Duckabush River Trail

Duckabush: (1) Place of crooked-jawed salmon.  (2) Place where I drive by the trail head and spend too much time on Forest Service Roads. 

The Duckabush River

The first hike of the year is always the hardest.  It is when I discover that I really should have made an effort to walk more during the winter and that I should have finished that walk off with some stretching or yoga.  Yesterday, while hiking the Duckabush River Trail, I rediscovered all these things and that I have the tightest hamstrings in Western Washington.  Today I am hobbling around the house as if I spent my Sunday riding a horse.  I need to stretch more - lesson learned.

CF and I went to the Duckabush River Trail; she had been there before many years ago and I had never been.  The guide book directed us to the trail, except that it said that when you get to the horse area drive past to the trailhead.  This is a lie.  This is a lie written by lying liars who lie.  Stop at the horse area and park there.  We obeyed the guide book and continued past the parking area to the forest service roads beyond.  After a mile (maybe less) I parked the car in a clearing on the right and we decided that it wasn't wise to continue with the car, but we could walk up the road and find the trailhead and that way we would know what we were dealing with for next time.

The good part of the road.

I hate forest service roads.  I know they get us to the hiking trails, but they are usually narrow, one-lane roads with deep potholes and, in my imagination, lead us to meth labs and serial killers.

We walked about 2 miles on this road, when we encountered a Subaru that had passed us previously.  After conferring with the driver it was agreed that there was no trail head where we were heading and the group of us were in the wrong area. It was comforting that others followed the book and blew past the trailhead, and it was slightly disturbing that they thought that we knew what we were doing. At that point we turned around and started walking back so we could check out the horse unloading area and see if we could pick up the trailhead there.

View from the bridge where we ate lunch, because I was sure it was the only place where the serial killers weren't hiding.

Sure enough, the horse unloading area had no horses but plenty of parked cars and a lovely well-marked trailhead.  At this point I said some very dirty words.  After I stopped talking like Yosemite Sam, we decided to walk a couple of miles up the trailhead and see what we could see.  Bear in mind, we had already walked 4 miles.  Also bear in mind, that when CF and I say we are only going to walk a couple of miles to check things out, we mean we are going to walk a couple of miles and then say that we are so close to the end that we should finish it up.  We stopped three miles later after finally finding the Duckabush River.  It was beautiful.

View from the riverside. 

Now that I know where the trailhead is, I will return.  Curiously, the hike features something called the Big Hump which we didn't get to.  We will have to return to do that, but without the four mile detour.

Citrus Triangles - Piecing Complete

The pieced front.

I've completed piecing the front of the citrus quilt.  I'm going to start on the back as soon as I finish some chores around the house and I need to plant something in the yard which I will take a picture of and share.

But, I know what you are thinking.  What would this look like with a cat on it?

Little Girl Cat supplies some necessary scale. 

Or, what would it look like with a cat taking a bath on it?

I'm just happy to be able to provide all these answers.

I was able to snatch this up before Sam walked in and we got to answer the question of what would this look like if a wet cat stood on it.  Not all questions need to be answered.

Friday Night Sew-In - May Results.

Only 4 rows to go!

Yesterday I snuck out of work an hour early so I could drink beer on my deck.  I needed that because during my testimony on my bill I managed to say it applied to counties with a population of 20,000 or more when in fact it applied to counties with a population of 200,000 or more.  Luckily, the sponsoring Senator caught that and questioned me about it (okay, corrected me) but she was very nice about it and told everyone how hard I'd been working (so please excuse her inability to read numbers correctly, really, she's just tired and not incompetent).  No harm and no embarrassing memos needed to be written. So, with my dignity still intact, I went home and enjoyed the experience of drinking a beer in a lawn chair with a 12 pound warm cat perched on my lap.

Later as I was in my kitchen and debating the merits of having a second beer on Friday night - and, it was Friday night so I could have a second beer - when it hit me.  It's Friday Night Sew-In.  With a mission now in my mind and a devil may care attitude, I put down my empty beer bottle and turned on the iron.  I attached 4 more rows to the Citrus Triangles Quilt and then remembered that I invited a friend over for dinner after Saturday's floor action and I'd better move around the larger piles of cat hair.

Mission completed and I'm ready to head to work for more public humiliation.  Sometime it is amazing I get paid for this.

Citrus Triangles

Almost half way there. 

I am a master of organization.  Also, post-it notes don't actually stick to fabric. 

It's been awhile since I've had two days off from work, let alone three.  I spent the first two days basically sleeping - I managed to do yard work and get some cleaning done in the mornings but both Friday and Saturday featured 4 hour long naps in the afternoons.  A friend of mine says that I have mental fatigue which is a nice way of her telling me that I look tired.

Today, however, was completely different.  I cooked, baked, cleaned, finished laundry, killed another very large spider in the garage, and worked on my quilt.  Day three of the three day weekend was bliss and I'm now ready for further abuse at work.  Did you miss the fact that I cooked and baked?  I'm trying to go through my cupboards now that I discovered an alarming amount of expired jars on the shelves. And not just a little expired - more like I think I brought that can with me when I moved here seven years ago, expired.  Whenever I throw away an expired bottle or can, I can hear my grandmother's voice telling me that it is perfectly good and she didn't have the luxury of throwing away cans of food when she was growing up in the great depression.  Yes, that is true. But, no matter how bad this recession is,  teriyaki sauce should not be grey.  Words to live by people. Words to live by.  

May flowers

Is it overkill to put 10 pictures up on a single blog posting about flowers in my yard?

I don't think so.  I don't think so at all.