6-12-05 If you look close you can see Chuck's fishing pole .....it had been raining and he went ahead and cast out & rested his pole on the winch while we ate lunch! This is at Chain of Lakes, we had gone up to fish at Taklaka Lake. I had read about how nice the reflection of Mt Adams in the water is but will have to wait on another day to see if it's true or not!! It was actually snowing up there when we got there so we just drove around and visited all the little lakes in the area. I can't wait to go back!! 

6-12-05 Mt of lava rock in a beautiful meadow on FR2239 in Gifford Pinchot Nat'l Forest between Taklaka lake & Horseshoe lake. We were amazed at how nice the forest roads were up there, most were paved!! 

6-12-05 Wildflowers near Cougar, Wa It still amazes me that these grow wild around here!! 

5-29-05 We got up early & I convinced Chuck that a more senic coffee spot could be found...I was right!! 

5-29-05 Coffee anyone??? Waterfalls at The Gorge Overlook. 

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5-29-05 Vista from the Diablo Lake overlook 

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This was the highlight of the day for me!! The bear stopped and gave us a good looking over but I got to excited to get a good picture....I love bears!!! 

getting up early has it's advantages...just us and the critters out on the road!! 

we hiked down to check out a creek... 

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5-29-05 Rainy Lake, this beauty was carved out and created by glaciers. 

5-29-05 Rainy Lake waterfall 

5-29-05 The hike to Rainy Lake took us thru some interesting terrain!! 

5-29-05 Driving to the eastern side of the park....the dry side!! 

5-29-05 From the Washington Pass Overlook, this used to be prime Grizzly habitat till Hwy 20 was put right thru the middle of it back in the 70's. I felt guilty for using a road that caused them so much grief but was thankful to see the sights all at the same time. 

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5-29-05 Trail to Cutthroat Lake, I think this is the most beautiful hike I've ever taken!! 

5-29-05 Cutthroat Lake, this was the destination of the hike.....it was awesome!! 

5-29-05 Cutthroat Creek, we hiked 4 miles roundtrip and these are some photos from the hike. The snow in one of the pictures actually came in handy as it was really a hot day...we used to to cool off!! 

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5-30-05 This is camping!! We broke camp after a stormy rainy night at Tumwater Campground on Hwy 2 

5-30-05 Leavenworth, Wa This is a town that everyone has been telling us "we have to go to" It's a Bavarian themed villiage that screamed TOURIST TRAP to us......we got our coffee and ran!! 

5-30-05 Last stop on the way home....breakfast in Cicely, Alaska aka Roslyn, Wa home of the tv show "Northern Exposure"......I still miss that show!! 

5-28-05 View from the entrance into Newhalem Creek Campground in the Northern Cascades Nat'l Park. Chuck left the planning for our anniversary weekend up to me...in all of our now 17yrs we've had very few anniversary's to ourselves...so this was really a first for us! Being the planner that I am...HA....we ended up with not much of a plan. There are 3 places out here(now 2) that I really want to see in case we move, so the plan was to get up on the 28th see where it wasn't raining and head that direction! Some planning, huh!!! I was a bit concerned with it being a holiday weekend that we wouldn't find a camping spot but not too concerned since we were sleeping in the back of the truck....life is good!! 

5-28-05 One of the many cool trees in our campground.
 

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5-28-05 This is what they called "Rock Shelter", we hiked the short trail down to see this that was a camping spot for Native Americans for over 1400yrs. The black on the rocks was from their campfires....needless to say this was not a highlight for Chuck...me on the other hand who is into Native American stuff and archeology was quite excited. 

5-28-05 Newhalem Creek ----sometimes as good as a picture is, it just doesn't do a place justice. It was a beautiful hike back in thru the moss and ferns to get to views like this. We had to go down and sit on the rocks and try to soak the moment in...what a place to think about our marriage & thank God for being so good to us!! 

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5-28-05 Chuck enjoying the cool breeze coming off of the creek. We were amazed at how hot it was up there....80's and we were dying!! 

5-28-05 Truck camping at it's finest! We were at a bit of an angle but were just happy to have a spot for the night. We slept pretty good once we got used to the thumps from stuff falling out of the trees and hitting the truck! It took my mind off of the spiders that I just knew were waiting to crawl out of the box of firewood they were in and into my hair...some folks are scared of the big critters in the woods....it's the little ones that worry me!! 

5-28-05 What an anniversary dinner!!! We were too hungry to wait for the fire to die down .... Chuck did a great job of getting the steaks just right!!