In the morning, Quin ran off to play with some other boys while Kendrah and I broke camp. They wanted to stay to play in the pool which didn't open till 10 but I said no. Too much to see and do to "waste" time in a pool at some campground. Not that they'd consider it a waste but I knew what was coming up so I put my foot down and we took off.

We meandered back down the mountain roads and back to the main highway and tried to get out of town, but we couldn't do it. There was a rock shop to explore.

So we shopped.

And looked at big rocks and small rocks.

Blue rocks and bluer rocks.

    

And rocks that made us laugh.

Then, on to rocks that awed us.

There was a place to pull off the side of the road with a good view of Mt. Rushmore so we did that rather than pay $11 to park a little closer.

    

We did, however, pay $15 to go into Custer State Park so we could drive the Needles highway and see more cool rocks, and other peek-a-boo views of Mt. Rushmore.

  

I thought the back side of the mountain was pretty cool, too. Can you see Washington's head in that second photograph?

And this one?

There was a place here to park and the kids were able to climb on some rocks.

  

It's obviously a tough life for trees in this rocky terrain but many of there were there clinging to watcher soil they could find.

 

This is a wall of rock that somehow trees managed to get established in. It was fascinating to me to see. Also, just looking at how the rocks themselves weathered the years was interesting. I love seeing erosion and nature doing it's thing. That alone is enough to make me wonder how the theory of evolution got accepted. Is there really any examples of something getting better over time? Well, there's wine and cheese, but given enough time that also degrades into chaos. The world is constantly evolving but nothing is improving.

Anyway, I like seeing the changes. Dead logs providing nutrients to new trees, soft rock wearing away, leaving large, hard rocks balanced on top of mountains....that kind of stuff.

   

So we wandered through the Needles Highway and ohhing and ahhhing over the scenery when the big black clouds rolled in.

 

And the rain started falling pretty hard.

Our Unhappy Frog almost cracked a smile at the rain pouring down and he had to hang on to the GPS cord cause the windshield wipers and the excitement of the rain were making him dizzy.

At least that's what we pretended.

There was a lot more we saw that I want to show you so I'll post another blog later on today.

 

I got this blog done yesterday and hit submit only to discover somewhere along the way that my computer had gotten bumped off the Internet and couldn't be reestablished without a reboot. I had a clipboard copy of the blog so I wasn't worried but when the reboot was complete, my blog was completely gone. So, I'll do my best to recreate my text but unfortunately I'd taken yesterday to explain a lot of stuff that, while it made an interesting blog, isn't so interesting I want to say it twice, but I'll see what I can do to entertain you without boring me.

The best way to do that is to start with a picture.

I wanted to explain how this trip got planned. I looked at a map of the US and figured out what I wanted to see, then I used yahoo.maps.com to figure out how to get there, adjusting it to add other places that were in the area that would be worth stopping for. Once I got the general outline I used 3 websites to help me plan. The first was, of course, geocaching.com. I followed each stage of the route, adding the caches along it into a bookmark that could be downloaded into my GPS. I took care to include caches just after turns so I'd have a trail of green boxes guiding me, even if I didn't stop and find them. I also included a lot of earthcaches and virtuals, neither of which have physical containers, but which have either a geological lesson or just a cool place to learn something about (maybe the why, when, who of a statue or historical landmark). Since all those types have questions that need answered, I printed off the type, title and questions and put them in a 3-ring binder. Since I started this when I wasn't perfectly clear about the trip they got out of order and I ended up filing them alphabetically by state, which got confusing and we ended up missing a lot.

The second website I used was the AAA site's trip planner. I was able to follow my established route and print off interesting and AAA approved attractions that didn't cost much, if anything. I printed off info about museums and landmarks and visitor's centers and filed them in another 3-ring binder in the order in which we'll drive by.

My binder was gorgeous. I had a page for the overview map, a page for my itinerary and then after that, I had a map and directions page printed out for that day's journey (with a green file tab on the upper left), followed by that attraction options (with blue tabs descending on the right side), followed by my camping reservations confirmation letters (with blue tabs across the top). Each day had its own set of Things to Do and How to Get There. In the back of the binder I had daily average temperatures for the areas we'll be, a list of all the Costco stores, the towns with the cheapest gas according to gasbuddy.com, addresses of people to send postcards to, and a few notes about places I might be wandering.

Then I found another website on the Wackiest Roadsite Attractions. I went through that one and printed off the interesting ones. Then I checked yahoo.maps with the addresses and mixed them in with the AAA sites so I could know what was coming up next, knowing we wouldn't have time for all of them but wanting to keep options open. By the time I was done, I had 3" worth of binders and had borrowed a Nuvi, Jack, to help with navigation. Kendrah was in charge of Jack and the attractions/food/gas, I was in charge of GeePS and the geocaches and general routing. Quin, in the backseat, was in charge of snackage and the audio books and music CDs (each book had been removed from it's case and put into a Ziploc bag, and he had a shoe box they all fit nicely into. It was a great arrangement).

So.

We left the campsite and found this horse statue in a park on the side of the road before we'd even gotten out of Big Timber. It was not in the book. It was only vaguely interesting, but Quin needed to get out and pick its nose, so we did.

One thing that was in our book was Muffler Men. They became a bit of a focus for the trip and we wanted to find as many as possible. This was in someone's back yard. Were we supposed to go back there and get pictures? I don't know, but I left the engine running.

Have you heard the term "knee high to a grasshopper"? Well, my kids are "knee high to a muffler man."

Then as we left, there was a bird desperately trying to distract us with flashing feathers and fashionable displays and I got my camera out just in time for her to settle down and look ordinary. But, she's still kinda cute.

The next item in the book that we stopped for was a display of a shoe created for the worlds tallest man. I assume there's another out there somewhere, but we only saw this one.

And, while this is a really nice shoe, it was really where it was displayed that made my heart flutter.

You already know I have a bit of a boot obsession, right, so it won't surprise you that drool was forming at my lips when I saw that I was in the center of a Montana Bootery. Oh yeah. As much as I like boots, I'd never really cared for cowboy boots. Till now.

We must be in Montana!

I didn't have the spare money for a pair and didn't have the spare room in the car (although if the first wasn't an issue, I'd have let them sit on my lap the whole trip just so I could have them) so I refused to look at them too closely. I got some pictures, then I got a few more pictures, and then I noticed that my kids, apparently understanding my need to just stand there and take pictures had found a place to patiently wait for me. I think this may have been the only time they exhibited this kind of tolerance.

We'd wasted too much time and it was time to move on because there was a muffler man around the corner.

He was up high on the side of the building but impressive nonetheless. He'd been repurposed to hold a tire for the local shop, but you can tell from his hand position he originally was meant to hold something else. a Branding iron, perhaps. Although maybe it was a wooden spoon. He kinda has the look of a pirate ship's cook. That may just be me.

Rest areas often have caches, making them a twofer so we can pee and get a cache at the same stop. This rest area, however was a threefer because I had to take a picture of this "pet area" that made me laugh.

We made our way to Little Bighorn National Monument which we'd read a lot about before the trip cause I knew I'd stop here. I was surprised with all the headstones like dominoes but then we learned it's a military cemetery and I don't think it matters which war you fought in or if you died in battle. All the stones have the name, rank and which war they were in carved on the front. Occasionally on the back would be the words "And His Wife...."

      

When I first did this post I went on and on about my views of history and war but this time I think I'll just caption a few pictures.

This is the field where the Battles of Little Bighorn took place. Shots were fired from here, people died here. It was interesting to be so close to history.

   

The white man just fell here, end of story, but the Indian warrior fell here while defending the Cheyenne way of life. These markers were scattered throughout the field but we could only see a few of them because of an interesting fact I didn't know. Rattlestakes avoid paths. Who knew! But there (and elsewhere) we saw signs warning us to stay on the path due to rattlers. I was all for segregating myself from the snakes by staying on the path, but I wondered how the snakes knew.

The white/bad guy side of the monument was a stone tower with the names of the people that died carved into it. However, the Indian/good guy side had cool artsy things with really neat walkways meandering through murals and quotes from wise Indian elders like, "Young men be brave!". The coolest art was of these three horses with a mother running after her forgetful son with his shield and probably yelling at the other kid for falling off his horse before even reaching the battle. It was a touching scene.

Having had enough of war and battles and injustices, real or imagined, we took our freshly minted $80 annual National Parks Pass and drove out of the park, stopping soon after to capture some horses.

And tipis.  

And our first sighting of red rocks.

Then we cruised along enjoying the scenery.

I liked the flat bits.

I liked the hilly bits.

And the wildlife, even if they look identical to the ones at home.

We drove into Wyoming.

And a bit later, South Dakota.

You may not know that there's a town in South Dakota that claims to be the Geographical Center of the US. In reality, the center is 13 miles north of the monument they created but it was so much more convenient for us to have it here that we didn't mind missing the opportunity of bouncing up a rutted dirt road to see a pile of rocks that marks the real center.

  

Quin took his turn at the center, then it was Kendrah's turn.

Then, finally, mine.

Then I got a shot of the avenue of the flags. I searched out and found Washington's flag, but with no wind to unfurl it, it looked just like a piece of green fabric hanging limply off a pole. Not exactly the best blog material so I'll spare you.

After that we noticed the sun was dipping pretty low on the horizon. We needed gas, we needed food, we needed to find our campsite and we had a lot of ground to cover.

We got gas in the dusky light and drove through an Arby's as the sky turned various shades of red and orange and the sun disappeared.

We got off the main highway to follow the directions to the campsite. We took a circuitous route of 16 miles through constructions zones, one lane bridges, dirt roads on mountain passes through deep dark woods before, finally, we see a main road! Which....was the highway we'd turned off of earlier. Go figure.

The campground was huge, but not well lit. The office was closed but I took the envelope with my name on it and learned I was in site 11. No idea how to get there but whatever. I spent about 10 minutes going down the wrong way on one-way roads, taking gravel roads that petered out in grass fields, shining my head lights in camp sites already settled in for the night. Kendrah spotted a tiny post with a number on it and we were able to figure out where we might be. I found a picnic table with a blank space next to it I was able to just barely fit my car into. There was a tree where my tent should have gone so I managed to pitch it between my car, the table and the neighboring van with just enough room to walk around. The front of the tent was about a foot and a half away from the road. As in, look both ways before exiting your tent, boys and girls. It was really, really tight.

We managed to settle down and go to sleep like a good sardine, but a few hours later a car alarm went off. Horn blaring and lights flashing I had no idea which car was doing it. It could have been any one of about 10 sites and it still would have felt like it was inside the tent with us. Some lady yelled, "I barely touched it!". I grabbed my key fob and started pressing buttons just in case the car was mine, although I've never known the alarm to go off unless someone locked inside was trying to get out (see future post for Day 23) and the alarm finally stopped. I don't know if it was mine or not. I murmured "I'm sorry" to my kids and the lady outside cheerfully said, "Oh, that's okay."

We went back to sleep.

 

 

After a hot evening turned to cool morning and we woke shivering slightly each time the roosters crowed starting around 3AM, we waited for the sun to rise and then got fed a great breakfast of French Toast and bacon. We visited with our friends for a while, then Janet took us downtown Spokane for a bit of sight seeing before she headed off to work and we headed on the road again.

One of the sights we saw was an art gallery. Well, let's call it a gallery since the "art" was garbage tacked to one wall, a homeless camp in the center of the room, and...and....well, a shower head on another.

There were also some cool pieces, like this painting. They added texture to the painting with puzzle pieces and I liked the effect.

And, not part of the gallery, but cool nonetheless, a bench on the wall with kids sitting on it. It was along a stairwell, with nothing below for a loooong way. It appealed to my sick sense of humor.

After that it was time to head outside for some caching and leaving town, starting with some good advice.

 

K's goal was to get "feet pictures" for each day of the trip. Not sure where she got THAT from, but I enjoyed helping her find good places to dangle feet for her camera.

    

We came to a screeching halt on the side of the freeway (the first of many) to get a photo of a "Welcome to" sign. Sometimes there was a cache there, too, which we got out of the car for. Some, we just captured while driving by. Some, we missed altogether, like Montana.

We had to stop for Wacky Roadside Attractions, too.

Some were planned, and some we just spotted along the way and were willing to stop for. This was one such place. It was a whole park with weird artsy things like brick fences and cubby holes suitable (almost) to hide in.

 

Bigger huts, just as weird, called to my camera as well and I got several shots, trying to capture it without being overwhelmed with the oddities.

  

We spotted this statue of the prospector and his mule. Quin began his obsession with either picking stature's noses or pretending to be bitten by them.

Or, looking up their skirts.

There's a cache up there, in case you were wondering about that.

Afterwards he climbed on the statue. No one was around, thankfully. This was actually the second statue in regards to the Sunshine Mine we'd stopped for, the first one was in honor of the disaster that happened in the mine when a fire broke out in 1972. There were 178 miners in and only 85 made it out safely. Two more survivors were found seven days later and it wasn't till 11 days after the initial fire they got the last of the 91 victims out. The Sunshine Mine fire was the countries worst hardrock mine disaster since 1917; a pretty big deal. The Sunshine Mine (silver) was a mile deep and had 100 miles worth of tunnels. This second statue featured a "Happy Sunshine Mine Family", making it seem like mining is a great, family oriented career choice.

Continuing on, we drove through Idaho and into Montana, making it halfway across that state before stopping at a campsite for the night. It was a giant grassy field with random fire pits and picnic tables scattered about. We picked one near the restrooms. I figured that was important since we'd be sleeping next to a noisy rushing river.

   

The kids were wound up tight and it took a while to settle in for the night.

 

We'd been packed for days and didn't sleep well the night before we left on our 4 week, 12 state road trip, and we were raring to go. We left early, topped the gas tank off and then didn't slow down till we got to Ellensburg. Which isn't really all that far, but it was the first Wacky Roadside attraction on the route so we didn't want to miss it.

It's called Dick and Jane's Spot. They have ....er.... decorated their yard in an extraordinary way so we walked the sidewalks and alley and took our first batch of photos. The kids had fun finding so many odd pieces of "art" on and outside the house.

  

I have always wanted a blue bottle tree like this. Someday I will, but it won't be in a yard like this.

Don't get me wrong, I admire and actually really enjoy craziness like this. I just don't want people wandering around my house taking pictures of it.

      

       

Although I obviously don't mind taking pictures of other people's houses. Or chimneys.

 

After that we wandered off to a public building. Maybe the library, or civic center, I don't remember since the important thing was outside.

After that, feeling the first press for time (still lots of road to travel on!) we headed to Vantage, where I wanted to show the kids the wild horses monument Brewman65 and I had just gone to. I tried to drive by. I really tried. I had no interest in climbing that hill again. But.

   

I had to brand the horse the same place I'd done earlier. Exact same, as far as I can tell, since it isn't permanent. But this is a new stamp, with the names Craftea (that's me), Mr. Q! (that would be Quin) and The Hazelnut (Kendrah's geocaching name) on it. Yea, us. Now can we go back down?

On the way to our first sleeping destination, we stopped for some caches, of course. I was aiming for Virtuals (no physical container, but a cool location where we need to identify something to prove we were there) like this one at a monument about a battle that took place.

And Earthcaches (again no physical container, but cool location where we learn something about the geology of that specific location) like this creek, which, to do a proper experiment about how fast the water flowed, both kids ventured in.

After that it was more wacky attractions like a giant loaf of bread outside the Franz Bakery factory and a building shaped like a milk bottle.

  

The kids found a leaf bench to share. See how much fun they are having? That's cause it's only the first day.

We arrived at our friend's house in Spokane before dark (always a nice thing), had a great dinner, then went to bed as the sun was setting.

Our first day was a success, even if we didn't make it out of our home state.

This time my friend Brewman65 and I went camping in the Tri Cities area of Washington to do some epic caching. There are power trails out that way and we were anxious to see just how many caches we could find in one day. We've been planning this weekend for months and once it finally arrived it was almost hard to believe.

The day before we left, a oversized truck on I-5 knocked out several support beams on a bridge over the Skagit River, causing a portion of the bridge to collapse into the river. 3 vehicles fell in, but any injuries were minor. It caused quite an uproar, though, and detours were creating all kinds of backups. Thankfully it didn't delay our trip and I was able to get the kids to school and friend's house so we could hit the road early and avoid holiday traffic. I suspect about half of the people on the wet side head over to the dry side for the weekend so traffic can be kinda crazy, even if we don't have to detour for a busted bridge.

Actually, traffic wasn't bad and we had time to cache along the way, picking them up here and there and stretching our legs. We picked up a fair number without trying very hard. We got to the campsite in plenty of time to set up our tents and cook up a dinner. Funny how sitting in a car can make you tired, and we hit our beds early so we could hit the road early the next morning.

I believe "early" came at about 5:30am for me. It was such a gorgeous day, the showers at the campground ran hot, and neither one of us could be bothered with breakfast so we were out of the campsite just a bit after 6, eventually eating breakfast snackage in the car between dashes for caches. Most of the caching we did was near windmill farms. The blades on these things are 129' long. Yeah, that's 129 feet. Since there's nothing else out there, if you turned off the car and stood still you could hear the whoosh, whoosh of them.

 

    

    

Other things of interest was this old building with....um...a railroad trestle above it. Go figure. There's a cache up there, but we bypassed it.

I haven't gotten my caches logged and there were too many to count by hand, but I think our total for the day was 271. Not a record to a lot of people, but it certainly broke ours for most in one day.

The following day we did well in the numbers department, but it didn't really compare to the day before. We found a lot in town instead of out in the hills, stopped for a sit-down lunch, went back to camp to rest, went back out, took some long walks. That night, the sunset was rather pretty so I walked across the way from our site and hung out on the shore of the Snake River to get some photos of it. All well and good till a gaggle of women came to my secluded little spot and talked and talked and talked and hung out till I finally left. Till then, I got these shots.

    

    

The goose swam up and down the river, calling.

     

Up and down, up and down the goose swam back and forth into the golden path made by the setting sun.

       

    

And, finally, the goose found what he'd been calling for and the whole tribe made their way to the nests somewhere down the river. There were more goslings and adults, but such a long string of them I couldn't capture them all at once.

The next day, Monday, we headed home. Not quite as early a start as previous days, but we were kinda excited to check out the wild stallions near Vantage. We got pictures of them from down below, but since there was a cache up there, we made the trek.

Once to the top, I'm going to say the view was breathtaking. As in, my being out of breath didn't have anything to do with the steep climb. Not at all. It was the view. Yup.

Once among the stallions, we branded one with our new caching stamp. It's designed for micro logbooks so the brand is far too small to work well on a real horse (let alone be seen in a photo of a steel one) but it was fun for this one.

Here's one of the horses about to jump off the cliff and land on the bridge.

  There's a killer view! 

After picking off the caches in Vantage, we headed to the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park, stopping first at a gem shop for a couple caches and pictures of some petrified wood.

   

And dinosaurs.

We went into the State Park, expecting to see some really cool examples of trees that had been petrified in their natural habitat. Instead we saw more hills with more sage and the occasional caged hunk of petrified wood chunks. We'd seen plenty of hills and far more than plenty sage and the specimens outside the gem shop were far more interesting and better preserved than at the park. This is what we got to see in the park while walking for about a half an hour.

 

 

Yippie.

A freakishly large amount of sage. 

And, surprisingly, a pretty flower.

The rain started about then, and we cached half-heartedly for a while then gave up (but with close to 400 found caches for the weekend!) and headed home in earnest. Traffic was so congested it took us hours to get anywhere, creeping along on I-90 with thousands of others. Eventually the road cleared and we made good time the second half of the trip, getting home in plenty of time to pick up my kids on time. Always a good thing!

I don't have much planned for June, then the kids and I are planning an Epic Road Trip for the month of July, then in August I'll be camping and caching again (one of two possible destinations), and then again during Labor Day (the remaining location). Then it's back to a normal schedule. How dull that part sounds!

 

 

During one half of Spring Break, the kids' dad had them so I was on my own for a couple of days. What's my favorite thing to do when I'm childless? Go caching, of course. So I went camping in Wenatchee.

    

Wenatchee has a lot of really great caches; it was one of the first places I went caching back in 2005. It doens't rain a while lot in Wenatchee, it being on the Eastern side of Washington, known as the dry-side. I live on the wet side, so I always love visiting the desert. Well, I think at least half a year's worth of rain came down during my time there, but thankfully it was mostly at night. My new tent was totally dry inside all night even with stuff crammed up against the walls, though, so I was okay with the rain. During the day it was warm and mostly dry with just a few light sprinkles which made the bike rides and hikes very nice.

There's a couple Earth Caches, one at Lincoln Rock, which is a rock that looks like....yeah, like Lincoln. Do you agree?

On the way back to the campground I had to pull off and get a picture of this adorable whistlepig. I'm kinda fond of whistlepigs.

The last night there, it was such a beautiful night that when I work up at midnight with a full bladder, I actually enjoyed my walk to the restrooms and even took a bit of a scenic route back because it was so nice out. I fell back asleep (after removing both pairs of socks and my hat!) thinking how nice it will be to pack up dry equipment in the morning. An hour later, I was woken up with the sound of hail and rain falling on my tent roof. Oh yeah. It dumped the rest of the night and well into morning. Everything got tossed into the car willy-nilly and breakfast was at Denny's instead of at the campsite. Both passes were having blizzard conditions so there wasn't any caching on the way home.

Still, it was a very fun trip and I'm glad I went.

At home, the weather slowly went from winter to spring with occasional summery days, and the duck in the nearby pond had 11 babies hatch.

Doesn't she look proud?

Last weekend, since I was nearing a milestone in my caching, we decided to make a special day of it and head to Sequim. That, of course, means a ferry ride, which is pretty much all it takes to call a day special in my book.

The views were spectacular! 

The view off the side of the boat.

The Olympic Peninsula was so bright and clear, it was a joy to stand outside on the water and watch the scenery. It was a little chilly but with shorts and a sweatshirt, with a hat to cover my ears, I was completely comfortable. Except it was really noisy for some reason. The wind seemed to be howling through pipes or something, making a keening whistling sound that was annoying after a while.

Do days ever look better than this???

This is where we had our lunch.

We cached all over Port Townsend and Sequim and had a great day.

This overlook is at a park. We couldn't find the cache hidden here, but we found some signs that made us laugh.

No motorhomes or trailers down this single track trial, unless you think it might fit, then....go for it!

  This one amused us so much I had to walk back to it from a parking spot to take a picture of it. I hope you are just as amused.

I found my 7,000th cache and celebrated it with friends on a bright and beautiful day, and finished the day off with a milkshake, getting home late, tired and happy.

 

My next adventure is camping in the Tri-Cities area over Memorial Day weekend. I am counting down the days till then!! We might get as many as 250 caches in one day there! The one after that involves the kids, as we take a 4-week, 12 state Epic Road Trip together.

Till then, I'm having fun with my kids. My daughter just had her 12th birthday and while picking up a Sally's Beauty Supply gift card for her friend's birthday, the kids talked me into dyeing my hair green. They were so thrilled. There's a lot of silver/gray in my hair so there wasn't much for the dye to stick onto so it wasn't very dramatic (whew!) but K's reaction was to dance around singing, "My dad has a girlfriend, and my mom has green hair!" One can never understand what might cause a 12 year old girl joy. The green hair only lasted a few days before fading out, though, to her great disappointment. I even did it three times but there just isn't enough pigment in my hair to make it worth it. However, it was fun while it lasted. I have enough dye to do some streaks in the kids hair once school gets out, it will last all summer on them!

Tomorrow we're going swimming, which they love. Hoping to get some of their friends to join us because the pool is always quiet on Friday nights. Having the pool to ourselves is fun, but it's funner to have it full of friends.

 

OK, it's really just spring, but I really love summer and there just aren't that many summer days around here so any day I wear shorts, regardless of the time of year, it's summer.

 

And I'm SO ready for summer. This last winter has been the most traumatic of my life. Done with the emotional and verbal abuse, I got a divorce. In that process I lost my dream home, which we'd owned only about 2 years. I was forced to move out at Thanksgiving time, but before that, my home was burglarized and almost everything of value was stolen, from computers to tools to Q-tips and chocolate. They searched every nook and cranny of the house including between the mattresses, inside the teapots, and every dresser drawer. Cops just said I should have had an alarm system.

 

Having 3 major events like that happen in a matter of months seems to me that the rest of my life should be golden. I have been able to piece together a life with my kids that is comfortable, peaceful, and happy. It's not perfect, but I said "golden" not "perfect". I'm okay. My kids are okay. Our new home is okay. Time to move on.

 

Easter Sunday was a great day for us. We went to church, then went home and packed a few goodies then headed out for a drive. I suggested we go to the Baker Hot Springs, but it was so nice out the kids said they'd rather just go for a drive. Since I had Baker in mind, we headed out to Heather Meadows. (Don't you love the name? I do!). We had Hank the Cowdog audio books to listen to, gorgeous views to look at, and yummy snacks to taste. 3 out of 5 senses were extremely happy! We had a destination but we stopped for a couple caches along the way, and we stayed and played at a couple cool spots.

 

Nooksack Falls has both a virtual and a traditional cache, and some magnificent views and rocks to climb on.

    

Above the falls, and bits and pieces of the falls. It made me happy I'd left my GPS and camera in the car the day we were burglarized, and they didn't get them.

There were lots of snow piles, too.

There is a fence around the cliff, and plenty of signage warning us not to go near the edge. The kiosk had a list of people that did and didn't live to tell about it.

Interestingly, you can stand at one place at the fence and look to the left and see the falls coming toward you. Then you can turn to the right and see....well, what would you expect to see but the river flowing away. But it's coming toward you. Both rivers flow right at you and then go to some kind of underground tunnel. It's kinda weird. They may be the same river. Some day I'll look at a map and figure that out, but today I'm enjoying the mystery of it all. And Quin was enjoying climbing on everything.

Oh, see, I finally got around to taking a picture of the falls, proper.

They say that moss always grows on the north side. That isn't necessarily true. Around here, moss grows wherever (everywhere) it can without being disturbed.

Quin found something else to climb on.

After all the adventure at Nooksack Falls, we ventured along the road till we came to a pull out where we could get to the river. We had to climb over snow to get here.

Guess what, the water is cold!! It didn't stop the kids from being daring and walking on a log out into it. Kendrah dipped her toe in and said that was enough.

    

The sun was shining through this ice cave, making a pretty blue-green stripe for me to photograph.

The kids are starting to enjoy posing for me and allowing me to take their picture without them making funny faces at me.

    

    

And Kendrah allowed me to "suggest" she stand barefoot in the snow so I could get a picture. She was such a good sport!

 

After playing at the river for a time, we headed up, up and more up to the next cache along the way to Heather Meadows. The roads were clear and dry, but the snow on either side was piled up at least 12 feet. At our cache site (where the cache was still encased in ice so we couldn't get to it) I saw icicles under the snow and tried to catch a drip with the camera. It didn't really work, but a couple of the pictures turned out kinda cool, anyway.

    

At the cache site, two ravens gave the kids a lift. This may have been a highlight to their day!

I didn't have much hope of being successful at the next cache site, what with all the snow, but it was still worth the drive for these views:

    

    

 

Rather spectacular, isn't it?

 

Then, since running out of gas was a distinct possibility before reaching home again, we headed that way. Made it, although my favorite station was closed (oh yeah, it was a holiday, wasn't it?) I found another close by and filled up.

 

I hope to have many more adventures this summer!

 

 

 

 We went to Jetty Island once this year.  

Quin pretended to be surfing on a log and Kendrah tried to ride one to catch a ride, perhaps, on a cargo ship. Maybe it's a Navy ship. Either way, she didn't make it.

 

The tide was going out so there was plenty of mud for the kids to play in. And the sun was shining so everyone and their pet dog had to come out to the Island the same day I did. Sheesh. Ok, dogs aren't allowed on here, but still, a lotta people.

 

The last little bit of summer brought lots of sunshine to our corner of the world, which was really good considering my dryer broke down. I went without for several weeks till I could get it fixed. I learned a lot about dryers and myself. I really CAN take apart a dryer and put it back together! Who knew that youtube videos could be so helpful? That said, I didn't fix the dryer. I did take it apart and put it back together, but that isn't what fixed it. My friend came and saved my day by replacing what we assumed was the bad part. It wasn't and we had to replace something else, but we (yeah...um...he) got the job done and I don't have to deal with this anymore.

    

I finally, on the third day of school for Kendrah, managed to get the picture of them at the front door for their (cough) first (cough) day of school portrait. One of those "my, how they've grown" moments for me and something they can look back on later and say, "Gosh, I looked like a dork back then" moments for them. Gotta have them. And, for the record, I think they are adorable!!!

 

Quin's first day of shool didn't start till after a couple field trips.  His first one was to Padilla Bay in Anacortes.

He and many others from his school went out to the mudflats and looked for creatures. And, by mudflats, I mean.....

 

MUD! And lots of it! And rocks.

 There isn't a big rock Quin doens't want to climb on, or get his picture with. 

 

But then it was time to get to work, grab a shovel and dig up worms!

 And other ewwey gooey things. 

The bird waited for us to finish our clean-up, our picnic, and get out of its way so it could have some snackage in peace.

Quin's next field trip, we cancelled because Kendrah's school had one scheduled for the same day and hers sounded like more fun.

 We went to a cabin on Lake Cavanaugh that is owned by her teacher's family. And by cabin, I mean...

You know, like, cabin.

Anyway, they had some bonding time in the lake and some lessons on the lawn, and some BBQ on the deck.

They got to jump on (and off) the water trampoline, swim, and kayak.

 

Oh, and relax, too. Plenty of that.

My new car has an odd leak on the floor, but the dealership I took it to couldn't figure out where it was coming from without taking the entire front end apart. They also couldn't figure out why it gets itself stuck in park sometimes when I start the car, or why the Service Engine Soon light was on, but it took them 4 hours to figure out they didn't have a clue. However, a few days later the light went off and has stayed off. It still locks itself in Park and still occasionally leaks, but whatever.

My house sold yesterday, probably the fastest Short Sale, ever. I didn't want to sell it (it being my dream home and all) but since Jeff and I separated, financial ruin is what I get. I was hoping to be able to stay here longer so I could save up some money -- Jeff doens't have to pay me much, so he doens't -- but we got an offer the day it was listed and it actually was accepted by the bank and I have 30 days to move out. Sorry, I mean 29 today. I thought it would be rather simple to find a rental but so far all I've done is gotten rejected because I don't earn three times the amount of rent each month, and have uncovered two scams. I know I'm asking for a lot for a little money but I want my kids and I to have a decent house to live in. Hard enough to leave a dream house this size without leaving it for a crazy-small apartment with no yard.

So, that's my lot in life, it's not a lot, but it's a life, as they say in A Bug's Life movie.

 

 

...in July we went with some frineds to the Big Four Ice Caves. It's a short hike, about a mile in. We got there first and wandered around the parking area while waiting. We were waiting at the wrong parking area, but, hey, this is my story and I can leave that bit out if I want to.

As I was saying, we were waiting and I took a picture of a strange forest I saw above the picnic tables in the shelter.

So I took a picture of it.

Then I had to take a picture of my kids goofing off at the signage

 and a closer-up of the mountain and fog.

Once we met up at the correct location (no cell service out there) we began our hike across a beautiful blue-green river.

 

   Before long, Kendrah has to rescue Quin from the jaws of a dangerous tree-alligator.

And another tree manages to swallow four children (and a geocache). Big Four is a scary place!

  

But it has much beauty as well.

 

But, it's mostly dangerous.

The kids saw no cause for alarm, just snow, and lots of it! Woo!

The caves were pretty small down below but there were some areas where the camera managed to pick up shades of blue in the ice.

The kids spent most of their time standing at the mouth of a cave, bashing in the sides. The sun was shining but they worked till I wondered if frostbite was in our very near future. Their hands were red and felt colder than the ice they were hammering away at.

Time for a break from mass destruction, there was another ice cave up the hill from us. Can you see it?

 Up close, that one was a bit intimidating!

Ice caves are very dangerous, all joking aside. One should never ever go inside one or climb on top of one. This one was huge and uphill so we didn't get too close because it was just as likely to collapse as it was to stay intact.

Naturally not everyone is sane or cautious. This is what I call an Idiot On Ice.

This guy walked halfway up the ice field and just sat there for about 15 minutes.  You can't know where the ice is soft and rotten underneath the crust, and as far up he was, if he'd hit a soft spot and fallen through, he wouldn't have survived. He did survive on this day, as far as I know.

 On to prettier things, we saw flora and fauna. 

And a siren wanna-be.

 And blue-green water under a bridge. 

And really great views.

And other things. Like foxgloves -- another dangerous thing! Foxgloves are deadly poisonous. Although why anyone would be tempted to eat them, I have no idea. But sometimes I lack imagination.

 

Pretty sure you wouldn't die from eating these daisies, but again, why would you want to eat them?

  Yum! Not.  

I found the whorls on this log to be fascinating. I'd have liked to seen someone sand this smooth so I could see the grain clearly, maybe oil it and, oh, why not, shape it into a bowl or something, just for me.

And now this last picture you're just going to dismiss as, well, not one of my best. You may even not spare it more than a milisecond's puzzled glance, but I really like it, and I'll tell you why so you can appreciate my weird sense of cool. First of all, I am sitting on a cement wall, looking down into the crystal clear water, except for the swirls of the silt where I'd dropped a pretty rock the kids had found for me. It was an accident, don't look at me like that. Anyway, I was admiring the clouds in the water when I noticed that the water in the shadow was also reflecting the clouds in the sky. Ok, so you were right, it's a horrible picture, but I like it.

And, it's the last picture I'm going to share from this trip so you won't have to look at any more.

However, there are more trips, and more pictures, and maybe those won't need so much explanation.

 

 

 

Having fallen way behind on my photo sorting I decided to take this opportunity to blog about some pictures I took earlier this year. So, back up with me all the way to May, back when K's hair was long. They were making faces at each other and I had to capture it:

Then they made faces at me, which I also captured.

   

A few weeks later, a bunny in my yard was also making faces. Ok, mostly it was eating but it looked funny to me. I crawled in the grass to get as close as possible and tried to be still. It kept a wary eye or two on me but didn't slow down in it's munchings.

  

A few days after that photo op, the kids and I went hiking with some friends of ours. It was a drizzly day but we made the most of our hike and I got some cool pictures of a old boardwalk.

 And raindrops on leaves.

Some of a rushing stream through a mass of fresh vegatation. 

 

And of some calm ferns over flowing water.

 Towering trees and slimy snails. 

These are a few of my favorite things. Ok, not the snails, but Peter liked it enough to play with it.

We were testing out a area for a hike to go on with the ladies of the church, and this place failed. The trails were blocked off by trees that had fallen a year ago that they hadn't cleared, the trails that were clear were through a beautiful area but everything was unkempt and the loop no longer looped and we had to do quite a bit of backtracking.

 Our summer involved tree climbing.

  And being buried at the beach a lot. One of our favorite parks is Twin Rivers Park, where the north and south forks of the Stillaguamish River meet. There is plenty of sand to play in there, and of course, water to swim in. The best swimming river, the tail end of the north fork, is pretty rocky so we sometimes have to choose if we want to play in water or sand because the sand is where the forks meet, but isn't good for swimming due to the currents and little whirlpools and deep water.

Next time I'll show you some of the pics I took when we went to the Big Four Ice Caves last July.