Ladies' Hike

The first wedding I was ever in, I was also the maid of honor. We were just finishing college, and I knew nothing of the rules that come with the job except that I was supposed to organize a bachelorette party. I also knew that Amy (nor any of us that hung around together) were really overly excited about a night of crazy drinking and penis cakes. So instead, I organized a bachelorette backpacking trip. It was a huge success (and we did throw in some fun things to make it sort of "traditional".....pasties, 'special' lollipops), and we have done our darnedest to keep the tradition going with hikes for those getting married, and now just a yearly girls hike.

I haven't been on one in ages, and Danielle has graciously (many a year ago) taken over the organizing of it each year. This year I was able to go, and despite my hellacious luck with roads and traffic, had a wonderful time. We always try to meet in the middle as we have spread out over the years, but I was pretty much odd man out this year, as everyone else was coming from the greater Seattle area. So we settled on a hike on the east side of Mt Rainier. I was running about a half hour late, but after 5 and a half hours of driving, I was 10 miles from the meeting point. Then I saw the sign. "Hwy 123 closed from Hwy 12 to Chinook Pass". Yep, I was heading to Chinook Pass. I refused to believe the sign (What does 'closed' really mean, anyway? How closed?), and drove to the nearest ranger station along that road and got the confirmation I was dreading. So after a 100 mile detour, and 2 hours later, I met up with my dear friends who were all smiles and patience despite waiting for me for 3 hours.

Here is the traditional 'before' pose.


It was a great hike. Nice and level, crossing lots of creeks and rivers, keeping the hounds cool (5 people and 3 dogs this year). Not a particularly dramatic hike, but well shaded, and at the end, very nice views of a waterfall and the giant herself, Mt Rainier. The hike was along the American River and our destination was Dewey Lakes where we camped right on the water's edge. It might have been a slightly illegal campsite as the area around it was 'closed for restoration', but Danielle had found out that the rangers don't work on Saturday (what? isn't that when everyone hikes?), and the only legal campsite left was so infiltrated with mosquitoes that if we had camped there, we would have had to have lit an illegal fire. So pick your poison. We'd rather trample a few plants, than risk burning down the forest.

You can see our tents on the edge of the lake, and Rainier in the distance. We were also treated to some nice meteor showers at night.


Morning light on Rainier:


Goofy girls at camp.


Thanks to my delayed arrival, we got to camp right as the sun was setting, and while beating away at the mosquitoes and bathing in DEET cooked up dinner which, thanks to Katherine, was accompanied by a nice red Zinfindel! We've carried up bottles of champagne, and even some hard liquor, but no one has yet had the foresight to leave the glass bottle at home and dump the contents in a collapsible boda bag. Nice.


We awoke to a beautiful day and gorgeous morning light on Mt Rainier. We had a lazy breakfast, I took a quick swim (I could only get Amy to join me and she only made it up to her knees), then we packed up and trekked back. It was a longer hike than any of us remembered from the day before, so we were all happy to see our cars. On the way home, I was making nice time on I-5, until I hit the remnants of a major traffic jam that set me back another hour. I was so happy, because do you know how much I love that I-5 drive anyway? Spending that extra hour basking the beauty around Chehalis was fabulous.

Despite the fact that Gracie has been limping a lot lately, she fought through the pain, and had a gay ol time carrying rocks down the trail and stealing other dog's balls.


In other news....(I've got to learn to write more frequently so I don't have to type so much in one sitting!)....we spent two days with our good friends Chris and Tami at their family retreat in Black Butte (east of the cascades from Eugene). We spent the time visiting, playing tennis, riding bikes, and getting to know their two precious girls better. The weather was kind of chilly, but it was a great and very relaxing couple of days.

Keith and the girls.


We accidentally kicked the girls' soccer ball out into the lake. Keith was too chicken to ask to borrow a kayak for a rescue operation, so I did. He wanted to wait until it floated to the other side....never mind that you can't walk around to the other side. Men.


Then we got invited to go golfing with Jenn and John at the Eugene Country Club's 'Hit and Giggle'. It was a fun time, but after hitting some decent balls in the fields of the local high school as a warm up, I was sorely disappointed in my performance. I was lucky to even hit the ball let alone get it up in the air. Ah well, it was a beautiful day and a beautiful coarse and great company.

Jenn and John getting ready to golf. These two bums are kicking around Munich right now and soon to be heading to Spain! Can't wait to read their blog! (Hint, hint).


More photos from our day trying to golf (I should actually say that Keith did quite well, it was Jenn and I that didn't contribute a whole heck of a lot in the hitting department. The drinking and giggling? We did just fine.)






And then we got to work on that house we bought. The fence is now done. Looks good. Except our neighbors on one side apparently got restless and decided to do their stretch themselves. Keith showed up one day and it was in progress and almost done. Of course Keith and I have both grown up with construction perfectionists for fathers, so we were putting a lot of attention to detail in the fence. The neighbors did a fine job, but there are things we would have done differently to make it look better and be more sturdy. But you can hardly complain when they are doing the work for you! The neighbor who shares the back side is not able to pay us for half the materials, but she is a licensed massage therapist, so we'll be getting paid in massages. I'll take it.

In this picture you can see the stretch our neighbors did and how it doesn't quite match.


Looking the other way.


Keith has been doing an amazing job raising the house up. He is literally using car jacks and beams and slowly lifting the whole darn thing up in order to level it out. I think he's got at least an inch by now on one side.

And for this past week, we have been officially taking care of 3 houses. Our lease is up the end of this month, so we've still got the rental. We bought that other house, so we've got that one. And our dear friends Jenn and John have left on a three month European vacation (bums), and we are housesitting and pugsitting while they are gone, so we have moved ourselves into their very comfortable home until they get back. In the meantime, our landlord found tenants to move in early, and we're leaving this weekend to spend a week at my parents, so that left us with the last three days to move everything out of the rental and get it clean. Whew. I'm tired just thinking about everything that we've had to get done this last week, because, oh yeah, I have to go to work sometimes too. One more full day of cleaning and nursing and we'll be off crossing the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge (for a price....it's not a free trip to GH anymore!) to go see the Bauer clan reunited in good ol Gig Harbor.