Keekwulee Falls Hike

Sunny day in Seattle and Jo has the day off, so we decided to take a short hike to Keekwulee Falls. It starts off near the Denny Creek campground. The trail ascends through forested land and passes under the I-90 highway bridge. It is a strange sight to see a concrete structure surrounded by forest. Eventually, we made it to the Denny Creek slippery slab. This place is popular during the summer where individuals slide down the granite slab. Further up the trail, the forest opened up to more expansive views of the mountains around us and then finally Keekwulee Falls. Not the prettiest of falls but a nice hike at any rate.

Annette Lake Hike

Today, John and I hiked to Lake Annette. Another beautiful sunny fall day in the northwest. No interesting characters on the trail today. We had the whole trail to ourselves only running into a three people on the trail. We found a log next to the lake to sit down and eat our delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Fish jumped for insects as we enjoyed the sun.

Naches & Dewey Lake Hike

Yesterday, my friend John and I decided to visit Mt Rainier and hike. It was a beautiful day as Sept often is in the northwest. Kevin couldn't join us as the Sprinter Van project has taken over his life.

We had no specific plans as how far or what we were going to hike just wanted to enjoy the day in the park. We ended up hiking the Naches and Dewey Lake trails which are near Chinook pass. Somehow it turned out to be 9.5 miles with 2400 feet elevation gain.

 Sometimes you run into interesting people on the trail. Yesterday, we met two.
The first was Ron Ulrich. Ron is a Pacific Crest Trail through hiker. So far he has hiked 2200 miles which is a great accomplishment but what made Ron interesting was that he was hiking in a wedding dress. He motto "26 weeks, 26 wedding gowns, 2600 miles on the PCT". Check out his story at http://hiking26.com/

A little further on down the trail, we met a guy who was using a pole saw as his hiking pole. He said the saw end helped him to climb rocks and chase away bull elk. So I guess it takes all kinds.

Enjoy the pictures

TIWW 2012

Having fun at the Wenatchee

TISK 2012

In July, Jo joined us on the TISK class.  Check out her kayak surfing

And here's us Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUP)

Vegas with the parents

Had a great time in Vegas. We stayed at Four Queens on Fremont St. We meet up with some old friends (Sharon and Suzie) that we hadn't seen in probably 30 plus years. It was great to see them again after all these years. Lots of entertainment on Fremont St at night. I checked out the bands that played nightly on the three different stages as well as the other entertainment on the street.

Putting the windows in the Sprinter

To view the videos

Cold Snap - so no work on the Sprinter

We bought a Sprinter

After 5 years of looking and talking about a Sprinter van, we finally placed an order in Aug 2011, now we just had to wait until it was built and shipped from Germany (est delivery early Dec 2011). The Get Away Van has served us well, but it was time for an upgrade and something with a little more room. We went back and forth about whether we should have someone convert it to an RV or do it ourselves. In the end, Kevin decided he could do a better job and it would be exactly what we wanted. So after visiting a few local dealers and reading info about them on the Yahoo Sprinter Group, we hooked up with David Graham of Mercedes-Benz of Georgetown, Texas. Dave was very helpful and in the end offered the best price. We would recommend Dave to anyone looking to buy a Sprinter, it is worth the trip to Texas.

We picked up our van Dec 12, 2011. We spent a couple of days in Austin with our friend John Meyer checking out the music scene and then headed off for home the long way.