Autumn is Setting In

Leaves are falling all around, Its time I was on my way. Thanks to you, I'm much obliged For such a pleasant stay. But now its time for me to go, The autumn moon lights my way. For now I smell the rain, And with it pain, And its headed my way. Ah, sometimes I grow so tired, But I know Ive got one thing I got to do

My beloved Lake Fenwick will be wet for the foreseeable future as the rains moved in last night. The trail isn't bad, but the boardwalk is treacherous when wet. So I think I'm going to start track running, although I may do some neighborhood runs, I really dislike breathing exhaust from vehicles while running.

Yesterday's run saw my fastest sprint time on the boardwalk - 14.8 MPH which if I could keep it up would be a 4:02 minute mile - how anyone could run a mile at that pace is beyond my comprehension, after 1/10th I was at the end of my rope.

A Hike During The Break


Last Friday my church's Music Director and I went hiking up in the cascades to a little place called Snow Lake. The locale was some of the most beautiful real estate in Washington. Approximately 4000 feet up in the Snoqualmie Pass area - just above Alpental Ski Area. The terrain was not too intense lots of forest with old growth, lots of boulder strewn hillsides. and most often a pretty good rise in altitude. The weather reports called for morning clouds until around 11:00 am so we thought that the hike would be nice and cool - we were surprised to find blue sky from sunrise on and the hike was warm - cool breezes were interspersed along the ever upward switchbacks and we made excellent progress. I was so thankful for the stairs at Fenwick, if it were not for those I might have had a bit of an issue with hike. Maybe the altitude was a factor, but wow, those switchbacks were a killer!

Lunch at the lake consisted of some energy bars and a package of beef jerky - a true hiking lunch if ever there was one!

Sitting at the lake, surrounded by the beauty really was the most relaxing time of my entire two week vacation. There were other people about but the lake seemed to emanate a peace force field that suppressed anything but a palpable sense of well-being and serenity. It was nice to see ground squirrels - not the large grey ones, but the little brown ones - showing up in goodly numbers along the trail.

A full day of hiking, we met at the church at 10:00am and returned at 4:30pm. I really thank Dean for the time and look forward to more exploration of the beauty this state holds.