First trip since Lasik - We had plans to go to Mt St Helens to do some hiking and see the caves/observatory, but I realized at the last minute that Sara needed to get her passport (an appointment I made 3 months ago and forgot about) and I had to take her out to Port Townsend to get it - which is basically the opposite direction. So we packed up early on Friday and headed out to Port Townsend for passport paperwork… After the appt, we headed up to an area called Quilcene - a town of ~500 people that borders against the national forest and national park. We claimed our campsite and headed into town for dinner (decided not to cook given all the chores we had on the way to camping this time).
I decided to let her blow bubbles just this once:
The next day we headed up to Upper Quilcene trailhead with aspirations of making it to Marmot pass (which would have been 11.5 miles rountrip, so very aspirational…). In retrospect there were a bunch of other trails we could have tried that would have been less steap and/or less dark and might have made for a better trip - but oh well, we had fun anyways.
|
|
Sara was off like a shot and did really well for the first mile, but the hike stayed in a dark canyon for the first 2.5 miles and this time of year it’s pretty cold so Sara wasn’t having it. We only made it a bit over a mile from there (2 and a bit miles from the start) before we had to turn around. As soon as the downhill started however, Sara became her usual self and told me about 100 stories in rapid fire for the hour or so that it took us to get back to the van.
After the hike, I saw a sign for Finnriver which Angela and I went to when Sara was like a year old. We really enjoyed it then and we really enjoyed it this time as well. The cider is great and they have all kinds of snack options as well as colors/etc for Sara. They also had… ice cream sandwiches!
After our snack, we got some groceries and headed to camp to make dinner. I always forget to take pictures of our camp before the sunsets, so got a couple this time.
I was planning to do steaks or chicken on the fire ever since I found my grill a couple of weeks ago, but the “grocery” in Quilcene had very few options. They did have burgers and buns though, so we did that.
Sara enjoyed her burger, but she was in such a rush to see Cinderella that there was a bit of a struggle to get her to eat before bed.
After we cooked, I stoked up the fire so we could get warm and we finished our food and had a roasted Marshmellow.
I downloaded the origional 1950 Cinderella to watch before bed and Sara was super excited. Unfortunately, the days events wore her out and she was asleep less than 15 min into the movie. :) I was also hoping that my new phone would be able to play the video directly onto the monitor in the van, but it didn’t work. I decided I need to get a new monitor - the one I have has done great for the last year and helped me learn alot, but I’m at the end of what I can do with it.
We headed home early the next morning to get ready for trick-or-treating and we were almost first in line for the Bainbridge ferry. They were on a two boat schedule, so we had a little over an hour to wait to get on the ferry - which allowed us to watch a bit more Cinerella before heading back to reality.
