Sandwich? Manwich? Ham sammich? Mishmash? No, Sammamish!

Goodbye beautiful Cascade mountains! Saturday morning we performed our usual ritual of packing up all our stuff and loading up the car. Is it possible we have more stuff than we did when we left? Yes, yes it is. Maybe we should get another cargo carrier? We were a bit sad to be leaving our nice cabin (only two people had to share a bed this time!), but we were ready for our next stop.

We had some breakfast and then headed for Seattle. Our first stop was the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit. Chihuly is a artist who mainly used glass as a medium. The pieces he created are incredibly gorgeous. We really enjoyed the exhibits. If you are ever headed to Seattle, we highly recommend this as a stop.

After perusing the gift shop, we got in the car and headed to Sammamish, Washington. We have some friends who moved to Sammamish last year, and we planned to spend a couple of days hanging out with them and seeing Seattle. We arrived in Sammamish at about 4pm, and after following the GPS to their house, we found that their house isn’t on the GPS. We called them up and got step-by-step instructions over the phone. Is this how our parents had to do things? No, they didn't even have mobile phones. Perish the thought. I love our technology, and we are definitely spoiled with it.  

The Brauns gave us a very warm welcome. Their kids made signs on poster boards and they greeted us at the corner when we pulled up. Although we had seen Eric and Anne Marie a couple of months ago, it has been almost a year since we've seen the kids.

Emily, Matthew, Ashley, Samantha, Haley, Grace Marie, and TJ

Same crew but with Blake, who was not happy to be taking pictures...

We had a great fajita dinner and then hung out and talked out front while the kids played soccer, pogo sticks, chased each other around, and raced up and down the street. The weather was unbelievably gorgeous and we really enjoyed the night with great friends.

A hike into the clouds

Friday was a beautiful day in Concrete, Washington. We got up, made breakfast for the kids, had our morning coffee, and got geared up for a hike. After we donned our hiking boots and filled up the Camelbacks (will these things work with Bailey’s and coffee? I should try….), we drove out to Sauk Mountain Road. This road was eerily similar to the road we took for our family picture jaunt (aaaah! flashbacks!!). However, the surroundings were quite different. The beautiful, tall green trees outlined our path as we drove up the side of the mountain. Emily asked, "Daddy, when we get there, can we touch the clouds?"

We found the trailhead and parked the family truckster.

We were high enough to see the clouds drifting past us as we began our hike. The hiking trail was lined with pretty, wild flowers….so many different kinds.

The trail was not too steep, and there were a lot of switchbacks on the way up. However, it was pretty narrow, and one misstep could send you tumbling down the mountain. I might have told the girls to “be careful” a little more than five thousand times. Once again I thought about my recent increase in life insurance and asked Sherri to go in front of me.

About two miles into the hike, we encountered snow on the path. Snow! We hiked a couple hundred more yards and saw that the rest of the path was covered with snow and was very slick. Another five thousand “be carefuls”. The fog and clouds had not burned off, so the visibility was very limited.

We hung out near the top for a while and then turned back. Ashley made a snowball and told us that she was going to carry it down the mountain. She let us know that if we did not make it down the mountain before it melted, we’d all have to do 10 push-ups. We made it down a lot quicker than we made it up. Although it was overcast and we didn't get the 360 degree views that this hike typically offers, we loved the trek.

After the hike we went back to our place to ask the owners where we could rent some fishing gear. Our plan was to head up to Baker Lake and let the girls do some fishing.  Instead, they found some horses and roosters at the main office, and spent a lot of time with the animals. When they were finished feeding and playing with the animals, we headed to dinner.

What are YOU lookin' at?!

After dinner, we went back to our cabin and made some reservations for the coming weeks. We are winging some of this trip, and while sometimes that has been stressful, it has also been kind of fun, as we never know what adventure we’re headed to next.

Three states in one day?!

We left our beloved "Griz" cabin early Thursday morning after packing (again!!!!) the car. The girls will miss the hammocks, but....a rolling stone gathers no moss. The majority of Friday was spent driving from Montana to Washington. We hit our fifth state border of our trip at about 9am

And our sixth about an hour later

This sort of felt like cheating, as passing through the Idaho Panhandle only takes an hour. However, it did get me curious as to why Idaho has the Panhandle.  Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_Panhandle.  There is some interesting history there.

As we started through the mountains in Washington, we were once again awed by the beauty

We took the North Cascades Highway through the North Cascades National Park. 

"OK, here's how it works. I'll set up the tripod, set the timer, and then scurry up the rocks. Ready....go!......<click>. Crap!"

Let's try that again...Take Two!

Sweet!

The view at the Diablo Lake Overlook in the North Cascades was stunning. The river is so, so green. It's beautiful.

We arrived in Concrete, Washington at about 5pm. It's a pretty solid town. I mean, I can't imagine cementing myself to the place, but it's pretty enough and active enough to cure any boredom you might have. And, I could see how people bond with the place. Plus, it's not a hard place to find.

We had dinner at Cascade Burgers, which is a really good 50s diner. I asked the girls to guess how many years the diner had been there. The guesses were: 85 years (Haley), 65-80 years (Ashley), and 63 years (Emily). The answer is 3. Sooooo close.

After dinner, we headed to our cabin at Ovenell's Heritage B&B. We got our keys to "Bear Hollow" and went to our cabin. We really like this place, and even talked about opening a B&B a couple decades from now in retirement. Who knows?

An Avalanche and the Long and Winding Road

We had early morning plans again for Wednesday. Sherri and I woke up at about 6am, made a full breakfast for the kids, and then went on a 10 mile run. Ok, not really…we actually put our heads back on our pillows. No words spoken between us, I think we both figured our hike could wait until we all got some well-needed rest.

We all finally got up at the crack of 10am. We headed to the lodge for some breakfast, which we ate outside of our cabin while the girls played on the hammocks.

After breakfast, we filled up Camelbacks and bottles, put on our hiking shoes, and headed back into Glacier National Park. We stopped and parked at the trail head of the Trail of the Cedars Nature Trail.  There are three different hiking options at this trail. You can either do the Trail of the Cedars loop (0.2 miles), the Avalanche Trail loop (0.8 miles), or the trail to Avalanche Lake (4 miles). We chose the Avalanche Lake hike. We all agreed that it was the most beautiful trail we have ever hiked. Hence, the eleventy billion pictures that follow…

That's a canister of bear spray on my hip. Take that, bears!

Something I never thought I'd say: "Ok, all three of you stand inside that tree!"

We arrived at Avalanche Lake, and soaked in the breathtaking beauty.

A butterfly loving on Emily

Roots of a tree that fell over. Awesome.

The kids did great on the hike. We were concerned about the heat given the fact that we started our hike about 4 hours later than we wanted to, but we were happy to discover that the large majority of the hike was in the shade of the trees. 

For lunch? dinner?, we headed back to The Huckleberry Patch. We got there at the same time as two tour buses with what seemed like 8,327 people in them. There was huckleberry pie and ice cream being served up left and right. It was huckleberrymadness. Being ever the proper tourists, we had an assortment of huckleberry products, and made sure that no one left without eating something with huckleberry in it. Which is about as difficult as breathing. The huckleberry au jus sauce for the French Dip was a bit unsettling. It was tasty, but the huckleberries floating in it were interesting. Huckleberry. Huckleberry. Say that 100 times and it sounds weird. We've had our fill of huckleberries….for now at least.

After lunch? dinner? we went back to the cabin, showered, and got ready for our next….um….adventure. Our plan was to take our yearly family photo somewhere beautiful. We asked one of the guys who worked at the lodge where we should go. He told us to head up to Bowman Lake. He claimed it was his favorite lake, and that it was absolutely gorgeous. Just a short drive up the way... 

Dude, what in the @#$@# was he smoking?! 

Let me see if I can help you experience this trek….

Picture yourself driving down a gravel road (about 3/4ths the width of your car) with eight zillion minor speed bumps. Take a turn about 0.02 miles and double back. Take another turn about .05 miles and redouble back. Add dust flying everywhere and do this for about an hour and a half. Along the way, look for signs that aren't there to point you toward the most-beautiful-lake-of-ever that the GPS can’t point you to because you’re in the middle of BFGNP. Stop occasionally to precariously balance your car on the edge of the cliff so another car can pass. Ask those people if you are headed in the right direction. Get confirmation, but still never get there. In retrospect, you’ll realize that the reason they said, “You’re almost there…..it’s worth it” is because they want you to suffer the same ridiculous fate that they did. Drive for about another seven thousand miles. Stop at a mercantile/bakery in the middle of nowhere and ask where the lake is. Get misleading directions from the owner, who must have also been tricked into going up here at some point, and who also makes it sound like “you’re almost there.” Turn into a clearing, expecting to see a lake. Do that 157 million times. Finally, find a parking lot for the lake where the lake is still not visible. Walk to the lake in your nice picture clothes carrying all of your camera gear. Walk to a clearing where you finally see a beautiful lake. Not the most-beautiful-lake-of-ever, or even of Glacier National Park, mind you. But still, beautiful. Take pictures, turn around, and relive the magic all over again. 

Boy was that ever fun.  I’m not going to post any pictures here, because if we’re lucky, we got a couple for our Christmas card.

Our planned 1-1.5 hour jaunt turned into 3+ hours.  We got back to the cabin at around 10pm (still light out!).  We told the girls we’d make s’mores when we got back, and although we were tempted to ask for a rain check since we had a very long day ahead of us on Thursday, we went ahead and made a campfire. We roasted some marshmallows and sandwiched them between graham crackers and chocolate. 

It’s funny….with all the stuff we’re doing on this trip, it’s the moments like these campfires that are the most meaningful and special to me.