Impulse week

Monday night I got a text from a Juneau friend - she was in Seattle for the week and were we free to meet for dinner some night? Why, yes! We were! We headed up to meet her on Tuesday night...1 hr 45 min each way since she was staying in the Ballard area, a bit long for just dinner, but worth it.  Good company, good Mexican food.

Friday night I got home from work and asked Steve if he was up for a drive and a hike. It was HOT outside - low 90s - and heading up to Mt. Rainier sounded like a perfect way to get a break from the heat. So in record time (~8 minutes) we loaded up dinner snacks, cameras, hiking shoes, and a map and headed out. It's less than 2 hours to Mt. Rainier National Park entrance from our house, and just a bit more to get to the Paradise visitor center and some great hiking.

We headed up the path from the Paradise parking lot. Our plan was to hike until we found a scenic view, hang out a bit, then head back before it got too dark to see the path. Turns out we had plenty of time for a nice 2 hour hike (RT) and caught some great sunset light.  As an added bonus, it was a great cardio workout since we climbed 800 feet according to the GPS!  The only downside to our late start is that we didn't get home until after 11 pm and almost hit a deer on the way back.