Last weekend we actually got out of town and went camping! We haven't camped all summer and it was starting to bother us...I think I heard our tent crying out in the garage. After work on Friday we dropped Daisy off at the bird sitter and headed up to the North Cascades National Park. That evening we stayed at Rockport state park, which is full of tall trees with moss hanging from them-very beautiful. Oh yes, the park had hot showers too, which are always welcome after a long hike. So much for roughing it!

The next morning we headed up to Sahale Peak. We stopped short of the glacier and sat down for lunch with a great 360 view of rugged peaks. There was quite a bit of wildlife on the trail and we even saw a mountain goat with a kid in tow.

Later that night we had an excellent dinner at the "world famous" Buffalo Run cafe (well, only famous in that corner of the world) and made s'mores over the campfire. I had a good time buring marshmallows over the fire too :)

Click here for some photos from the hike.

What a great weekend. It was nice to just hike for once and not stress out over training.

Our '06 adventure racing season is officially over- we'd rather go on a 2-week vacation instead of doing the Wicked 24 hour race. So it looks like we'll take the next month to relax and then start gearing up for winter sports. I'm hoping for a lot of snow so I can XC ski race this winter.

This wasn't the most exciting weekend ever, but we still had a good time. We went shopping on Saturday and watched the movie Castaway later that evening. After the movie we decided being stranded on an island would be cool, but only for about a month. And with a few ammenities like a knife and a tent...

Today we slept in (till 8 mind you) and tried out a yoga tape we checked out from the library. Well, the tape was a bit advanced (headstands are a bit out of our league) so we scrapped that and went down to the XXX Rootbeer's 55-57 Chevy car show. There were a lot of cars but nothing compares to the Woodward Dream Cruise going on in Detroit this weekend, where hundreds of thousands of people bring out their classic cars and have a huge party. My dad and I went to the very first Dream Cruise in his '78 Mustang, back before it was a huge event. I guess it's gotten a lot bigger- I think there were over a million people there last year. For you non-Michiganders, Woodward Avenue was a popular place for kids to cruise and drag race back in the 60's and 70's.

In keeping with the 50's theme we had lunch at the BurgerMaster drive-in off the 520. The joint was packed- we didn't get our usual spot underneath the awning today. When the waitress came up I kind of chuckled- she was using a wireless palm pilot-type gadget to take our order. So much for an authentic 50's atmosphere!

Later in the afternoon we hiked up to Poo Poo point so Eric could see the paragliders take off. It was getting late in the day and we really moved fast to get up there before sunset. Eric really wants to do a tandem flight now which is fine as long as I don't have to go too. Heights are OK, but not when strapped to glorified kite.

Now onto another workweek...

The past week's been really busy. Joe and Jamie came to visit at the tail end of their honeymoon, so Eric took last Tuesday off and played tour guide. It was really nice to have them over-you guys can come out and visit anytime you want!

Last weekend was great. We did dim sum on Saturday and then picked up our new kitchen worktable. If you've been to our house you'd know that we have absolutely no storage or counter space. Our new table solves both problems and best of all it was really cheap! Sunday was our 2 year anniversary. Being totally non-traditional, we woke up at 5:45am to go on a long bike ride, then totally wolfed down dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Later that night we picked up a Boston Cream Pie (saw one on a TV show and it looked really good), and even cut the cake with our wedding cake knife.

I just added some photos from yesterday's hike. The contrast is way off on them due to varying light conditions...someday I'll figure out how to take those shots correctly!

Click here for the pictures!

Today we did a hike up in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness with Kim and Jerry. What started out as a 3-5 hour hike ended up turning into a 7-hour adventure.

We started at 8am in the Alpental parking lot (ski area) and headed up the trail to Snow Lake. Unlike our last trip up there, the lake was completely thawed out with no snow in sight. After a brief photo op we then went around Snow and up to Gem Lake. These high alpine lakes are gorgeous- the clearest water you've ever seen in a shade that resembles blue Windex. We had a quick snack at Gem then strategized our next destination, Chair Lake. Unforunately for us there is no trail to the pass and the route looked decidely sketchy with steep boulder fields . In true adventure racing spirit we pressed on, first completely bushwhacking through the forest then crossing the first of many scree and snow areas. The first part was fine, then we scrambled up a steep meadow-like area and finally reached Chair Lake, which was high enough in elevation to still have big patches of snow on it. We all dared Eric to jump in, but after sticking his hand in the water he decided against it. Bummer. We then crossed more scree and snow, then climbed up another extremely steep meadow to reach the saddle. Yippee- the hard part is over, right? Wrong! There was another massive boulder field to cross before reaching the trail back down to the car. That section was uneventful, although I had a slight delay after a rock hit my ankle bone :( So when we reached lake Matakwa (sp?) Eric was so hot that he took off his shirt and jumped in the water! It must've been super cold-as soon as he hit the water he was already on his way back to the shore! The remainder of the hike was hot and rocky and seemed like an eternity. Pretty much all we talked about is how badly we wanted a Slurpee. We stopped at Denny Creek (a rocky area with lots of pools to sit in) to wash our faces and then finished the trail with no major incidents (except for Eric hurting his knee). We were so happy to see the car!

Here are couple pics, I'll post more tomorrow on the photo site: