Adams Ride

So long story short, I resigned from my teaching position at Sunnyside. I don't think anyone can really blame me, I've done 5 years in this tiny town,and enjoyed most of it, but, oh my goodness, I have got to move on. So I don't know where I am going, I only know that I wont be in Sunnyside. Phew, one decision down..... and a million more to go.
So that is where I am right now. Now the exciting stuff!
On Monday I leave for a cycle tour around Washington! 400 miles from the Tri-Cities to Mount Adams and back. I have been totally dreaming about this for like, a year! As I have traveled around Washington, I find these roads that are just too lovely, and I always think. "Oooh, I'd like to come back here on a bike someday." Eventually some of those roads formed into a figure eight and thus was born my "Adams ride"
So here is the schedule. My family and a few friends are meeting me along the way so that I'll have people to camp with and the rest of the time I'll be by myself, which is kinda scarry, but not as scary as some of the hills along the way.
Anyway, it should be fun. I'll keep ya'll posted.

Adams ride itinerary

June 27: Monday mile 79: Kennewick to Crow Butte Campground: 79 miles

June 28:Tuesday Mile 147mi: to Horse thief Campground 68 miles

June 29: Wednesday Mile 168mi: to Hood River 21 miles

June 30: Thursday Mile 191mi: to Troutlake 23 mi

July 1: Friday Mile 258: To Badger Gultch 67 Miles

July 2: Saturday Mile 358: To Kennewick 100 miles!!

Belle and Sebastian

So I have a list of 29 things I'm going to do while I'm 29. Number 20 or so is go see a good concert, which is what I did, made all the more exciting because it was in midweek! My good friend Dave told me about it on Tuesday. The concert was the next day, Wednesday, which normally would have been ridiculous, but I had actually already scheduled a sick day on Thursday, the day after the concert, because I had a dentist appointment. So, my friend got us some tickets and off I went up to Seattle! I had a blast, drove back the same night. Well, almost, only got as far as CleElum, before I pulled over and slept in a parking lot. It was very comfortable, I had brought my sleeping bag and put the back seat of my Forrester down, and slept like a baby until my alarm went off. I drove home in the moring in time for my dentist appointment and then slept the rest of the day.
What I love about Belle and Sebastian is that their music is sooo feel good and cheerful. It made for some great dancing! I danced almost to my hearts content (for the first few songs the whole audience was seated still, I tried to get up and dance, even though everyone was seated, but wow, that is difficult, I could only pull it off for one song. So I sat there squirming in my seat, I thought I was going to expoled, until finally the lead singer said "alright! You all, it's time to dance!" Then everyone got up and I was FREEE! Ahh, it was rejuvinating!

Anyway, I'm not always excited to be single still, but being able to run off and do something like this, it's a big perk. I'm greatful I am taking advantage of this unique time in my life!

Prosser Balloon Rally

Hello, this was probably one of the most magical, things I've been too in a long long while. It was amazing watching all these colors go up. It made be giddy, felt transported back to my childhood and ran around like a little kid, laughing and yelling, and I'm sure my wyes were bringt with awe and glee. I took like 60 photos at least! LOOOOVED it!

I'm back

Well, I've been computerless for a couple of months and blah blah blah busy, whatever, blah, so I haven't been blog, blog, blogging. As I'm sure so many people have noticed. Snicker snicker. Anyway, I'm not going to catch up, but here are some of the most rescent.


I have been cooking! Yup, like Julie and Julia, but this is Julie and Donna Hay! This is the chicken i stuffed with lemon, garlic and rosemary. Never done something like that before, i was pleased with the results. who wudda thought?

And that you see before me is a vanilla plum tart. I tell you it was the most amazing thing I have ever made, and it is only the third time in my life baking something not out of a box! I just may be a natural at this! And that wierd look on my face.... also natural.

A new addition to my life. This is the kitten I hit with my car! Yeah, I was driving one night and this little furry thing ran under my tires! Thump Thump! A whole entire forrester and my whole entire wieght crushing this poor little thing! HA, and it lived! Can you believe it? Sarah was with me and we turned around and picked up the poor thing and took it home hoping to give it a comfortable death. But instead it got a little better each day, and by the time I was able to take it to the vet, she was walking!! The vet said it must be a fractured pelvis, something that requires no special help to heal. So little by little the kitten has become more and more friskey and kitten like! She is very cute, but I'm afraid I can't handle more than one cat in my life. So I must find a home for her. Her name is francis by the way, and frankie for those who know her well.

Enchanted Valley, Spring Break!

Me and Sarah decided to do some backpacking on the olympic penninsula! It was fantastic! We went up to Seattle, saw a some friends and family. The next day we went across on the bainbridge fairy, and went to our first trail head. We went up the Elwha River and camped beside a cute brook. Then we hiked to Mary's Falls.. it is a hidden waterfall! We then hiked out and headed to our next destination. That night we broke in the forrester! Its first night of roadside gorilla camping. I must day, it is a nice set up! and we camped right by the ocean too! lovely.
We spent the next day just driving along the coast. being lazy and carefree. We went to Cape Flattery! the most northwestern point in the lower 48 states! woohoo. Plus it was a seriously beautiful place. It looked like it should have ruins of a castle or elves or something. There was also a crazy hail storm going on, that made it even more fun. It hurt though. Oh yeah and my forester had another first. We decided to go up this first road, hoping for a look out above the Cape. Sho nuf, we found it, but not before going driving up a road that have been carved up something crazy by the rains. I'm pretty sure my other car would have had to have been towed out. hee hee, a little scary for me, but satisfying.
We hit another beach and some big trees on our way down the coast, and finally ended up at the next trail head. The Quinault River trail. After a night of luxury, in the subaru, we hiked up the most beautiful trail i have been on yet. It is amazing how much life is in that forest! the most amazing part is how much death there was too. There was soo many fallen trees, that I kinda felt sad, but each fallen tree had layers upon layers of life on them. A fallen tree was not a tragedy in that forest, it was an other, vibrant green, variation in the landscape.

We actually didn't have a camera for the whole trip, so I stole this from some one's blog. This is the Quinault river.

This is the ranger station at Enchanted Valley. There are usually like a hundred waterfalls coming down the sheer cliffs behind the ranger station. But because there was still so much snow, there was only very small water falls, but a lot of AVALANCHES! ah yeah! we got to watch at least 10 thunder down the cliffs of the valley.Way exciting. this is also where we had planned to camp but didn't for reasons below.
Some of the scenery that we hiked through. This is the guy from who's blog I stole pics, I guess. snicker snicker.

Anyway, I had foolishly thought we were all alone on the trail, because the weather had been rough, and there had been no cars at the trail head in the morning when we set off. So, when looking for secluded places to answer the call of nature, away from the trail, i was half-hearted in my efforts, and paid for it. I stood up one time after finished my business only to look up the trail and see and Mom and her three teenage boys walking toward me. The mother's jaw was dropped and the boys were smiling...I'm not sure but I think they saw my bare bum! So acted cool, waved and said hello. They said hello back and passed on their way. As soon as they were out of sight, i shriveled up inside and the voice in my head screamed AAAHHHHHHH. Phew

So Sarah had talked to them a little ways down the trail where she was waiting for me. We knew that they were headed to the same camp we were, we also found out that there was much more snow that we thought up there due to the night before, so because we didn't want to snow camp and because I didn't want to camp with strangers that had possibly seen my bare bottom, we camped a little lower down and hike up there the next day for a day hike.
We hiked out the next day and met up with my parents at a lodge by the lake. It was nice to hang out with the folks with none of the usual distractions. For two days we read and relaxed My mom kicked our buns at bananagrams, and took many pictures and my dad swan like a fish in the pool. We sat by the fire a lot and ate yummy fancy food at the restaurant... oh yeah and don't forget... WE BATHED!It was really really nice having them all to myself. I have never really grown up, i need my mommy and daddy still and always.
We finally headed back, and saw more dear friends on the way home through tacoma! i love my friends. Dave and Campbell, really, those are two boys with hearts of gold. We stayed the night with sarah's friends and threw captain crunch all over their tv room, now that is a totally wonderful and fun family.
And now I'm back and Well, i'll survive til summer i guess.

Award :)

Me Ann and Dan. Folks from Lucky Seven.

The city of Sunnyside gave me and the other volunteers at Lucky Seven an award. "Volunteers of the Year". It feels good to get a thank you and some recognition for ALOT of hard work!

Lisa, the gal who co-runs sunnyside's Promise (the organization behind everything good that goes on in Sunnyside) Told me that they needed me to help with a presentation about Lucky Seven to the people of the chamber of commerce at some dinner thing. So I show up and was very surprised to see my parents at there, very pleasantly surprised. They had no good explanation as to why they were at an event that I hadn't even told them about. And stammered over some wierd story ... like my room mate called them and told them about it and they just happened to be in the area...... right. Then I noticed that the dinner was actually an awards banquet! HA! Anyway, lots of awards were presented, educator of the year, youths of the year and so on, and Dan, Ann, Dina and I, the folks who got Lucky seven off the ground were presented with this award.

I'm grateful, because I have felt so blah and unappreciated or unloved lately. It was nice to be appreciated.

I'm glad my mommy and daddy could come.

spiral butte, you may have won the battle but the war is far from over!

Me and Sarah decided to get serious on Spiral Butte, so we actually rented the snowshoes ahead of time, packed the night before and woke up early! We were at the trail head by 7am, giving us plenty of time for the 12 mi trip. Ben also came with, and we were very happy to have my handsome brother along.
It is 4 miles in to get to the butte and then 2 miles up. The hike in was no problem, but once we got to the butte, it was darn near impossible to find the path. No one has been on it recently enough to leave prints and we lost the trail in a part of the forest where the trees were all spread apart and there were no branches down low. (normally you can tell were the trail is because all of the branches are broken along it.) Of course the 4 feet of snow completely obscured any indication of the trail. So instead of going on the trail, we just went straight up the side of this ridge that was between us and the butte, figuring that at least we would get a close up look at the thing. That turned out to be lots of fun. Anyway, we decided that we will wait until spring to conquer the butte, and maybe next winter we will try in the snow, after we actually know the trail.



The top of the ridge, and I love Ben's goggles. By the way, Ben was awesome, considering he doesn't really work out, he took the 10 miles in the snow like a champ. My brothers are so strong anf awesome, I bet if they actually worked out they could do iron mans or something!

Whoa, look out for those trees! Sarah has just negotiated her way out of the clutches of it's branches. This is why one should not go off trail by themselves in the snow.

The Sun was out and the melting snow was like diamonds in the branches!


Ben has just finished making "tractor trails" as he likes to call them on this pristine hillside. Look he is soo proud of himself... awww, cute. I think of them as transformer tracks. You know, cuz the snow shoes look like the foot prints transformers would leave.