Great Start to Our Summer

Hooray—it's summer! That means time for camping, hiking... and enough free time to write a blog post!

It's been a while, so let me just say that there's a lot we're skipping: Emily got a new job! Woo! And we've had all kinds of sports fun: mini-golf, another Sounders game, even a super fun Mariners game with some of Franklin's friends from school.

But now... camping! Made sure the new tent was ready to go:


Stayed in Ohanapecosh, in Mt. Rainier National Park. Great area, beautiful river, and all kinds of trails:

On the Ohanapecosh Hot Springs Trail.

Set up camp in the Ohanapecosh campground:


I loved how excited Franklin was about going, and about being there. "Dad, I love camping!" :)

Also made a point of telling his teachers and friends at school.

You know what, speaking of his school, let me also just mention that his school is the subject of a documentary that's raising money for editing, etc. (trailer here: https://youtu.be/6K3H2VqQKcc). Somehow that story made it to an ABC News blog post, and then from there it was off. The Today Show even came to the school to film a segment! Very cool.

Anyway...

Did the 3-mile loop hike up to Silver Falls:

I just want to add that according to my pedometer I walked like eight miles on Saturday, and Franklin must have walked close to five. Quite a kid.

He was pretty ready to get back to camp, though, and can you blame him?

(Veggie dogs, because my ethics class has pretty much ruined meat for me...)



Next day we enjoyed a beautiful hike on the Grove of the Patriarchs Trail:


Fun bridge too:

Closeup here: https://flic.kr/p/uKrLbU.

Speaking of, there are even more pictures from the weekend trip in this album: https://flic.kr/s/aHskeH6A5i. And all kinds of pictures of things I've skipped online. Other stuff on the Flickr feed: https://www.flickr.com/photos/yancy9a/.
And of course there's also Emily's Instagram feed: https://instagram.com/emily.dominick, and Yancy's Instagram feed: https://instagram.com/yancy9/

Meanwhile, Franklin's almost too busy to photograph:


Though he liked the way the steps made a little stage, so he had us sit down and tell stories for Emily:

(Yes, if you're wondering, Franklin wore the same outfit both days...)



Little rest before we check out the views of the mountaintop and wildflowers at Paradise:


Okay, on to the flowers and peaks:


We didn't see any elk on this trip, but Franklin picked out this stuffed animal at the gift shop:

"Dad, I love my elk!"

One last hike, the Nisqually Vista Loop . Like I said, we didn't see any elk, but we did share the trail with this cutie for a minute or two:

The excellently named hoary marmot.



All right reader, hope your summer's off to a great start too!