Green Bluff

Moving to the country, gonna eat me a lot of peaches...

...35 peaches to be exact.  Today we drove a few miles outside of town and visited one of our favorite places, Green Bluff.  Green Bluff is an area north of Spokane that is a collection of a few dozen farms that grow all sorts of fruits, vegetables, and other things. In the fall Green Bluff has an apple festival and pumpkins...a cornucopia of Americana all in one place.

In July most of the u-pick options are cherries.  However, due to the dry conditions this year the cherry crop was pretty sparse, so we settled for 35 peaches at Walter's Fruit Ranch. They are deliciously scrumptious.

We took Mt Spokane highway back from picking peaches. This is one of my favorite areas outside of town. During this time of year it is covered by miles and miles of wheat fields. Amber waves of grain to be exact. There were prettier pictures to be had than the ones below, but these pictures were taken from where we stopped to grab a "free" sample. I picked a head of wheat and the family had fun munching on the grains one by one. In a inexplicably fun yet not surprising way, the grains tasted like little bites of flour. I thought that was so cool for some odd reason. Pass the extra gluten, please.

Loon Lake, WA

This morning we woke up and decided over a cup of coffee at the Rockwood Bakery to spend the day at Loon Lake. Loon Lake is only about 30 minutes north of Spokane. After dropping off Stacey at a local coffee shop for work, the kids and I scouted out the best place to have a picnic lunch and access the water.

Most of the lakefront is privately owned, but we were able to find a small place called Granite Point Resort that only charged a few dollars per person.  In addition, it had bathroom and changing room facilities, so it was a good place to hang out with the kids.

After lunch we picked up Stacey and spent several hours playing on the beach and swimming in the lake.  I took a few plunges off of the diving board and the kids, off of the dock into my arms. I had to carry them over to the dock since it was so deep, but they had fun riding on my back.

There was a little wind today, so it wasn't especially warm. Regardless, it was still a great time. The kids and I were pretty beat after a fun summer day on the lake.

Spokane

We made it.  This time we decided to drive up to Spokane since we had a nice, new car and it saved us a bunch of money. The trip took two days - 18 hours exactly.  That's really good since it's about the same amount of time it would have taken without the kids.  No extra stops...but we also didn't drink a lot of fluids and the kids were mainly entertained by the iPad and Kindle.  They were content to have screen time for hours on end in the car.  The halfway point is Billings, Montana, where we stayed the first night.

We decided to have a picnic dinner at Cannon Hill Park the first night we were in town. It was a good chance for the kids to stretch their legs after being in the car for so long. After a long day of playing, we put the kids to bed. When I came out of our room I discovered that Julia had moved over to Jonathan's pillow and they were holding hands.  Pretty cute.

July 3rd Fireworks

We decided to celebrate the 4th this year on the 3rd.  A coworker of mine was getting married in Denver on the 3rd, so we decided to make a weekend of it.  After the wedding we drove a couple of miles south to Clement Park in Columbine to watch fireworks.  This was the first time that the kids had stayed up for fireworks.  Up to this point we didn't feel like keeping them up this late and battling traffic was worth the hassle.  They loved the show, even though it started raining right before the show began.

Prior to the show we were treated to a nice sunset over the lake.  After some negotiations Jonathan finally agreed to pose for a picture.  He was too busy trying to find pieces of bread to feed the ducks, even though the dropped pieces by other kids were all gone by this point.

Although we were staying only a few miles away, we didn't get back to the hotel room until after 10:30.  The next day we went to the Denver Zoo, but it was hot and the kids were pretty tired from the night before.

Using Your Imagination

Summer is all about play time, and that leads to you, as a kid, using your imagination. Despite the requests, Mom and Dad can't keep you entertained every hour of the summer.

On this day the kids determined that a rescue mission was in order.  Their stuffed animals were in grave danger. Enter safari vests by Aunt Michelle and a custom ribbon winch and grocery bag. Poised nearby ready to strike was the biggest, baddest tiger in all the land known to the locals only as "kitty".

And then later that day they closed up shop, putting it in writing for their master Mom that they had had enough.

Mt Elbert

Distance - 8.5 miles
Elevation Gain - 4,100 feet
Time - 5 hours

Today I hiked up to the third highest point in the United States, the second highest in the Contiguous United States, and the highest point in Colorado. 14,433 feet to be precise. OK, enough with the numbers, it was actually a pretty easy hike. There is nothing special about the highest point in Colorado other than that fact that it is the highest point in Colorado. Still cool though.

I was supposed to hike Mt Elbert the prior weekend but delayed the trip since I wasn't feeling 100%. I woke up at 3 a.m. since thunderstorms looked likely for the afternoon.  Looking back that was probably too early, since the 2.5 hour drive meant I started hiking at 6:00 and the easy hike meant I was on the summit by 8:40. It's cool to think that I was on the top of a mountain about the same time most people were finishing up their Frosted Krusty Os for breakfast. I packed light which meant I didn't really stop to take a break.  The best part about getting an early start was that it allowed me to get above the fog and low clouds before they burned off, resulting in some great pictures.

A dense mist settles over the forest. The Sasquatch lurks:



Looking at the false summit, last patches of green, at the top:



You can see that the wet spring we've had in town means up in the mountains. I didn't run into too much snow, you could walk around most of it, but there were a few small snow fields to cross:



One guy's tradition. It's a good tradition to have since pretty much every summit has enough wind to fly a kite. Kite flyer and his female hiking partner hiked up to the top with a pair of skis. Although you can't tell the length at all (the depth perception is non-existent), the second photo shows the section I decided to glissade (i.e. slide on my rear) instead of hiking down. It was a great ride. The third photo is heading back to the the trail head with Twin Lakes in view:



It's easy (on the eyes) being green after a few hours of all brown and white:



Quintessential Colorado.  At only about 30 minutes from "a little place called Aspen", you start seeing a lot more water and a lot more green. I didn't take any pictures of the beginning of the hike, but it was through a huge Aspen grove with broad leaf plants and wildflowers carpeting the ground. I parked at the top of the 4WD road, meaning that I had some fun driving through this stream crossing twice:



This hike pushed me to the 40% mark. I'm closing in on making it up half of the state's 53 tallest mountains.

More Pictures

Pictures from Stacey's phone of the hike yesterday.  Sure did beat sitting in front of a computer at work!

Horsethief Falls

The kids were with Grandma today, so I decided to play hooky from work so Stacey and I could go hiking together up to Horsethief Falls.  We dropped the kids off a little early and drove up past Divide to the west side of Pikes Peak.  The hike was a very easy 2.5 mile round trip. We could have added 4 more miles round trip if we had taken the detour up to pancake rocks, but we didn't have time.

The hike is perfect for little kids and older folks, like the group of about 20 retirees that we passed on the way down.  Almost all of the trail is shaded and follows a small creek and/or water most of the way.  This hike starts just below 10,000 feet in elevation but it gets you well above the 10,000 foot mark along the trail.  It would be a good place for some training runs.

The falls were bigger and prettier than these pictures show.  Most of them were taken at the top of the falls, since there really wasn't a good spot at the bottom for picture taking. With all the rain we've gotten this spring and early summer, there was plenty of water rushing by us at the top.

The Cupcake Song