Rainier hiking day

We went on a day hike along a high lakes loop in Rainier National Park. It was a gorgeous day in Olympia, but foggy and drizzly up on the mountain. But, that's ok because it was cool enough to hike and just dry enough that we didn't really get wet from the cloud-fog.

There was still snow in a lot of places too! A couple weeks prior it might have been hard to find the trail, but now it's good, and as a bonus, the wildflowers are still blooming!

We stopped here for a snack.

This is right before the final push to back to the car. It was just starting to clear up and get warm, and the last half mile of trail was seriously steep uphill. Ugh! Made for a hot and sweaty return to the truck.

Yellowstone! (A bit late...)

I'm such a procrastinator sometimes. We went to Yellowstone National Park back in JUNE, and I'm just getting around to posting pictures now in August (though I'll back date it so it shows up in the right month). We met some family out there for a fun week of camping and exploring...and it was a great trip!  Yellowstone is such an incredible place - just so much natural oddity and wildlife in one place.

Steve and I arrived two days before the rest of the camping party, so we were able to set up camp and did an evening drive too.  This is the Midway Basin area at sunset:

And we also stopped to see the Old Faithful Lodge at night, along with sitting through an Old Faithful eruption.

Once Mark and Susan and the girls joined us, we hit a good rhythm - explore early, siesta and relax during the middle part of the day, and explore again in the evening. That way we were able to avoid some of the crowds and also some of the hotter part of the day.

Here are some of the places we explored:
Norris Basin

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone:
Long exposure in the late evening...

Mammoth Hot Springs:
The Mammoth area has really changed a lot since our last visit. Many of the springs are no longer active, but there were still a lot of elk handing around!

 And the Midway Geyser Basin:

 This is Sapphire Pool. Incredible.

 

This is Morning Glory Pool. It's awesome from the air, and still pretty cool from ground level.

And finally, a road bison. These guys (and gals) just don't care about cars. They walked wherever (and whenever) they wanted. We also saw coyotes, maybe a wolf, several black bears, deer, elk, hundreds upon hundreds of bison, and a bunch of smaller critters. What a great place!

Kodiak

Work trips don't usually take me places where I can see friends, but once in a while the stars align. Last week I had a meeting in Kodiak, AK, and got to spend time with friends Natura and Michael, whom Steve and I met while living in Juneau.

They have an beautiful, sun-filled house on a hillside above downtown Kodiak. I loved watching to ships come and go, and could usually be found sitting by the windows staring through the binoculars. I even saw a sea otter!

They have six egg-laying chickens in the yard, and four more young ones that are in the house (in a dog kennel) until they have enough feathers to live outside with the rest. We spent some time trying to get them used to being around people and being handled. For dinner we made fresh pasta using some of the eggs from the outside flock.

The sun came out so we sat in the yard, enjoying the newly-build burn barrel. As the fire really got roaring, Michael realized he'd built the structure over the top of their house's PVC sewage pipe...but further investigation revealed there was enough soil and rock between the fire and the pipe to keep it from melting. Whew!

This is the main harbor, as the sun started to peak through the clouds. Kodiak is a gorgeous town always, but on a sunny day it's spectacular.

The airport for Kodiak is out the road a bit, so as you depart you get a nice view of the town (and the plane's propeller!). In 6 days there, there were only 2.5 rainy days - that's pretty good! My flight out was only 1/3 full, and I asked the airline agent if that was normal. She said 'Not at all, it's nice out so people delay their flights...then complain when the weather's bad and we can't get out!'. Haha, so true!

Admittedly, photos from an airplane window are never good, but you see such interesting things from the air.  The sandy spit in the middle of this picture is the Homer spit. The end of the spit is the ferry terminal, which is where we departed from on our ferry trip from Homer to Dutch Harbor and back.

I can't resist one more. This is just before Homer, I love the swirly patterns of the sediments and the rivers.

Juneau visit

I had a couple of school-related meetings in Juneau this week, so I went back for a week to visit. It was a fun, exhausting, and HOT week. It was sunny and warm every day except the day I landed...almost unprecedented.

The Maritime Festival was going on the day I flew in, and in typical Juneau fashion, I ran into about 10 people I knew while walking downtown.  Megan, Suzie, and Karson, enjoying the festival despite the rain:

Even the flowers are pretty in the rain.

I was fortunate to stay with friends who all have beautiful views...Indian Cove as the weather started to clear:

Then closer to campus, at Jane and Zach's house, we saw whales and sea lions from their deck:

My meetings went well, I got good feedback from my committee, and I was sad to leave. : (
The Juneau Airport has the best view...

Still looks like winter in the mountains as I headed back south.

Portland!

We met Mom and Jeff in Portland for a fun weekend. We spent Saturday driving around wine country and stopping to sample wines and local olive oil, then also stopped at a very busy Multnomah falls. My favorite place was Red Ridge Farms - it was scenic, good wines, and also good olive oil.

Sunday we dodged the rain and went to the Japanese Garden. Everything seemed to be blooming, it was gorgeous and peaceful.

Fishing in WA

I went out on a day trip with the hook and line survey for work...hook and line fishing for rockfish. We weigh, measure, and for some species, tag the fish that are caught by a bunch of volunteer anglers (myself included). We were fishing off the coast of WA, about two hours north (by boat) of Westport. It was a perfect day - not hot, and cloudy enough to not get sunburned, but also not cold. The only bummer was that I had to leave the house at 4 am to meet the boat.

Heading out from Westport

I'm a pretty poor fisherman compared to some of the volunteers that have been going out for a long time. My arms got really sore! I caught ~5 black rockfish, and a whole lot more got off the hook before I got them up.

Our in-house photographer was along for the day to try to get pictures of some of the fish for our website. She has a more elaborate photography set up for times when she's shooting on land.  Here she's trying to get a picture of a small lingcod.

 We also measured the lingcod and then sent it back to grow big.