end. The walk was great. Walter and Elliot went with us. It went downhill from there. Neither of us slept. We were on the light weight thermarest pads. They are expensive and not cushy enough for middle age. We wanted to sit on the beach and read and relax but it was impossible to get comfortable. I remembered the extra sleeping pads and folding chairs in the box on top of my car. We discussed our plight and decided to tough it out. The lake was beautiful and no one else was around. It was peaceful and quiet. Then I looked at Walter and (freshly shaved) he was shivering even though he had a sweater on. It was pretty darn cold for July. We simultaneously decided we needed to save his life and sacrifice our time in the wilderness to make him comfortable. The upper lake has its own climate. It is a lot wetter and colder. So we packed up, hiked out (me messing up the IT band in my left leg again), and went to Reeder Bay and paid for a spot overlooking the lower lake. It was noisy, crowded, and expensive but we were warm as we watched the jet skiers from our lawn chairs. Oh, and there were 5 jillion less mosquitoes.

The revised plan. When we want to camp away from other folks we are going to pack up our canoe with all of our luxury items and find some lovely beach on one of the many lakes we have around us. I mean, we have a bloody 19 foot tripping canoe. Last time we went for a weekend we took our big tent, a bbq grill, big cooler, cushy sleeping mats, big sleeping bags, the deluxe camp stove, a table and chairs and two dogs. Sounds a lot more comfortable, huh?

Elliot showing off his form

Cool old cabin

The beautiful upper lake

The upper lake again

Nancy and Elliot attempting to get comfortable (note the stocking cap and long sleeves)

A huge blowdown

The actual camping (Navigation) area with bear box in the back left

Walter walking through the big blowdown area. Some say it was a tornado.

Reeder Bay: ok, this is more like it

Still life with Elliot

On a hike along the Lakeshore trail

Mama in the water

Poodles on guard

Up

2009-07-11T22:15:00.001-07:00

The other day I went and parked my butt down by the river for about 5 hours. I finished one book and started another. I stared at the sky. Here is what I saw from my back on a blanket...

What I saw when I sat up

Shirtless on Snow Peak

2009-07-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

Yup, that's right. Hey, it was hot and no one was around. Walter and I got back yesterday from a three day hiatus in the Kettle Mountains. It was glorious. We stayed at the Canyon Creek Campground off Highway 20, our usual spot when we are up there.

We took a long hike (about 11 miles) on Tuesday. There was absolutely no objective to the hike. One day I started thinking about my 50 peaks by the time I am 50 thing. I was figuring out how many I had to do for the upcoming summers before I turn 50. Then I started thinking about how many weekends there are in the summer and realized that every summer and early fall weekend for the next 5 years would be consumed with this venture. I started feeling like a prisoner. There are too many places I want to go and too many things to do. Some of those 50 peaks do not even have a view! So my new thing is "A Number of Different Things Outdoors by the Time I am Older than Today." Pretty vague but it works.

SO ANYWAY...We took off on the Sherman Peak trail to see what was on the other side. Perhaps we would climb to the top of Snow Peak (we have already done Sherman Peak), perhaps not. When I got a look at the saddle we would have to go up and the rocks and tons of blowdowns from the White Mountain fire, I decided a colonoscopy sounded more fun. Instead we hooked up with the trail to the Snow Peak shelter, thinking we would check it out. Well, we were less than a 1/4 mile from the shelter when I was distracted by the mountain's summit. The way up was nice a grassy, but it sure looked steep. I told myself I would hike uphill for 40 minutes and if I was still not at the top I would turn around. I still had 5 miles or so to walk to get back to my car. But it was not I, but Walter who turned the tables.

Walter is a good dog. A grand dog. He rarely complains and he follows me to the ends of the earth with good cheer. Not once has he given me any indication that he was not happy stomping around in the woods...until Tuesday. It was damn hot on the side of Snow Peak and the only shade was from some very small trees dotting the hillside. That is why I had my shirt off. Anyway, I was doing a sort of switchback side slope thing to get up the hill because straight up was killing my Achilles tendons. I would pick out little landmarks to walk to and often these were the small trees. I turned around at one of them and realized a few moments later that Walter was not with me. He had stopped in the (barely any) shade of one of the trees and laid down and was looking at me like I was insane. At that moment I realized that he was no longer having fun and I could not possibly force him to continue. I sat down where I was and he came and wedged himself behind me and used his feet against my bum to keep from sliding down the hill. It then took us 50 minutes to walk down what took 30 minutes to go up because it was so steep. Up is far easier. Once we started walking down he cheered up greatly. And to be honest, so did I. The older I get the less of a masochist I am. The view from the sides of the mountain were just as good as the view from on top.

Walter was one tired puppy by the time we got back to the campground. He was so tired he did not even see the bear. Yes, a bear and it was cool. Actually he did not see it because he is short and could not see over the bushes. But I saw it. Right by the toilet. Right where I was heading. In desperate need. So I backed up slowly (oh, he was watching me) and I put Walter in the car and grabbed a pan and spoon and chased the little bastard away. Then he came back. Evidently he had run the wrong way. So I chased him again. I think I interrupted his snack time at the adjacent camp spot where Daryl and Dorothy (names I gave them because they look like a Daryl and Dorothy) had left out a cooler, bucket of huckleberries, trash to burn in the fire pit and other assorted goodies. He just got the huckleberries (the first of the season) and the paper plates in the fire pit. He sure was cute though.

Columbine and Lupin, my two favorites

The North Cascades are way in the distance...they don't really show up in the picture but can be seen in the flesh

Snow Peak Cabin

Snow Peak...yup, the crap in the foreground is what I would have had to go over to get up there

Looking towards Canada...I was about right here several years ago when an F-16 was buzzing around in the valley below me. It was weird.

Actually, I was just leaving

Columbia Mountain. There is a cool old lookout building on top.

Mama and the boy resting on the side of Snow. Walter had his feet jammed up against my butt so that he would not slide down the hill. It was that steep.

So tired he was resting his back-end on a rock. Those orange things are at a trail junction with an emergency barrel that has a sleeping bag and other stuff in it. I think they are used in the winter to mark the trail because this is a big backcountry ski and snowshoe area. Big avalanche area as well. One of the other trail junctions has a sled for emergency evacuation.

Pretty little wet spot

Huckleberries and grape nuts. Evidently, according to Dorothy and Daryl this area has the earliest ripening of any part of the country. They were pretty good.

The slope we were walking up with I think Edds Mountain in the background

Seven Decades and Some Change

2009-06-24T19:46:00.000-07:00

A 100 mile bike ride in a day is called a Century. Yesterday I did 73 miles. They do not have a term for that so I just made one up. Yesterday Nancy's friend Janis dropped us off in Mullan, Idaho at 7:00 in the morning and we rode the Trail of the Coeur d' Alenes to Plummer, Idaho http://parksandrecreation.idaho.gov/assets/content/docs/Recreation/TrailCDAWeb.pdf. Wonderful scenery, no cars to dodge, mostly flat or downhill (except for the last 7 miles), and a temperature range that stretched from the low 40s to the mid 70s. Before the ride I had a secret fear that I was going to end up crawling most of the way but it was actually a piece of cake.

We froze at the very beginning and ended up putting on every stitch of clothing we brought with us. The first part of the trail is in the shade of the pines down the narrow portions of the upper Silver Valley. Once we got to Kellogg (about 20 miles from the start) we began to warm up. We had our first lunch there and stripped off the layers. The trail follows I-90 very closely until Pinehurst where it ducks behind the mountains where the South Fork and North Fork of the Coeur d' Alene rivers come together. That was a wonderful spot with great views of the mountains across the valley. We had lunch #2 around the halfway point in a grove of cedars. Absolutely lovely.

Not far past the cedar grove the pine trees start to give way to more riparian areas and the trail travels along the river and a bunch of linked lakes. Tons of fowl and best of all, A MAMA MOOSE AND TWO BABIES!!! That was the absolute highlight of the trip. Mama was just munching away on moose moss by the trail and the babies were hanging out waiting. We saw another female across the trail in another marshy area and Nancy was pretty sure she saw a bull moose way in the back near some trees. There were also deer and lots of turtles. We stopped in Harrison and had lunch #3 along with some darn good ice cream. Past Harrison the trail goes along lake Coeur d' Alene to Heyburn State Park and up the narrow canyon of Plummer Creek. The mileage markers were screwing with my head because we hit mile #1 (we were going backwards and started at mile 72) then hit mile 0 and still had another mile to go. Weird. Janis was waiting for us in Plummer (we called her on the way...no cell service in Harrison but I got service on a little bridge in the middle of no where...go figure). On the way back we stopped in Rockford, WA at the Harvester for a beer. Yummie. Amazingly I feel really good today, all except for the back side that feels like it sat on a fence post all day.

The Mullan Trailhead

Before our butts got sore

The chilly Silver Valley

Under the freeway in Wallace

Lunch in Kellogg

Pretty

Pretty #2

Under the cedar trees

Lunch again

Mama

Babies

Lake CdA

Going up Plummer Canyon

Plummer trailhead

Still upright

hikebikepaddle

2009-06-17T20:47:00.001-07:00

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.

Cool snake skeleton

Lush area along the trail

Our breakfast spot above Amber Lake

Sparky and Michelle

Dark clouds on Mt. Spokane

Tunnel Vision

2009-06-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

Nancy in the Taft Tunnel

On my last weekend (midweek) off, Nancy and I took a trip along the Hiawatha Trail on the Idaho/Montana border. We parked at the Adair trailhead (not recommended because the road is hell) about halfway on the trail and headed up hill through the Taft tunnel and then back down. If we would not have had dogs at home to worry about we would have done the entire route bottom to top. We still got in most of the trail, about 18 miles, half up hill and half down. The Taft tunnel (1.66 miles long) was wet and cold but we brought along plenty of extra clothing because it is still spring in the mountains. They had snow up there the night before. We met up with several people on the trail who were unprepared and I gave my rain coat to a woman who had her little son on the back of her bike. They each had a sweatshirt and nothing more. The poor tyke was freezing. As we were leaving a pretty cold storm blew in and drenched the place. During our trip through one of the tunnels we actually had to scare out three deer that were wandering through. We were all pretty freaked out by each other's presence. Here are some pictures from our outing. It was a lot of fun.

The Kathy and Nancy Show by the Taft Tunnel waterfall

Crazy chipmunk that tried to climb up my pants leg...Nancy ended up giving it a couple of almonds just for showmanship

One side of a trestle

Nancy at the beginning of the ride at the Adair trail head

A meadow along the road back to I-90. This is such a magical place.

Tag Team Camping

2009-06-06T21:22:00.000-07:00

Beauty Creek

I had a good visit with my peeps in Illinois, got a lot of work done, and came home exhausted. The train ride home was good; no buses on the way back and I actually got into Spokane 20 minutes early. To celebrate the wonderful weather we have been having Nancy and I decided to go camping for a couple of nights. The problem is that our house sitter is out of town until the end of June. So we did Tag Team Camping. We both drove out to the Beauty Creek Campground (with Walter and his mother Ruby) near Coeur d' Alene, set up camp, had dinner, hung out, then I came home to spend the night with the rest of the dogs while Nancy and Ruby stayed. The next morning Walter and I drove back out. It was a wonderful day. We hung out, collected cool rocks from the creek, sat in chairs and looked at the inside of our eyelids, then Nancy and Ruby went home for the night. Nancy came back out the next morning at around 9 and low and behold she had Mr. Seth with her! I almost fell off my lawn chair. So Seth cooked marshmallows for breakfast and helped us find cool rocks for our garden. It was fun. The campground is pretty nice, though basic and hardly anyone there. There was a big group of teenagers who stayed up all night and were sort of loud. When I drove out around noon they were all sleeping so I pulled into their camping spot and started honking the horn. Instant Karma. So here are some pictures...

Nancy with Walter and Lily

Seth with breakfast

Seth and his mom

Seth with a rock

Land of Obama

2009-05-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

Here is the skinny. I got on a train in Spokane, got off the train in St. Paul and got on a bus so that I could make my connection in Chicago (work on the track), got off the bus, got on another train and was picked up by my mom at the train station in good old Quincy, Illinois. Here is what I have been doing since I got here: repaired some spots on my parent's roof (the old man is still stewing on whether or not he wants me to do the whole thing and I am trying hard to be patient), currently in the middle of building a shed with my sister, drove to Kansas City, for a day to see my incredibly cute great nieces and great nephew, helped my dad get his power chair out of the house (MAJOR ORDEAL), and have hung out a little bit with my friends driving around and goofing off (not enough). The weather has been great in between the horrible spells. I miss the hell out of Walter. He had to stay home but he has been here before. When he was three months old he rode here in the back seat of my truck and got to hang out in the nursing home with my grandparents (grandma was quite smitten with him). So here are just a few pictures of things.

Getting off the train in St. Paul (the guy in the picture butted in front of me when I was getting on the bus)

Union Station with the Sears Tower (it is no longer the Sears Tower but cannot think of the name of it)

Some of Chicago's cool art deco stuff

Sculling in the Chicago River (yuck)

A hawk in the tree behind my parent's house

The floor of the shed (it now has walls)

A lovely storm

One of the many WAY cool Victorian houses in Hannibal, Missouri

My mom and some pretty sweet kids

The largest privately owned mausoleum in the country...space for 100! It is down the street from my friend Kim's house and is a cool place to walk around.

The weird city vault. It may have been used to store bodies from riverboat accidents until their families could arrange for transport but no one is sure.

The graves of the children from the orphanage who died in a cholera epidemic at the turn of the 20th century

View of the Mississippi River

Easter Stroll

2009-04-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

Instead of hunting for easter eggs today I travelled back out into the sagebrush to hunt for wild flowers. Walter and I took Nancy and Elliot along with us to the Miller Ranch/Fishtrap Lake area. It was nice. The very early flowers are up such as lomatium, butter cup, blue bells, yellow bells, and prairie stars. The arrow root and hookers balsam are coming up, yet not blooming. We could find the wild onion leaves by the smell but no blooms on those either. The day was actually rainy and cold and felt more like fall. We roamed around the highland area checking out all the ponds (we could hear frogs) and then headed down to the lake where we discovered TONS of empty beer cans. We filled my pack with cans but could not pack all of them out because there were so many. BLM land tends to be sort of trashy in the popular areas because there is very little oversight. Nancy took a nap in the grass while I looked at the desert flower book. We are wanting to go back next week to see the changes. We found some really cool fronds coming up through the rocky soil and I would like to know what they are. I am sure they will flower. Here are some of the pictures I took from our blustery walk.

Fishtrap Lake

Fishtrap Lake again

Fishtrap Lake from above

A cool and weird tree stump

Pond

Another pond

Nancy and the Boys

And still another pond

Coyote den

Lakeview Ranch...Out in Coulee Country

2009-04-07T22:16:00.000-07:00

The weather here has been so incredible; 50's and 60's during the day, lots of sunshine and blue sky. For recreation today I was thinking of heading east to the Montana Idaho divide for some warm air snow shoeing, but Walter got mad at me and said, "Are you insane? We get a burst of spring and you want to go walk around in the snow?" So I changed my plans. I drove out to the Central Washington desert near a little town called Odessa for a walk through the sagebrush and basalt canyons. Lakeview Ranch is now owned by the BLM. When they got possession of it back in the early 90's I went out there to do some archaeology. I have not been back in 16 years. It was a pretty cool reunion.

It was hot today and I actually got a bit of a sunburn on my arms and neck. I gave Walter my t-shirt because I was worried about him getting a burn and did not worry about myself. Oh, well. What's a little mitochondrial DNA mutation. I must say, I had an excellent time and just felt a breath of Spring air push into my body. We started out on a trail behind the ranch buildings and then just wandered around, up and down the cliffs and draws, finding little ponds and lakes hidden behind the basal spires. Since there are very few trees out there, we had to seek out shade against a north facing cliff. That was really cool. The two big lakes, Pacific and Walter (isn't that funny) are actually bone dry. We saw tons of ducks and other birds and actually saw about 5 mule deer that we scared away from one of the ponds. Oh, and we found a dead turtle and I thought about carrying it home but it was sort of rotten and squishy and I did not have an extra plastic bag to put it in. Ultimately we ended up going in a big circle, with 1/2 of our walk off trail. I love being out in the scablands and just taking off. So here are some of our pictures.

Weather Buffet

2009-04-01T20:59:00.000-07:00

Walter and I just got back from a quick trip to Idaho. We rented a cabin at Farragut State Park and blew off a bit of steam. We had no trouble relaxing. The cabins are tiny and bare. The ones at Priest Lake and Heyburn have microwaves in them so that is what I prepared for. I was wrong. I was desperate for something warm to eat last night so we drove into Athol to the pizza place. I was actually just going to settle for mini mart food but we found the KKJ pizza shop. It was a good dinner and breakfast. The worst part was that I did not have any hot coffee. We did a fair bit of hiking around. Most of the trails near the lake are pretty free of snow, but the ones higher still have quite a bit, though not too hard to walk on in just boots. The weather was a bit of everything: sun, wind, snow, rain, and a totally clear sky last night with bitterly cold temps. During one of my nocturnal trips to pee outside (no bathroom or running water) I heard an owl hooting at the same time I saw a shooting star. That was cool. We saw lots of deer and even more deer poo, watched a hawk search for dinner in a field, Walter was tormented by the ground squirrels that mocked him and then ran down their holes before he could get there, and had our first encounter with a skunk. I did not actually see the skunk but I could certainly smell it. I could see the tall brush moving around about 10 feet away from us. So here are some pictures of our trip and then some of snowshoeing last week. The first picture is of Walter sleeping next to me on the double bunk bed in the cabin.

Our little cabin sort of in the woods

Happy, happy Walter

A view across the bay

Sunset on the mountains

Sunset and the passing storm clouds

Walter napping during a snow picnic

A six to eight foot tall root ball with snow on top

Tree branches and moss in my face

Cedar Tree

A Wild Ride

2009-03-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

Mt. Spokane Trail Map (click on it to get a bigger view)

Last Tuesday on my day off Nancy and I went up to Mt. Spokane to do a little cross country skiing. Unfortunately, I grabbed the wrong pair of skis for her so she was unable to ski at all. BUT, I had a blast! Not wanting the opportunity of having a ride go to waste, I had her drop me off in the snowmobile parking lot and I skied down trail 120 which is a snowmobile route. Wow, was it a blast. There were two bits where I had to take my skis off and walk down because it had not been groomed and some snowmobiles had chewed it up pretty bad. I kept getting the back of my ski caught up in the bumpy torn up tracks and was certain that I was going to end up dead with my head through a tree. For most of the way it was downhill. I took my snowshoes with me and when I got down to trail 120B I strapped them on and walked down to the first trailhead by the entrance where Nancy was waiting.

I had started thinking of summer and warm weather when we got more snow. I even sent in for a chance to get an overnight trail permit for the Enchantment Lakes area in the North Cascades. Even so, I was again stunned by the beauty of the fresh snow and blue sky as I cruised down the mountain.

I can't think of a title for this post so I will call it...lamp post

2009-03-04T20:05:00.000-08:00

No notable exploits have taken place in the past few weeks. I have been sticking pretty close to home. Walter and I went for a little snow hike on Mt. Spokane today. The snow is turning to complete slush and was really wet and heavy. It actually rained on us for a bit. We had a thunderstorm last night that was pretty amazing. Here are some pictures of a few little things I have done over the past few weeks. I am starting to get anxious about spring. I am ready.

Walter with frost on his eyelashes

The downhill ski area taken from a cross country trail at night (yeah, I went up skiing alone in the dark one night. It was a blast...yes mom, I had my headlamp...and even a spare)

Trees hanging out in the dark

Nancy the tree hugger

Weird sight along the Centennial Trail

The Spokane River and driftwood

An owl up in a tree

The sun trying to burn through the clouds

Wild turkey and deer hanging out together

A snowy trail

Manressa Grotto, a really cool rock shelter on the Kalispel Reservation

Delicious

2009-02-15T21:29:00.000-08:00

In the past two weeks I have had a few wonderful days of cross country skiing. The weather has been perfect even when it hasn't really been that great. I have been going up to Mt. Spokane because there is a huge network of trails that receive regular grooming and fresh powder. A trail map with distances in kilometers can be found here... http://www.spokanenordic.org/pages/Downloads/map%20Junc%201%20final.pdf Last Thursday when I went I skied 10 miles. I was impressed with myself. I have been doing the arc trainer at the gym and I can sure tell a difference. I don't even have to crawl to my car after skiing that far! The picture above is from the Shadow Mountain trail. My new favorite trail is Silver. Last time I was there I went uphill one way on it and then turned around and went down for the ride. I also love the Quartz Mountain trail. Nice and long with great views in good weather. Two weeks ago when I was there the snow was sticking to the grip part of my skis really bad. I did not have any wax in my bag so I went into the Nova Hut, started a fire in the stove, picked candle wax out of the windows, and melted it on the stove on a metal trail sign that was in there. Then I quickly put it on my skis and rubbed it around really fast and hard with newspaper. It actually worked.

Doin' Stuff

2009-02-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

A little slow on the posting again...seems to happen a lot these days. Part of it has been a lack of time to sit down for a few minutes and part has been from the annual mid-winter malaise. I have started thinking about summer trips already. Usually I don't fantasize about long hot days until late March or April, but I guess it has started early this year because we have had an intense winter (still over a foot of snow in my yard). And it has been a bad winter for illness. Since my last post, I developed a MAJOR sinus infection that made me want to fling myself off a cliff. I have a sneaking suspicion that the lap pool at the YMCA may be partly to blame. I know it is to blame for the all over body rash I had last week after spending an hour in the water. I now have a three week moratorium on chlorine so I can let my skin heal.

At any rate, since my last post Walter and I did a winter hike to the top of Mt. Spokane and Nancy and I took a day trip up north to check out a horse hoarder (the crazy bitch has 54 horses...at least they were all healthy and well fed but she was running out of hay) and look at the scenery around the Pend Orielle River.

The trip up to the top of Mt. Spokane was the first winter one I have taken that did not involve the ski lift. We started at the snowmobile trailhead which is at 4525 feet above sea level. The top of Mt. Spokane is 5889 so we had an elevation gain of 1364 feet. We took a sort of weird way up. Part was on the main snowmobile trail, part on the groomed alpine runs, part on snowshoe routes and part just straight up the hill. The fun part was watching the big towers on top get closer and closer. And again, the valleys were socked in with fog so we were above the clouds. The scariest part was coming straight down the hill on the snowmobile corridor to the summit road. That was a serious slope. Going up we took a round about way that had more switchbacks so I could arrive alive on top of the mountain without lung tissue stuck to the front of my jacket. On the way down the corridor I met a woman coming up who was not wearing snowshoes or crampons and she was not sure how she was going to get down, but the fool kept heading up the hill. I was tempted to slide down on my butt...however, I value an intact spinal column. So here are pictures of the day on the hill.

Looking up to the top of the mountain from the parking lot

Walter checking out the route

The towers a bit closer

The top of Mica Peak (I think) poking above the clouds

Closer

A zoom shot of the Rockies/Cabinet/Bitterroot Mountains

Oh, and closer still...by this point I was panting

And here I was about ready to strip off my clothing because it was so hot

Wanting to curl up on the snow and die...

Oh good Lord, save my sorry ass...

Oh, that was not so bad..what is all this crap up here?

The meeting of land and sky

Looking toward the Vista House

Walking back to the car at dusk

Looking for Sunshine

2009-01-13T20:22:00.000-08:00

I was able to synthesize a little vitamin D today up on Mt. Spokane. The forecast calls for pea soup below 3000 feet the rest of the week so Walter and I trucked up to Mt. Spokane to get in a bit of sunshine. Oh, and we took Nancy along too.

It was a good day. It was cloudy when we got there but quickly cleared up. Though we were in Mt. Spokane State Park we were actually roaming around on Mt. Kit Carson. This is my first outing with my new snowshoes, which I actually like more than I thought I would. They are Yukon Charlie's; basic aluminum with synthetic decking. I expected to hate the bindings because my old MSR shoes had the best bindings I have ever used. These turned out to be ok once I got them cinched up. And I got them from Costco!!! And they were $30 cheaper than the same pair at REI. They came with telescoping poles which I did not need. One of Nancy's poles collapsed on her today and I could not get it fixed. I prefer to use just one pole so I gave her my spare.

The snow was sort of melty but not slushy. Walter was able to stay on top. I think the little boots that he wears help a bit with that. It is impossible to get the poodle hair out from between his pads and they collect huge snowballs that hurt his feet. He was really tired out from the day. At one point I stopped to put on some more clothing and he thought we were resting and tried to take a nap on my pack. It was cute. There were also some really cool whispy clouds that rolled in for about 5 minutes. It was a Middle Earth moment.

So here are some pictures:

Walter and me towering above the Smith Gap toilet

The cool weird whispy Middle Earth clouds with the sun

More Middle Earth

Looking down toward Spokane: The white in the background are the tops of clouds

Not getting it right

2009-01-08T18:09:00.000-08:00

Ok, I am not a weenie, but this weather totally bites. It has been raining for the past several days. Everything is a huge mess. Walter and I were going to go hit Mt. Spokane yesterday morning but the rain was too intense. Last night I checked the ski report and it said that it was 30 degrees up there, so Nancy and I hurried up and headed out for a nighttime snowshoe (we wanted to walk on the cross country trails so I could not take Walter). We got up to the Selkirk Lodge and the thermometer said 40 degrees. There was a horribly cold wind blowing the rain sideways. We opted to go into the lodge, light a fire and have some tea. That was fun. We sat there in the dark and stared at the flames. No one else was around...because they all know better. I figured that if the weather was better today I would take Walter somewhere, but it sucked until around 4:00 this afternoon. I just ended up at the gym which was packed with tons of kids because all the school districts have been cancelling classes because of the weather.

The flooding is not too bad on this side of the Cascades, but the coast is getting hammered. Lots of flooded rivers and homes. There is a lake out in my street, but I have high enough clearance to get around it. The therapy gym at work flooded last night. Glad I had the day off.

My next weekend is supposed to be better. If I can get around ok Walter and I will be bonding in the bush somewhere. At the moment, Walter is doing what he does best which is sleeping. Just took these of Walter and Elliot snoozing while I goof around online. Oh, and today is my 44th birthday. I bought myself a new pair of hiking boots.

Walter

Elliot

A New Year

2009-01-04T18:27:00.000-08:00

So, 2008 was a sucky year, huh? But for me it was pretty good. I finished school and got a job. I passed my national exams. I had enough money to pay high gas and food prices. The guy I voted for was actually elected president. My house is clean, my freezer is full. Not too bad. (ok, I have tried five times now to separate these paragraphs and I am not sure what the hell is going on with the code...so sorry to the format police).

Nancy and I stepped out of the comfort zone and joined the throng at First Night Spokane. It was wonderful. Tons of stuff to do, see, and hear. Nancy caught one of her favorite local folk singers, Ruby Divine. We watched the Harran Irish Dancers kick it up with the Celtic Nots. We rode the beautiful Loof Carousel with its wonderful wooden horses. We watched glass and ice sculpters. We even sat in on a really bad bluegrass band for about five minutes. All that and we were home by 11:15pm!!!!

We have continued to have unreal weather. Another storm is supposed to be blowing in tonight with 7 more inches of snow. Walter and I are going somewhere on my next days off if the weather is not too horrid (it is supposed to start raining...I wonder what that will look like on top of 30 inches of snow). I just have to get out with my doggie. I will of course post about it. Here are some of the pictures from First Night...

Ruby Divine..a great folk singer

Nancy hitting it off with the glass bead maker

A downtown street. There were fires burning on each block with a really big bonfire in Riverfront Park. Just really cool

Nancy in wool...with poodle pin

The beautifully restored Loof Carousel

Harran Irish Dancers at the Opera House

The dragon that totally cracked me up

Ok, this is funny. The Arena parking lot was total ice. This truck parked on the hill and must have slid back wards. Someone put ice chunks under the wheels to keep it from sliding any farther but it was in the middle of the roadway blocking in other cars. Can you imagine the faces of the owners when they got back to their truck?

Christmas Snow

2008-12-29T19:07:00.000-08:00

Holy Cow Batman. Remember when I was joking on my last post that I was going to ski to work? Well, I actually had to do that because we got so much snow. And it just keeps on coming!!! To date, Spokane has received 63 inches of snow in the month of December. We got 10 new inches this morning. I have lost count of how many separate storms we have had over the past couple of weeks. Most of my free time has been spent shoveling; clearing off the roof of the boat shed, the porch roofs, the back deck, driveway, sidewalk, doggie yard, etc. It has been amazing. We had to give up on the compost bin and start chucking the veggie matter because we could not get out into the backyard without snowshoes. Like, no shit. The last time I measured snow in the back yard we had something like 34 inches off the back deck. Crazy. You would think that with all this snow I would be out being a maniac in it, but that has not entirely happened yet. With the first 24 inches came horribly cold air, down below zero for almost a week. Roads and street were closed all over the place. That was when I skied to work. My big Solstice performance with the Women's Choir was cancelled. We have been working on it since October. We had to keep the water running in most of the faucets to keep the pipes from freezing. Ahhh, the joy of owning an old house. Nancy and I have also been down to one vehicle...the evil Suburban. But with studded snow tires and four wheel drive it gets us around. My Jeep is great as long as there is no ice and I let it warm up for an hour, and my Blazer has a leaky heater core and I can't keep the windows clear.

We have managed to have some fun. We went cross country skiing up on Mt. Spokane on Christmas day and I tooled around the back yard on my new snowshoes. I just went back on my old work schedule as of today, so I will be back on 4 ten hour days with much more time to play (oh yeah, and get housework done...barf). Anyway, here are some pictures of the snow and different things in my life around the holidays. Cheers!

The house after the first wave. If we only knew then what we know now.

Digging out the Jeep

Elliot's first trip into the bed. He was so brave!

Sophie, snuggly and warm in front of the fire.

Elliot, chillin'

Nancy plodding through the beautiful powder on Christmas day. It was topped off by a fire in the Nova Hut and frozen Snicker bars.

Weird waves of snow over the fence in the back yard

The backyard and cliff behind the house

The snow in the front yard against the 4 foot fence. This was after several days of warm temps that melted a bunch of the snow.

Urban Skiing

2008-12-17T21:38:00.000-08:00

Wow, we have a TON of snow coming down. There was 7 inches in the parking lot when I left work at 5 and it has been non-stop since around 7 this morning. Tonight I went for a ski around the neighborhood just for fun. It was about 2 1/2 miles. I skied on the streets from my house to Liberty Park and then got on the Ben Burr trail, an old light rail bed, to Underhill Park. I was going to ski down the big hill and then back to my house but I started down the hill and it was too scary. I got my ski caught in some branches on the ground and fell over. I trudged back up the hill and went back on the trail and skied down the Altamont hill on the sidewalk. It was a blast. I had my headlamp but did not use it because it was so light out. I might have to ski to work tomorrow. That might be fun. The forcast is for at least a foot of snow. I love it. I have been more than ready for some skiing and snowshoeing. I finally bit the bullet and bought some new snowshoes. I think I left my old ones sitting next to or on top of the car in Idaho and drove off without them. Someone got a really nice pair of MSR snowshoes. I am anxious to use them. Nancy and I are planning on spending Christmas day in the mountains so I am sure I will have some pictures then. Aside from the snow today, we have had bitterly cold temps below zero and in the single digits. It always sucks to to be in a 121 year old house when it is that cold. I tore walls and floors out when I bought it and put in new insulation and windows, but keeping the plumbing from freezing is always a challenge because there is a very small basement and most of the house is above a crawl space. But, hopefully it will not last too long. It is a balmy 15 degrees at the moment. Feels like a heat wave.

Recent Ramblings

2008-12-09T22:59:00.000-08:00

Walter at Heyburn State Park, Idaho

I have been a bit pressed for time to sit down at my computer and post my comings and goings, so I am going to consolidate them all into a quick post. At the present I am working a weird schedule that is not conducive to getting out and about (ok, get this...40 hours a week, Monday through Friday). Walter has been feeling the lack of love and that has sucked. Aside from my schedule at work I am also hot into the Solstice Ritual choir. The solstice celebration is on the 22nd of December and the choir is working really hard to pull it all together. This year has been a total bitch. Lots of new 2nd sopranos. We do 15 a Capella numbers which are incredibly complicated. This is my 4th year but I still find it hard. The choir has not melded yet which is bad considering this is the 9th of December. I am also waiting for snow. I am itching to get my skis on and I have been checking the ski reports each morning. Anyway, aside from a few hikes, snuggles, and stuff, Walter and I have not been up to much. I should start back on a more sane schedule around the first of the year. So here are the pics from us doing a few things out and about.

My 1989 Ford Festiva...finally sold. Now I miss the 40mpg.

End of the summer perennial garden...can you believe we started it this year?

Fall canopy leaves at Dishman Hills

Snogging Walter on top of Eagle Crest

A fall bike ride along the Centennial Trail

Our cold, wet, windy camping spot at Heyburn State Park, Idaho on November 1

The duck hunter guy who woke us up at 5:00am with shotgun blasts...I ended up having a nightmare about Sarah Palin

Nancy and Elliot in the snow on Mt. Spokane

The sunset from Mt. Spokane at the end of a good hike

Nancy at the Liberty Lake cedar grove, Thanksgiving day

Lily and Biggie chillin' in the laundry room

PS Hey Juan, you still out there? When are you coming back?

Benign

2008-10-15T19:57:00.000-07:00

That just about sums it up. I can start breathing again.

Slice and Dice

2008-10-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

Nancy had her surgery last Thursday. We figured we would have the results of the biopsies by today but so far no word. She did well with the surgery but she had a really sore throat from being intubated and has not been able to breath out of her nose for several days. She cannot do any physical activity for another week and a half and let me tell you, she is going nuts and driving me crazy. This is a woman who goes to the gym every single day. She is also convinced the anesthesiologist knocked her front teeth loose with the tube. The doctor showed me the photos from the nasal cyst and that was pretty cool. I got to eat really bad for me food from the hospital cafeteria while I was waiting. Ummmm, bacon.

I am not sure when Walter and I are going to get out again. The weather here has gotten really cold. This past weekend I worked on my canoe shed, putting a new roof on it and making new doors that are easier to open than wooden pallets. I just had the wood gunwales repaired on the canoe and want to keep it back in the shed again. One of these days I will actually have a garage to store my stuff in. I have also been working on my Jeep. I have it running again and it actually passed the emissions test. I have been driving it to work. I still need to replace the power steering pump, but for now I just keep adding fluid when it gets low. Oh, and my garden is officially done for the summer. I still have some lettuce growing but I picked all the green tomatoes. The potatoes are being stored as of now under the soil, then I suppose in a few weeks I will have to figure out what to do with them. Probably can most of them.

Hopefully by tomorrow we will know about the biopsy and I can once again return to hanging out with Walter. I will let you know.

The Darker Side of Life

2008-10-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it turns out that what is lurking in Nancy's sinus cavity is not a wad of snot, but rather some sort of polyp. The doctor let me look at it through the scope and it is nice and pink and healthy looking. I am not too worried about it. However, I am a bit concerned that the CAT scan was not completely accurate. It appeared to both the doctor and me that the marker was placed in the wrong spot. No lump at all showed up on the CAT scan. It should have. Nancy is having surgery next week to remove the polyp in her sinuses and the lump on her neck. This has brought up a lot of stuff, not least of which is my own struggle with PTSD. This has made me realize how tightly wound I normally am. I am back to adrenaline rushes when I hear the phone ring or a loud noise, something that plagued me for about a year and a half after Morgan died. I know, chances are it will be nothing. But it is hard to keep my head out of the dark place. Tough mental work. Sucks.

Priest Lake

2008-09-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

Walter and Elliot in Tandem

On my last few days off Nancy and I went up to Priest Lake and stayed in a wonderful little cabin owned by one of her friends. The weather was beautiful though a bit cold. The good time was tempered a bit by a little "cancer" scare. Nancy went to have some lumps checked out and was immediately sent for blood work and a CAT scan. We were both freaking out pretty bad. We came back early from our little trip for the scan and got there late because of the blood test. What they were checking out turned out to be ok, but some other stuff looked a bit suspicious so she has an upcoming appointment with a Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor. I am banking on it just being a wad of snot that showed up in the CAT scan.

Nancy and the boys taking it easy

We took Walter and Elliot with us and had a nice time. On the first day we were there we went on an 8 mile walk which was a lot of fun. We hung out in the cabin, read a lot, and I took the boys out for a canoe ride. Walter has not been in a canoe for a couple of years, and I am sure Elliot has never even been near water before since he was kept shut up in a yard with virtually no human contact for his first year and a half of life (die Montana puppy mill bitch, die!!!). When we got to the cabin and walked down to the dock he actually walked off the edge and into the water. He learned quick though.

Nancy and Elliot

Because our time was cut short, Nancy's friend is going to let us use the cabin again in the next few weeks. My work schedule has changed dramatically, but luckily, just temporarily. I am now on Monday through Friday for the next 8 to 10 weeks while a coworker has surgery, then I will go back to my 4-10 hour midweek days.

The boys and me in the canoe

Yes, the Fockers do exist

Oh, and just a side note, I went on a cool little kayak jaunt this afternoon with Michelle and Sparky on the Spokane River. We put in the river sort of across from Gonzaga off Desmet, in a skanky sort of neighborhood where we had to carry the boats down to the river. We then paddled upstream past Avista to some rapids just downstream from the Freya Street bridge. I shot the rapids twice because Sparky swamped it and I went back to make sure she was ok. It was cool. We saw lots of urban crap in the water...bicycles, shopping carts, a big ass car stereo, etc. If the water would have been warmer I would have done more fishing out of garbage but all I managed to get were a couple of cans and a beach ball. But it was a cool little urban paddle.

Glacier Park

2008-09-11T22:29:00.000-07:00

Last week my sister came to visit me from Illinois and we went to Glacier Park for five wonderful days of freezing weather, spitting snow, cold winds, and occasional sun beams. Bummer that I had to leave Walter at home. Evidently he sat by the door for about 5 hours after I left and when I got back he actually climbed on top of me and started verbally telling me off for leaving him.

It took us about five hours to drive from Spokane to West Glacier. We stayed at the Apgar campground, our old favorite. I did not realize it unti this trip but my sister is a wee bit afraid of bears and that is why she always wants to stay at Apgar. It is a bigger campground in a more populated area of the park and it makes her feel more secure.

It really was cold while we were there. Daytimes were in the 70s but it got down into the 30s at night. I am normally not a cold kind of person but I guess my hypothalamus was a bit delayed in adjusting to a change in environmental temp. On the last night we were there I went to bed wearing wool blend long underwear, polar fleece pants, thermal socks, a wool shirt, polar fleece vest, stocking hat and gloves and I was all zipped up in my sleeping bag with the hood tight over my head. Darn cold.

We hung out a lot at the lake. I took one of my tiny kayaks along and paddled on Lake McDonald during one of the weather reprieves. I went for a hike up along the Garden Wall, saw some mountain goats, drove up to Polebridge for some absolutely wonderful carbs from the bakery, and hung out at Bowman Lake for several hours. I have decided that next time I go to Glacier I am going to camp at Bowman (unless my sister is with me) because there is NOTHING there but mountain and lake. The road is shit so no big trailers and motor homes are there. Mostly just small trailers and folks in tents in a campground that has only about 20 spots. And the lake is amazing with the mountains in the background.

We also went into Whitefish one day when the weather was just too horrible and goofed around. It is sort of a ritual to go on the rainy day. I read a good book called Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. Pretty good.

I will post some photos now that I took but I hope my sister sends me some that she took as well. Most of my pictures are of different scenes of Lake McDonald which always enchants me.

Lake McDonald Pics

Bowman Lake

The Garden Wall by Logan Pass

Curious Fawn at Hungry Horse Reservoir

Icicle Creek

2008-09-11T21:37:00.000-07:00

I am WAY behind on my posting. Part of the problem is that I forgot the password to my computer and have to use the laptop which I hate using...long story...and part of it is that I have just been too damn busy.

A couple of weeks ago Nancy and I went camping for a couple of nights at Icicle Creek near Leavenworth, WA. It was a lovely cold, wet, windy weekend. We took Walter and...yes he is back...Elliot. Poor Elliot. He went to live with a new person about four months ago and even though the guy really tried, Elliot did not work out. He was terrified the entire time, was afraid of the other dogs, and spent most of his time hiding. So he came back. And even though he is sort of a freak, he is getting much better. I think part of it is that he just does not like men. Walter is teaching him the ropes though and taught him all about camping and sleeping in a tent and pooping on a leash and eating outdoors and lying by the fire.

So Elliot came back but Olive found her dream parents. I was prepared to keep Olive until the end of her time but we happened upon some folks who were all set up for a geriatric dog (they have ramps on all their steps and footstools up to their couch...they even have a webcam so they can watch the dogs while they are at work). It was too good to pass up and even though I miss her, I know she will live the rest of her life totally spoiled rotten.
So here are some pics of our trip to Icicle Creek...

Walter, Elliot (the white one), and Nancy (the human one)

Icicle Creek

Dry Falls on the way home

Wanderlust

2008-08-15T20:43:00.000-07:00

I have been a bit remiss in posting (ok Emily, here it is). I suppose I will start with the most recent adventures first.

The horse camping area...fully of bity bities.

Walter and I got back today from a trip up to the far reaches of the St. Joe River. I worked until 8:00 pm Tuesday night and was too tired to drive anywhere so we left early in the morning. All of my experiences on the St. Joe have been near the mouth of the river and only as far east as

The Upper St. Joe River

St. Maries, Idaho. Well, there is a whole big long river to explore that reaches darn near into Montana!!!

Scary man wanted by the police

Avery, Idaho is about 130 miles east of Spokane. It seemed to take forever to get there because most of the way is on winding two lane highway. From St. Maries Idaho, the road travels along the St. Joe river on forest service highway 50. Highway 50 eventually splits into two gravel roads about 75 miles east of Avery, one going farther up the St. Joe for 11 miles and the other heading over the Bitterroot Mountains 26 miles to Superior, Montana.

There are a bunch of forest service campgrounds along 50 and unbelievably when we got there and started driving through them along the road, only one of them had an empty spot...on a Wednesday! We just kept driving down the road, through five different campgrounds until we got to the end of the river road. I was astounded. The second to the last campground had been

View outside my tent

overrun by a church which of course pissed me off. So I was not sure what to do. Near the last campground was a stock campground that had some spots so Walter and I stopped there to check it out. It was ok. Not very green, no picnic tables, but it was on the river and quiet, but the place was INFESTED with stinging and biting insects. Within 10 minutes of being there they were driving us nuts. They were drawn to the area by the vast amounts of poo. We got out pretty quick. At the last campground, Spruce Tree, I saw a sign saying checkout was at 2 so I hoped the some of the full ones would be empty by the time we got back around to them. With luck, we got the last spot at the Tin Can Flat campground which is about 12 miles east of Avery. It turned out to be a nice spot.

The swinging bridge and swimming hole

Here is the good stuff about where we stayed: it was right on the river, and though we could not see it, we could hear the water the whole time, there were lots of really big trees, there are only 11 spots to camp, it was $6 per night, it was quiet. Here is what I did not find so great about it: access to the river was not so good...had a walk down the road, it was right along the road but the road was not too busy, there were no trails from the campground to anywhere else. But it was a good spot just to cool our heels. I did find a wonderful swimming spot down the road from us a few miles that is accessed via a swinging bridge, so Walter and I hung out there for a bit and took a short walk on a nearby trail that leads up into the mountains. There was a big rock to jump off which was pretty cool, but Walter did not like the bridge. Aside from swimming, I spent most of the day Thursday reading. I read Tom Sawyer. I cannot believe that I grew up 20 miles from Hannibal, MO and never read it. I enjoyed it.

The swimming hole

A tunnel on the way home along the St. Paul Railway
Walter and I slept until 10 on Friday morning, packed up really quick, to. ok a quick dip in the water and headed home. At Avery I saw a sign to the Hiawatha trail and Wallace, Idaho so we decided to go back that way. It was SOOOOOOO cool!!! The road is actually part of the old Milwaukee Road railroad bed. We had to drive through tunnels and over trestles and it eventually hooked up with three or so miles of the Hiawatha trail that is open to shared use. That was way cool. The road is one lane for much of the way and I had to back down a hill and pull over to let a couple of busses from Post Falls go past. Walter and I did not get in any hiking except for some short walks but it was nice to just sit and relax and recharge my batteries. Nancy and I are planning a trip somewhere in a couple of weeks and we might go back there. The area is beautiful.

Trail on Mt. Spokane

I have also done some hiking up at Mt. Spokane. Walter and I took trail 120 a couple of weeks ago which goes from the park entrance up to the big snowpark parking area. It was cool. The main road in the park is closed so there are a lot less people around, and 120 is not one of the popular mountain biking trails.

My mom at the Throughfare between upper and lower Priest Lakes

My mom was also here to visit me for a couple of weeks. I took an extra day off one week and we went up to Priest Lake and had a picnic. We hung out at Beaver Creek then walked to the thoroughfare trail and down to the river where I took a swim in my skivvies. My mom would not

View from Pass Creek Pass

get in. Then we headed up to Stagger Inn and took the scary one lane mountain road over Pass Creek Pass to Sullivan Lake, through Metaline Falls and then back home. It was a long day but we had a good time and my mom got to see some stuff she has never seen before. We also spent some time in Greenbluff picking cherries and raspberries. MY 72 YEAR OLD MOTHER WAS UP ON A LADDER IN A TREE PICKING CHERRIES!!!!!!!! Thank god I was in another tree and did not see it.

Mama picking raspberries at Greenbluff

I know I have done a bit more than this but I can't remember what else. I don't feel that I have been out enough this summer, but I suppose I have to stay home sometimes and tend to business. Aside from going away with Nancy for a few days, my sister is going to visit and we are going to hit Glacier Park again, then Nancy and I have a few free days at a cabin on Priest Lake in the middle of September. Seems like the summer is almost over!!! I better get going!!!!

The Muddy St. Joe

2008-07-17T21:25:00.000-07:00

Nancy and I took a little trip to the St. Joe River. We put in at Hawley's Landing on Lake Chatcolet (sp?...please don't make me haul my ass up and check the spelling on a map). It was a wonderful way to spend the 15th year to the day that I went over to her house to watch a movie and we never watched the movie (it was Harold and Maude...I have since seen it about 100 times..."Do you think I'm wrong?"

We had a nice paddle across the lake and into the river. We got out on the narrow spit of land between the St. Joe and I think Round Lake and had a little picnic and a nap in the tall grass. Then we paddled upstream some more and cut over to Benewah lake, stopped on the shore for a swim, then paddled back to Hawley's Landing. Just a damn good day.

The wispy clouds across the lake

Our lunch spot

Nancy in the bow

My favorite roadside attraction. This was in Worley, Idaho.

Olive

2008-07-14T21:26:00.000-07:00

I forgot some of the biggest news in my last post. I have a new dog. There have been several dogs that I have posted on that were at my house for a while, but they were all adopted out. This one, it seems, is going to be staying. Her name is Olive and she has a pretty crazy story.

Nancy's friend Belinda was out riding her horse in the woods and noticed flies thick and buzzing around something off the trail. Her other friend got down to see what it was. They could see some white fur and wanted to check it out. It blinked and then wagged. It was a little American Eskimo dog and she was in some seriously bad shape. She was torn up with multiple bite marks on her neck and back legs. She had been injured for at least 3 to 4 days because maggots were in her wounds. She also had a huge abcess in her mouth that actually burst through her cheek. She had lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time and was really dehydrated. Belinda picked her up and put her across the horse and took her into the clinic that she and Nancy work at. They doped her up with morphine, cleaned her wounds, and gave her some heavy duty antibiotics. Nancy brought her home and we put her in a quiet room alone, but figured she would be dead by the next morning. She wasn't. We kept her snowed on pain meds for about a week and then Nancy had ten teeth pulled. It was horrible. We have no idea what really happened to her. I would think that if coyotes had gotten her she would not have been left alive. And who ever had her totally neglected her. Her teeth were just horrible.

This little dog is amazing. I am just dumbfounded that she laid out in the hot sun with her injuries for several days and still survived. That is why they did not just put her to sleep at the clinic. They all felt that she had to be given a chance. She is most likely between ten and twelve years old and her hips and knees are really bad; so bad in fact that sometimes her legs fly out from under her. She never seems to be in pain though. She has totally blended in with the crew here. When I walk in the door she gets really excited and starts running around in circles. She is able to go up stairs but not down because of her hips. She is a funny little girl and likes to follow me from room to room and sit on the floor near me. I just decided that since she has gone through so much and is quite old, I want her to stay here for the rest of her days because she deserves to have a good home.

I do not want to post the first pictures because they are horrible, but this is Olive the day after she had ten teeth taken out. She is just a wonderful little creature.

Copper Butte

2008-07-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

This weekend, or at least my weekend which is really in the middle of the week, Walter and I headed up to the Kettle Mountains and hiked to the top of Copper Butte, the highest mountain in the Kettle Range. The hike from the trailhead and back is around 6 miles; not a long distance but the last half of the hike is pretty steep.

The first part of the trail which is an old stagecoach road

Breaking out of the trees and into the burn area

The hike up was sort of weird. The area had burned back in the 90s and the forest is mostly silver snags poking up from the underbrush. As we got out of the green trees and into the ghost forest I started hearing this sort of moaning sound coming from the valley below. The sound grew louder as it moved up the hills. It was of course, the wind and what I was hearing was just the start of a really big wind storm that would last all day and into the night.

Copper Butte

By the time Walter and I got up onto the side of the butte the wind was pretty bad. I had been having an ear problem for about a week and the wind irritated it quite a bit. I was a bit concerned about some of the snags blowing down but I did not hear any trees cracking or falling, at least not then. The falling and crashing trees were later on during the day and evening.

Steep trail

From the trail and top of the butte I could see a fire burning in the Okanagan that started a week before from lightening. I could even see the North Cascades way in the distance, though the sky was not completely clear. There were tons of wild flowers along the trail. Lots of lupin and Indian paintbrush and some cool purple looking daisies. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures from the very tippy top of the mountain. For some reason the camera has been occasionally taking pictures that are just white. The highest pictures I have area from about 800 or so feet from the top, and only of the west side. That is ok though because the view to the east is about the same as from Wapaloosie, and I will be hiking back over Copper Butte to get to Scar Mountain anyway. I also tried to get a picture of a cool spot of flowers but those turned out totally white too.

Flowers along the trail

Looking towards the North Cascades

Toward the Okanagan

After we got to the top of the mountain, I tried to take some pictures and then immediately headed back down the trail. We sat in a more sheltered spot by the last switchback and had a little rest, and then had more of a snack at the saddle between Copper Butte and Midnight Mountain where there are some real trees.

Northeast

Again

Walter checking out the view

We were back at the Canyon Creek Campground by around 3 and tried to take a little snooze in the tent but there were lots of sticks and branches falling out of the trees and onto the tent. I finally got up and climbed into the car so I did not have to worry about getting beaned by a branch. As the evening wore on the wind became stronger and trees started crashing in the forest. A tree even fell on the road into the campground and some guys took their axes and lumberjacked it out of the way. There were several times I actually felt the fallen trees hit the ground, and one fell over near the end of the campground. I slept in the car until around 4 in the morning and went back into my tent after the wind calmed down.

Amazing flowers

Very interesting log

The next morning I picked a quart of huckleberries at the campground and Walter and I headed home. While we were dodging branches, a pretty big fire had started in Spokane and spread quickly in the wind. The fire started in my favorite Dishman Hills and has burned over a thousand acres. There was also a lot of smoke in the Columbia River valley from new fires and ones in then Okanagan that had blown up from the wind. It was actually a really bad storm.

Huckleberry fingers

Smoke above the Columbia River the morning after the wind storm

Not sure what my next plans are. My mom is coming to visit for a couple of weeks so I might drag her out somewhere. My next weekend will be spent cleaning the house and getting caught up on stuff I have neglected.

Points North and East

2008-07-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

Walter

Walter and I have been out and about quite a bit the last few weeks. Nancy's friend Fabiola was here visiting from Guadalajara, Mexico and we had a lot of fun taking her around to some cool places around here.

We went on a little camping trip to the North Fork of the Coeur d' Alene River for a couple of nights, a nice stroll on Mt. Spokane, and today I went by myself to the Idaho/Montana border to ride the Hiawatha trail.

Not much to tell other than we had a good time together. We did a lot of laughing on our camping trip. Walter and his sister Lily went with us and they had a nice time. We camped right on the river with a little trail from our camping spot down to the edge of the water. We went to Fern and Shadow Falls and tried to get to a wonderful old growth forest but the recent flooding had taken out a couple of bridges on the road. On the way home we drove over Thompson Pass into Montana so that Fabiola could add another state to her list. I had never driven over the pass before and it was pretty cool. There was still quite a bit of snow in places. All in all, a good time has been had by all.

Mt. Spokane still with a little snow on top

Damaged portion of trail on Mt. Spokane...we had a really wet spring

Lake Coeur d' Alene at Wolf Lodge Bay

Our little spot of river

Our campsite

One of the waterfalls...not sure which is which

The waterfall

Fabiola in the snow

Look close...an elk carcass down in a ravine

A pretty mountain

Thompson Pass

A shot taken while we were just driving around

Fabiola at the upper waterfall

The Spokane River

The west side of the Taft tunnel on the Hiawatha trail...the tunnel is about a mile and a half long...gotta have lights. Tons of water flowing through and dripping down from the mountain above.

The light at the end of the tunnel

Me in the tunnel. It was really cold.

The east side of the Taft Tunnel

A waterfall just outside the west entrance

My bike in the tunnel

One of the big trestles to ride over

A view from the trail

Another view from the trail

Link to the Hiawatha trail: http://www.skilookout.com

Priest Lake: Osprey Campground

2008-06-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

I have been a bit slow with some postings. Last week (June 4, 5, & 6) Walter and I went up to Priest Lake and stayed in the Osprey Campground. I had never been at that one before and have not spent much time on the south side of the lake which is pretty developed. The cool thing is that the campground only had a few people in it and we stayed in the upper level. We were the only ones up there.

I would not say that this was one of my favorite and most enjoyable outings. The weather has been horrible, with rain pretty much every day. I mean, it is June and I was wearing long underwear, several top layers, and a stocking cap in the middle of the day. And then there were the mosquitoes. Ugh!!!! I have never had a mosquito problem like that in this part of the country. They were in my eyes, ears, and nose. I looked down at Walter at one point and they were all over his back. I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed and they just would not go away. And I mean, how much time can a person spend in a tent? You gotta come out sometime to pee and eat!! Oh, and yeah, MAJOR bites on the butt from having to answer the call of nature.

We did have some nice walks (where I was swatting them away from my ears). We drove up to Beaver Creek to check out the flood damage. A road is out and the trail to the beach is now a canyon. Oh, and there is no beach. We walked a bit on the shoreline trail. LOTS of water on the trail. And lots of elk poo all over the place. Way more than I have ever noticed up there. The campground was closed because of flood damage. There was a hell of a lot of water that melted pretty darn quick. And scads of it just pooled up (hence the mosquitoes). We walked down the thoroughfare trail to the little river that connects the lakes and there was a real honest to gosh current. We took a little stroll on the Hanna Flats Trail which winds through a stand of pretty old trees. That was ok except it was raining on us.

Of course I took some pictures but the only one to actually turn up on my memory card was the sign for Hanna Flats and that was blurry. I did take a nice picture of elk poo in the middle of the creek as a reminder of why one should always filter drinking and cooking water. One time I found a dead moose in the water I had been filtering. Yuck.

I am waiting for the snow to get out of the mountains. It snowed on Mt. Spokane the other day and the trails still have lots of snow on them in spots. Walter and I are going to work on finishing up the 50 x 50 trails around Sherman Pass this summer. As of now though, there is still too much snow and runoff.

This weekend I did a lot of work around the house. My bedroom is now "Lemon Ice" instead of Great White Hunter Brown. What ever possessed me to paint the trim and crown moulding black???? My next weekend off (which is in the middle of the week) will involve a camping trip, but I am just not sure where. Nancy and I were going to take off together for a couple of days but she has a friend coming to visit from Mexico. At this point I am just not sure if it will be a trip with just Walter.

Horseshoe Lake

2008-05-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

Looking across the lake from the boat ramp

Today Nancy and I went out in the tiny boats to check out the falls at Horseshoe Lake just north of Spokane. The water is raging down from the mountains (taking part of the Mt. Spokane road with it) and much of it empties into Horseshoe Lake and then into the Little Spokane River. There is so much water around that the county sheriff said that if you end up in the river there is a good chance no one will come get you because it is so dangerous. But the lakes are just fine.

The falls in the distance

Up a bit closer

Nancy up close

We paddled from the boat ramp directly over to the waterfall. We could hear the falls when we got out of the car. In the summer they are just a trickle. It was pretty darn cool. I do not know how tall they are...maybe 50 feet or so, but the cascade is just beautiful.

Looking sort of back the way we came

After admiring the falls we hugged the shore to paddle back to the boat ramp. We saw lots of birds and fowl and a huge beaver dam that had some fresh sticks on top. The flowers along the shore were gorgeous. I always like identifying what is out there...something Nancy is particularly good at.

Checking out the beaver dam

Phlox on the rocks

Though it was just a short paddle, we had a nice time and actually beat the rain. I was sure it was going to start falling when we were mid-paddle but we made it with about 10 minutes to spare. I am looking forward to more paddling this summer.