back in blogging action

Hi!  Remember me?  It has been a while.  At the request of my adoring fans (hi Mom) and the growing desire to archive all I've been up to lately, I decided to restart the blog.  After all, it is adventure season. But lets be real here.  The adventures have never really been out of season.  In fact, They've been coming at me like never before these past few months.  Ready to re-cap?  Lets go!

Over the past weekend, my dear friend Caitlin and I went on a little overnighter to the Olympic peninsula.  It was so nice to get away and reconnect with my friend...and with nature.  We took my car on the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston, drove up and stopped for lunch in Sequim, made our way through Port Angeles (where we would later spend the night at the Olympic Lodge) and parked ourselves in a couple Adirondack chairs on the shore of Lake Crescent.  Here's a little piece of information I really want to share; you pronounce the name of the town, Sequim, "Skwim".  Try and sound that one out when you're reading road signs.  We had fun creating sentences such as "I could really go for a skwim. I hope our hotel has a skwimming pool."   Etc.

Anyway, we spent a lovely afternoon sipping Bota Box merlot out of paper cups leftover from a bridal shower, making friends with a few curious ducks, reading, chatting and enjoying the view of the glacial lake from our chairs.  After this we, being the nerds that we are, had to go to Forks.  Forks of the vampire novel/movie series Twilight.  It had to happen.  I won't say it was a waste of time, because it had been on our Seattle bucket list since we both moved out here a year ago and I'm a huge advocate of bucket lists, but it was close.  Sorry Forks, you do not have much to offer.  And we didn't even see one single vampire.  We did meet some seriously friendly and vampire-loving folks at the Forks Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau though.  So, that was fun.

After a lovely and seriously restful night at the Olympic Lodge in Port Angeles, we got up to go for a hike on Hurricane Ridge in the National Park.  However, the trail was snowed over, and after taking in the incredible mountain views and air, we got back in the car to drive down to a hike at lower elevations.  While driving down the mountain, what did we see up ahead?  A BEAR.  Yep, a real live bear.  Grazing like a cow, down an embankment at the side of the road.  Feeling it was relatively safe, and hearing my mother's words of caution in my ear, I got out of the car and took several pictures.  Bear sighting made my weekend/life.

We went for a hike at the Sol Duc hot springs, saw a beautiful waterfall (what is it about waterfalls that makes them so magical?) and then ventured in to the Soleduck hot springs themselves.  I will chalk it up to experience.  The springs are cool if you like bathing with a lot of large Russian men and women, smelling like sulfur, feeling a connection with hot lava and sneaking wine into forbidden places in opaque water bottles.  Love it or hate it?  I'm still torn.

I would highly recommend a visit to any and all of these places and can't wait to get back out to the peninsula.  Its one of those places that makes you feel very far away.  And that can do a mind and body a lot of good.

Until next time!