2020 – Baby Steps in a “Hold my Beer” Kinda Year

Wow. This has certainly been an…ahem…adventurous year. (There may be better adjectives, but most aren’t G-rated.) Fires, floods, global pandemic, murder hornets, all against a backdrop of political and social unrest…and we’re only halfway through it. Let’s hope the remainder is a bit more chill. Just to clarify 2020 in case you’re listening, I don’t mean as in a meteor induced ice age!

Like everyone else in the world, our travel plans for 2020 were totally upended. The good news, we have (so far) stayed safe, sane, and healthy. I hope you all can say the same. Even with the stay-at-home orders in effect, we’ve managed to stay busy. We enjoyed a couple of snowshoe trips to Gold Creek, WA at the Snoqualmie summit. Anyone familiar with Riley knows how much he loves his snow!

Rog and Riley power up the slope.

Gold Creek is a favorite for winter walkies.

Hugs for Mom and catching snowballs with Dad.

Another silver lining in the travel-ban cloud, we were home this spring to see our rhododendrons bloom! We’ve been on the road the last three years and it was something I really did miss.

Springtime in the Pacific Northwest.
We have rhoddies everywhere!

In addition to Riley’s weekly playdates and many virtual and social distanced fireside happy hours we undertook a fairly major DIY home improvement project. We replaced our old 10x10 patio cover with a 16x22 timber-frame Panabode cedar cover. We’re very happy with how it turned out! We still have work to do refinishing the deck, adding landscape lighting and a small water feature (can you say snowball effect?) but the project kept us busy during most of the lock-down.

The new cover is done! 

When we completed our travels in 2019, the last blog post mentioned our plans for this year included a river rafting trip on the Colorado through the Grand Canyon in June and camping at Lake Easton, WA over the 4^th of July. Well the rafting trip has been rescheduled to September, but we did manage to hang onto the camping trip to Lake Easton. It’s our first outing of the year and only 66 miles from home….baby steps are better than no steps at all! We’ll add a few stops to stretch our trip to a couple weeks, but we won’t stray far from home.    

Lake Easton.

We arrived at Lake Easton State Park on Thursday, 7/2 and met up with my brother Tim, his friend Mike, and our friends Mikey and Glen. Lake Easton has a lot going for it. A lovely campground with spacious sites under the trees, a beautiful lake for kayaking, and a nearby rail-to-trail for hiking and biking. The downside – we were literally a stones throw away from Interstate 90 and just in case the constant rumbling of the semi-trucks wasn’t enough, cue the train. We had to raise our voices to be heard sitting 6-feet apart around the campfire. Lol.

Even though it wasn’t quite what we’d call peaceful and quiet, we had a delightful time. We ate too much and spent many hours just relaxing by the campfire. It felt great to ease from project mode back into travel-mode. The 4^th of July we stayed close to camp since Riley is not a fireworks fan. While fireworks aren’t allowed in the state park, there was enough private property nearby that it was popping until late into the night. Mikey does some amazing dutch oven cooking and we were treated to a delicious chicken and dumpling stew and spiced baked apples that were to die for. Cooking duties rotated and we ate verrrrry well all weekend. Riley had a long woods walk and several opportunities to wade in the lake.

Miley toils over his dutch oven deliciousness.
The baked apples were amazing!

Riley in his natural habitat.

Rog and I biked part of the John Wayne Pioneer trail which follows the historic Milwaukee Road (railway), the section covered by Ironhorse State Park is over 100 miles long. I’ve mentioned before that while Rog loves his mountain bike adventures, I’m a rails-to-trails kinda girl so I was thrilled for a chance to get back on the bike without risking life and limb. Even so, my butt needed time to get reacquainted with the bike seat, so we only did a short 11-mile ride. (Note: I inherited Rog’s old bike and I swear the seat on it was designed by the Spanish Inquisition. I will be upgrading soon!)

On the trail.

Lake Easton from the old rail bridge.

View of the Alpine Lake Wilderness area. Stunning!

On Sunday, Rog and I took the kayak out for a bit. The weather was perfect and it was fun to paddle under the interstate and then part way around the lake and under the old railroad bridge.

Rog paddles while I take pictures.
Seems like a good division of labor to me! Lol.

Kayaking under Interstate 90, not something you get to do every day.

A train passes the old railway bridge.

Our four days at Lake Easton passed quickly. Our next baby step is another short drive to a National Forest campground near Leavenworth, WA. It’s far out into the boonies so there will be no road noise, alas there will also be absolutely no cell service. Always a compromise. Lol.