Mountain Loop Highway

While the girls are away, the boys will play. Lisa is out of town on business this week, so I'm holding down the fort. After fixing car and doing grocery shopping this weekend, it was time for some relaxing.

I'd been wanting to take a little scenic trip around the mountains, so I found the closest drive to nowhere possible:

15523 134th Pl NE, Woodinville WA to Mountain Loop Hwy and Coal Lake Rd., 98252 - Google Maps

Jim & I hopped into our respective little German cars, and hit the road. It was surprising how long it took us to completely abandon civilization. We were greeted with a beautiful scenic trip into the hills along a road lined by campsites.

Our trip met it's halfway point out by a trail to an abandoned mining town called Monte Cristo. At that point, the Mountain Loop Hwy drive turned to gravel and was posted as being closed due to storm damage. I saw no barricades so we proceeded a little further until we encountered a sea of "chuckholes" in the grade. It looked like a 100 yard patch of craters, and since the Audi has pretty low clearance we turned back there. It was 14 miles to the next patch of pavement, and that equated to lots of dust and scratches on the undercarriage. At that point we turned back.

I'm dying to go back sometime and make the 4 mile hike up past the gate to the actual town of Monte Cristo, or maybe start the Mountain Loop Highway from the other direction, going through Darrington, WA. At any rate, it's nice to know you're about an hour from such magical locations with incredible beauty. Now, if I can just convince Lisa to go camping with me. It's tough getting around her "must have indoor plumbing" requirement.

Oceans of Waste await!

Lisa & I have been considering taking sailing lessons, and it appears that the time to get out to sea is now. I heard a bit on the radio about this topic, The Seattle Times: Pacific NW 04/23/2006: Oceans of Waste and shortly thereafter found the article to share with you. They kept mentioning "glass balls" in the piece, and I had to search the Internet to figure out what they were. Are you curious too? ;)

But back to sailing.... Apparently, you can join the UW Alumni Association without having ever attended a class there. This would give us some preferred pricing to the services offered through the university, one of which is cheap sailing lessons!

Not sure if it will happen this summer or not, cause we're already pretty busy, the summer's half gone, and I'm busy taking Intro to Climbing at Vertical World in Redmond.

When Cassie & Aaron visited this last weekend, they related how they'd lived in Seattle, surrounded by beautiful mountains for 2 years. They then moved to southern Ohio, again amidst a wonderful geographic variety great for climbing. But most recently they returned to Chicago, and decided to take up climbing...! In Illinois; land of the flat.

Point is, you never know when you'll end up moving on, so you have to live it while you've got it. So this weekend, I'm learning to belay, and someday soon I'll be up in the Cascades plastered to a rock somewhere.

Or out at sea... Go figure.