You Win Some, You Lose Some

While in Seattle, we made sure to make time to get out and enjoy the beauty of the mountains around us.  Unfortunately, we have been disappointed to find that all the National Parks we have wanted to visit do not allow dogs on the trails.  Part of the fun of bringing chicken dog on our adventure was to let him enjoy the beauty of our country as well.  I think we get as much enjoyment out of it as he does.  So while the non dog owners out there might not understand why we pass up some beautiful hikes, we have opted to find other hikes in National Forests (yay National Forests for your dog friendly ways!) that are beautiful as well as dog friendly.  It is quite overwhelming to try to pick a day hike in a place that has so many!  I tried looking online, quickly felt overwhelmed, and promptly brought up Google Maps.  I looked for the closest National Forest, went to their website, put their address into the GPS, and off we went!  When we arrived, we were happy to see that we didn't even have to pay an entrance fee.  Free fun!  We jumped out of the RV, made sure we had everything, and we were off!
 

Hey, dad, move your big head!  What's a kid gotta do to see what's going on here!

The hike started out nicely with not too much uphill.  We had missed the colorful leaves, as they were scattered all over the ground. We even had to make way for a horse and rider who came trotting by.  Chicken Dog was appropriately spooked, while our Little Little stared in amazement.  Chicken Dog decided later he'd pretend to be a horse to save face.

Nice one, Chicken Dog!

About halfway up, the hike changed.  There were gates preventing horses from going any further up the mountain.  It became a much more strenuous hike.  I'm not going to lie--I thought I might die.  Although the hike was very pretty with lush, green vegetation, we had yet to find any points where you could stop and take in the view.  I kept hoping we'd see something.  Somehow it just wasn't quite what I pictured when I pictured hiking in the Pacific Northwest.  Where were the waterfalls and streams?  I told myself to keep on trucking.  We had been going so hard for so long that I figured the view from the top would simply be breathtaking.  As I got more and more tired, I kept telling myself to keep going for the view.  It was getting later and darker under the cover of trees (we got a pretty late start), and the poor night's sleep the night before thanks to Little Little was starting to rear it's ugly head.  I started having images of the four of us huddled together after dark trying to stay warm and eating vegetation to avoid starvation.  Just as I thought we'd never get there, two and a half hours later, we finally reached a clearing!  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what we saw:

Beautiful cell phone tower!

Yes, this is it.  This is what we hiked for so long to see.  From every angle around the towers, all we saw were trees directly blocking any view of anything beautiful.  Imagine our disappointment.  Our hopes and dreams of a climactic ending to our hike were shattered.  We didn't even have the heart to hike back down the way we came, so we hiked down the access road because it would be a faster route down with the dwindling sunlight.  Unfortunately, it was gravel and extraordinarily steep.  After going up for so long, I thought going down would be a welcome relief, but it was worse because it was so steep.  We stopped halfway down to feed the baby and give our quads a break.

Look at me in my hiking boots and jacket!  Thanks Miss Bennetta and Aunt Paula and Uncle Brent!

After safely making it back to our campground, we decided from here on out we would only go on hikes recommended by people who could vouch for them!  Oh, and free fun does not always equal great fun.  Thankfully we were rescued when my wonderful friend, Stephanie, who you will hear all about in my next blog post, recommended we hike up to Lake Serene and Bridal Veil Falls.  We are so thankful she told us about this amazing hike.  It was much more challenging than our cell phone tower hike, but it was worth every step of the 7.2 miles and 2,000 foot elevation gain.

A view from the parking lot of where we were heading.  By the time we made it up, there wasn't a cloud in the crystal blue sky.

The bridge that Chicken Dog was terrified to cross because the slats were so far apart.

Coop loved being able to drink from all the streams we crossed! (I promise we feed him!)

So pretty!

Unfortunately, we had to skip the turn-off to see Bridal Veil Falls because we got a late start and wanted to make sure we made it up to the top before it got dark.  However, we were happy to see that there were other beautiful waterfalls on the way.

My cute little family enjoying the waterfall!

And though we missed out on pretty views on our cell phone tower hike, there were plenty of gorgeous views to enjoy the whole way up.

Lake Serene surrounded by the 3000 foot vertical walls of Mount Index

Snow!

My love!

Exploring!

All of the trees under the bridge are floating in the lake!

Our big boy!

Even at the top of the mountain, wishing Gram a happy 89th birthday!

Sad to leave our little oasis

We ended our week in Seattle with smiles from my favorite little man.

And of course, have to share our colorful produce display from Thursday's grocery trip.  (Every time we drive we have to put all of this on the bed so it doesn't slide off or take Beckett out when braking. Oh how I dream of bigger RV's!)

I am excited to share the amazing photos from our time in Portland with good friends, Stephanie and Isaac, as soon as I am done getting the Metro Dash Portland pictures posted to our Facebook page.  We are currently on our way to San Fransisco for the race this weekend.  Fun times ahead!