Mom and Dad

Derek and his mom

Grandpa and Derek's Uncle Ed

Mingling...

We represent America with our sweaters!

Justin, Marie and Peyton

Justin and Derek's mom, Karen

On Thursday, Derek and I went with my parents to possible wedding locations in the mountains of Virginia.  After a long day of driving and touring, we decided to continue our National Park theme and have our wedding in Shenandoah National Park.  It is a giant relief to have made some wedding decisions!

The view!

Over the weekend I stuffed myself at two Thanksgiving dinners, one with Derek’s family and one with mine.  Despite being 3 weeks early, the food was yummy and the company was special… I’m not looking forward to working on Thanksgiving and Christmas this year : (

Family : )

Me and Derek

Family : )

I also tried on my mom’s wedding gown!  It had been cleaned and professionally preserved after her 1974 wedding, and the most special thing about it is how it was handmade by my grandmother.  I haven’t decided to wear it yet, but if I do, I will get it altered to be a more modern style.  We both were surprised by how perfectly it fit.

It fits!

We climbed at SportRock on our last night in town, which was great to see old friends and climb in a familiar place.  Jonathan even brought a cake to congratulate us on our engagement, even though it was HIS birthday!

Right now I am sitting in the Sea-Tac Airport waiting for Derek’s flight to arrive.  We are being picked up by our doggie-sitters Aaron and Tess, who had sent us photos during the week of Colby and their dog Sagan – who are best friends!  I am ready to see Colby, that’s for sure, but I will certainly miss family and friends left at home.  It was great to see everyone, and thanks for making an effort to see us.

Colby has a new hat!

Best Friends <3

Derek and I had been hoping all summer to get the chance to have a go at summiting Mount Rainier this season, but we didn’t get the skills training in and didn’t line up someone to take us up there.  Instead we chose to hike the 5,000 feet to Camp Muir, this time with lots of sun protection and at a more leisurely pace.  (Compared to my trip in June).

Lush, green meadows covered with wildflowers surprised us as we arrived at the Paradise Visitor’s Center.  On the way up people remarked on how much snow was still left this late in the season, and I thought, “You should have seen it in June!” The snow came all the way down to the parking lot, but now we had a beautiful set of stairs and miles of steep paved trails to follow.

This was snow last time!

We had great visibility; not only Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens towered in the distance, but steep Mount Hood all the way in Oregon peeked over a single cloud.

You watch the mountain the whole way up.

This was snow last time.

Once we hit snow, I covered my face with a bandana, sunglasses and baseball cap, and kept my long sleeves and long pants on despite the warm day.  I wasn’t going through the awful sunburn again!  I saw a few hikers that were completely exposed and I hoped their skin would hold up okay!

Beautiful day to hike!

Stealth.

Stealth II.

We reached Camp Muir after about 3 hours and 45 minutes of hiking.  It was busy up there; a few guided groups and summit-hopefuls setting up camp, and lots of hikers soaking up the sun and enjoying the view for lunch before heading back down.

View.

Camp Muir was busy!

Derek and I ate Costco muffins and drank burnt hot chocolate (ew) and chatted with a few other folks.  After about 45 minutes, I thought we should start getting dressed to head back down, and Derek suggested we ask someone to take our photo first.  As we stood up, I noticed a rectangular box in his pocket, and asked if he brought his GoPro camera up.  He gave me a silly look and said “no…”  I thought of what else it could be – and knew what I was in for in the next coming moments!  We gave the camera to a lady and as we stepped back for the photo, Derek turned toward me and dropped to his knee!  The rest is on video below ; )   (Turn up your volume… it’s hard to hear).

Happy

The rest of the hike was great, and we heard the lady who videoed it for us telling the story on the way down.  It was fun to be famous for an afternoon!  The ring he gave me is actually his grandmother’s ring and it came with a matching wedding band.  We had the ring resized and it’s perfect.  We plan to design custom wedding bands that kinda match, while incorporating the 10 diamonds from his grandmother’s band.

Ring <3

Engaged!

Wedding plans are still in progress!

We chose to race the Finish Strong Sprint Triathlon in Monroe, WA.  Monroe is northeast of where we live, on the way to Steven’s Pass in the Cascades.  It was held at a little park, and the lake water was forgivingly warm (I no longer own a wetsuit).  The distances: a 400 meter swim, 14 mile bike, and 5k run.  Packing for the race was like settling back into a weekday morning routine after a long vacation… my body and mind seemed to remember what to do – once I consciously thought about it.  I nearly forgot my race belt, but luckily Kelly mentioned it in her facebook post that I saw the morning of the race.

The air temp was chilly and the lake was covered in fog when we arrived.  I was disappointed when they announced a change in the wave start order… now all the age 39 and younger women would be in the last wave.  We had been in the second wave, right behind the age 39 and younger men.  Oh well, it’s just for fun!

SWIM
After a beach start, I swam my butt off!  I saw one girl charge ahead quickly, and I recognized Kelly beside me.  As she started to pull ahead, my well-ingrained instincts to draft and conserve energy kicked in.  I slid back, keeping right on her toes with the bubbles in my face.  I kept sight of the buoy ahead as we began to catch the swimmers in the previous wave.  I was definitely feeling the fatigue from working muscles that had been asleep for years!  Thank goodness for Kelly!  I kicked harder to warm up my legs as we approached the shore.  We had worked our way through half of the older men’s wave (who left 6 minutes ahead of us!), which I noticed as we exited the water.  The swim was tough for me; it left me feeling nauseous as I ran up the beach to the transition area.

BIKE
I had a lightening fast transition (29 seconds) since I didn’t have to take off a wetsuit and I had attached my shoes to my bike and rubber-banded them.  I blazed out of transition, leapt on my bike and took off.  At the beginning of the bike ride, it was hard for me to focus on keeping up the pace since there weren’t many people around me. I started having fun, encouraging fellow racers with “good job!” as I passed, and thanking all the volunteers obediently directing at the corners.   After the turnaround, Kelly and another woman with an aero helmet caught me and so we rode “together” for the rest of the race.  We didn’t draft, but we stayed together, taking turns passing, which kept the pace up.  Within the last 1/4 mile, 3 or 4 other women caught us, and we were stuck in a big group.  I was the only one to take off my shoes on the bike as we rode towards the dismount line.

Riding my bike. (photo available at www.myepevents.com)

RUN
Another blazing fast transition (27 seconds), and I was the first out on the run.  I felt surprisingly strong and light, running on my toes.  Derek said I was in front, if not first, to which I replied, ok, that’s cool!  As I passed men on the run, I kept up with my encouragements.  I’m determined to make triathlon a more friendly environment – more like the cheerfulness in an ultra running race.  I was really enjoying the run, and  I was unconcerned after seeing a woman running clearly several minutes ahead – out of my reach at this point in the race.

With 5 or 6 minutes of running left, a woman caught and passed me.  Many other racers seemed to know who she was, as she was getting several cheers from racers and spectators.  I noticed the age written on her calf – she was in the wave 3 minutes ahead of mine, so I knew I had already beaten her.  Still, I fell into stride right behind her and once she noticed my shadow trailing hers, she said “So you’re going to draft on me and then fly by at the end, huh?” I ran up beside her and she told me she had just done an Ironman, and I said I was impressed she could still run at the pace we were going.  We chatted, and she asked “Are you a pro?” to which I replied that I was retired and hadn’t raced since 2006.  Nearing the finish line, I battled with myself whether to let her take it, or to give it what I had and sprint it out to the end.  Unable to tame my competitive spirit, I opened up to a full sprint (for me) and she was right on my heels as we crossed the line.

Enjoying a sprint finish! (photo available at www.myepevents.com)

I finished in 1:11.47, 2nd female, 8th overall, and 1st in my age group 25-29.  I swam in 7:33, biked in 41:26 (20.3 mph average), and ran in 21:50 (7:03 min/mile).  (See full results here). Not too shabby!  I’m pretty proud of my transitions – 29.1 and 27.8 seconds.  : )  Most importantly, I was able to make it fun, which is my goal at this point.  I don’t know if I’ll go out and sign up for another one this year though… I don’t want to make Derek get up at 4:30 again : P

Weekends are too short!  I have made time to get out and enjoy them, but writing blog posts and documenting the fun times has gone by the wayside. During my week spent with family at Glen Lake in Northern Michigan, my domain expired before I had a chance to complete the transfer to a new service.  GoDaddy had a very strong grasp on my domain, let me tell you!!  Therefore my site was down for a week.  After that I was caught up with 8 hour work days with 2 hour commutes tacked on each end (due to taking public transportation with my free bus pass from work).  Carpooling is faster, but also more expensive.

So WAIT a minute!  Where did this 9-5 job come from anyway??  No, I haven’t settled for dayshift at McDonald’s… I finally landed a position as a real nurse in a hospital!  I started an RN residency program at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma, WA.  Tacoma is a long commute (about 50 miles, 50 minutes with good traffic), but the hospital system is great and most of the people I’ve met seem very happy to work there.

I started on August 1 with two weeks of orientation, computer training, and introduction to the residency.  This week we just finished up shadowing different roles on the unit: IV therapist, unit secretary, transport nurse, LPN, and a nurse tech.  It was great to see the various positions and how everyone works together in their roles, and it will help me appreciate everyone better when I’m working on my own.

Next week we have classes all day that are a review of pediatrics, which is really good for me because I think my peds class at Marymount was pretty poor.  I absolutely cannot wait to start working three 12 hour shifts a week with a preceptor on August 30!  

During school I didn’t ever really consider working with kids.  But with my background – coaching, babysitting, nannying, camp counseling – it really makes sense, doesn’t it?  I fit right in

It's official!

Green garden!

I planted way too many Romaine/Buttercrunch plants.  I wish I could have bought maybe 1-2 individual romaine starts instead of a 4 (or 6?) pack.  Same with the buttercrunch.

Romaine

Buttercrunch

The green leafy lettuce, started from seed, isn’t my favorite. It’s very pale green which makes me think it’s lacking in nutrients compared to my dark green spinach, or even the dark green romaine.

Broccoli got HUGE.  I had no idea it would get that big.  There are 4 or 5 plants, and today we discovered that in 2 days they started to flower.  Oops!  Last night, we cut the main stalks off those and had Cream of Broccoli soup (left the flowers on).

Huge Broccoli

Peas!  We added some height to the fence for the peas to climb.  They’re about 6 feet now and we picked pods today.  They are sweet, juicy and crunchy!

The carrot tops are tall and starting to flop over, but I don’t think they’re ready yet.  It’s too late now, but I recently read that I was supposed to thin the carrots to every  2 inches.  Oops.

The green beans are starting to flower… which means green beans soon!

The hanging plants are no longer hanging.  I gave up about 3 weeks ago and transplanted them into the ground.  During that process I dropped another tomato plant, snapping off the stalk : ( I decided to try just sticking the stalk in the ground, and it took a bit for the roots to regrow, but it worked!

First tomato!

I bought two new tomato plants since 3 had been casualties in my attempts to hang them in milk jugs. I bought a cherry tomato variety (indeterminate, so its growing huge like a bush) and an Early Girl, which is putting out some little green marble-sized tomatoes. I also bought 2 more pepper plants because the transplanted ones are still quite small. I’ve got little tiny peppers starting on the bell pepper plant and the jalapeno is looking good too.

First peppers!

We doubled the size of the garden space a few weeks ago.  The only things planted back there are an acorn squash, a butternut squash, a cucumber and a pumpkin.  The pumpkin is doing well, despite it being in shade for the end of the day.

Pumpkin flower

Since I had to work on Fourth of July at 8pm, I made an American Flag cake and we grilled salmon and veggies on July 6 instead : )

cake!

Last weekend was the last weekend of strawberry picking, so we took advantage.  As opposed to the strawberry farms in Virginia, here it is actually a better deal to pick your own – $1.50/lb!  We picked 7.5 pounds and headed home.  I made two kinds of freezer jam.  One was recommended by my cousin Erin – a Honey Strawberry Jam with apple juice and lemon juice – click for Recipe, and a Strawberry Rhubarb freezer jam – Recipe here.  I had enough extra and 2 jars left to try the recipe on the low-sugar pectin jar, and decided to even try it with real canning.  It seems to have sealed, but I hope I didn’t seal in any bacteria.  We’ll see!!

I also, of course, made strawberry shortcake : )

Strawberry shortcake!

And hi from Colby.

Big!

He loves his pig. (and look at those big boy teeth!)

Pig needs a bath.

And more photos!!

]]> http://michellelindsay.com/2011/07/a-salad-a-day-to-keep-the-doctor-away/feed/ 2 http://michellelindsay.com/2011/07/finding-rocks/ http://michellelindsay.com/2011/07/finding-rocks/#comments Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:56:19 +0000 michelle http://michellelindsay.com/?p=533 The (hospital) job search has continued to be a bumpy road.  About a month ago, I nailed an interview for a dream job: New Graduate RN position at the Swedish Cherry Hill Emergency Department.  A few days later I got the nicest rejection letter one can get!  The manager had chosen a candidate who had worked at that ED for 5 years as an ED Tech, but he wished he had another position for me.  I absolutely couldn’t compete with that, and it was a huge disappointment.

A couple weeks after that I met with the manager again to discuss my job search, and future new grad openings.  More disappointing news: Swedish Medical Center managers were told to hold off on hiring new grads until October, when a large cohort “residency” would be offered.

October?? No Swedish opportunities until October??

Luckily I already had an interview lined up for a similar Swedish residency that starts mid-July.  I had that interview last week, and it was the manager’s last interview of seven.  Knowing this was probably my last chance at a Swedish hospital position until October, I was prepared to nail my interview like I did the last one.  In order to pull off a great interview though, you need the interviewer to also be engaged and interested.  My interviewer seemed to be “going through the paces”… not giving me much time to answer questions, not really taking notes, and preoccupied with the iphone.  I knew it was bad when at the end of the interview, she asked me if I had my license, and this was after we had thoroughly discussed the home healthcare RN job listed on my resume.  Needless to say, I didn’t get the position.  I don’t think I would have been happy working for her anyway…

After a day of tears and despair, I began brainstorming other ideas.  Military nursing, EMT certification, and moving to a new city or state are all being considered.  I am nearing the 6 month mark of having my RN license, and I still don’t have a job in acute care.  For the first time, I regretted moving to Washington State.   : (  Most of my friends from school who stuck around DC have jobs, and some have their dream job – straight out of school.

Yesterday, a new grad position at Swedish First Hill’s Labor and Delivery unit was posted!  I applied, but I’m concerned that I will be moved to the bottom of the pile since my senior internship was not in L&D.  I emailed the recruiter who wrote me the nice rejection letter and she forwarded my note, along with her “recommendation” to the recruiters working on the position.  Now I just pray for that phone call…

I like to think that everything that happens to me all represents little rock cairns, guiding my direction.  Maybe I wasn’t meant to be an ER nurse?  Maybe I’m meant to be an L&D nurse, or maybe even a nurse midwife?  Thinking of each disappointment as providing direction to how things were meant to go makes me feel better.  But it doesn’t take away the anxiety about whether this position is indeed the one I’m waiting for.

This post needs a photo.  hmm… who else but Colby?  He’s 40 pounds now, by the way, and he’s getting some big boy teeth (see them in the photo below)!

"Where we goin?"

Derek's got a homemade rain-fly : )

We hiked the Taylor River Trail to Trail #1002 that goes up to Snoqualmie Lake then on to Deer Lake.  It was 16.5 miles round trip to Snoqualmie Lake, with about 2100 feet elevation gain (1500 of it was in the last 2 miles!)  The first trail – 5 miles to Big Creek Falls – is actually an old road bed, so the hiking is flat and easy, except for a few tricky creek crossings.

Crossing Marten Creek on a nice bridge

At around 4.5 miles, we cut off the trail to make the short trip over to Otter Falls, a beautiful cascading waterfall into a pool that may be inviting for swimming on a warmer day.  Colby ate some lunch here and had fun splashing in the water.

Otter Falls

Colby eats lunch out of a plastic bag

After 6.2 miles, the trail splits to head left up to Snoqualmie Lake. The trail has had recent work and is in pretty darn good shape considering how much water there was running down the slope. Waterproof boots are highly recommended! Sometimes we were just walking up a stream that cascaded down the rocky trail.

Trail split

After this point, you enter the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. The trees are big here!

Colby checks out the sign

It was 2 miles (an hour and a half) of hiking until we got to the lake. Colby saw snow for the first time and he destroyed the snowball I threw at him.

Colby demolishes his first snowball

Snow at Snoqualmie Lake

We chose a campsite that had the best view, although it was very muddy. Only 3 campsites were snow-free, however I’m not sure how many there are under the snow either. We let Colby run around off leash when we got to setting up camp, and he found himself a snack: human poop that was not buried in the considerate, proper way. Gross!

Our campsite, prime location for a great view

Hemlock was plentiful for starting fires, since it burns when wet, however we still lacked a dry bunch of stuff to start the fire with. After hunting and spending about an hour, we eventually got a fire that produced some warmth!

Derek hard at work making a fire

Cold, tired pup

Warming up the cold puppy in my lap by the fire

So tired!!

Colby slept in the tent with us, but he didn’t have an intuitive sense of where the warmest spot was (between me and Derek)… so we had a very restless night trying to keep him from going back to our feet and then starting to shiver.

Colby sandwich in the tent!

One last look at the lake

When I went looking for a bear hang, I found a latrine up on the hill. I really wish that the person who left a surface turd had used the latrine instead!

Oh yeah, there was a latrine too, up on the hill

Some of the creek crossings were tricky

We saw Mt. Rainier on the way home on I-90 bridge!

To Sum it Up:

It was the longest hike we’ve done in a long time, and the heavy packs (30-40lb) slowed us down and resulted in most of my soreness.  We were pretty beat afterwards, and ended up heading to Old Country Buffet for a huge dinner.   It was great weather and it was awesome to get out of town and do an overnight hike.

We completed:  16.4 miles with 2100 feet of elevation gain (and descent on way back down) in 9 hours.

Next Time: Pack lighter, and leave time to play in Taylor River on the way out or back.

I Wish I had Brought:

More stove fuel – we ran out before breakfast, sad : (
Trekking Poles
Dry material for starting fires

***See Derek’s photos and video here!  Derek Rippe Photography

Very bundled at the start... not for long!

I headed to work Saturday night with all my stuff packed – we met at PT’s house in Bellevue since it was only about 2 miles from my work.  We left PT’s at 7:30, heading for the big mountain.  Stopped for breakfast at McDonald’s (breakfast of champions!), and we started our hike around 10:30… a little later start than we had hoped for!  It was cloudy and chilly, with a light mist that is so characteristic of the PNW.  I applied sunscreen in the car to my face, and we packed it (thank God!!) for in case we climbed above the clouds.

Stripped down, still in a cloud

I was surprised by the difficulty of hiking in the snow.  It was wet, slushy snow, so with each step I slid back a few inches.  I wish I had two trekking poles instead of one, but without PT, I’d have none!  Within 10 minutes, I de-layered clothes so that I was just wearing a t-shirt, pants and gloves.  The guys opted to zip off their pant legs, but I kept mine on.  The climbing was work, but not strenuous, but I did start to get a headache early on.  I combated it with “pressure breathing” – forcing out my exhalations through pursed lips – to give the oxygen longer time to exchange, which helped the headache disappear.

Still in a cloud!

It was eerie breaking through the clouds into the blue sky and sun… the clouds seemed to be turning a darker shade of gray until the mist finally broke.  The looming rock formations were magnificent against the bright blue sky.  The sun was warm, and we re-applied sunscreen… however it was impossible to tell how much we actually covered because it was the evaporating spray sunscreen. I will admit, we were very careless with the application of sunscreen.

Breaking through the cloud

Brilliant sun + blue sky!

The climbing got tougher in the sunny Muir Snowfield, mostly because the air was starting to get thinner around 7,000 feet.  We started at around 5,000 feet and had 3,000 more to climb!  It was nice to fall in line behind a guided group because they kept the pace and they were employing the “rest step” where you pause for a second at each step.  Although it slows the pace, it makes for less breaks because we weren’t out of breath.

Kind of surreal...

Rocks covered in snow

PT with Mount Adams peeking out there

Almost there!! I think we were about an hour out

The last 1000 feet we ended up leaving PT behind … we just wanted to get there!  We saw the camp and Derek estimated it’d still take 45 minutes of hiking to get there… it ended up taking 35 minutes, and I had pushed ahead since I just wanted it to be over with!  It took just under 5 hours to climb the 5,000 feet to Camp Muir.

From this spot, it still took about 20-25 minutes to reach the buildings

Kind of tilted, but you can see Mt. Adams!

Here comes PT, pushing to the finish

PT joined us a bit later and we got to cooking up some burgers and a tuna steak – making many others at the camp very jealous!  We layered our clothes back on and packed up our bags, ready for the hike down at around 4:45, a lot later than I wanted to leave since I had to work at 11pm.  I knew we’d have to hustle back down.

We glissaded (slid on our butts, on sections of plastic mattress bags we brought) down the steeper sections, which was great fun but a little scary.

The hiking downhill was more strenuous than I’d thought and I wished I hadn’t layered up so much. The sun was beating down on our faces on the descent.  Once we reached the edge of the cloud, I tilted my head back, welcoming the mist on my face and neck.  I think at that point I realized how badly I had gotten burned.  It got downright cold glissading after we were in the misty cloud.  My hands got so cold inside my wet cotton gloves that I freaked out about frostbite and knew I needed to go at a much faster pace to get my circulation going.  Without a word to my buddies I took off jogging, ripped my gloves off my hands and stuck my fingers in my mouth.  After about a quarter to a half mile of jogging like that I had finally warmed them, and I had arrived at the final glissade near the bottom.  I waited there for Derek and PT, surprised that we had made it down in just under 2 hours!

Watch Derek’s video and see his photos of the trip on his website: www.derekrippephoto.com.

We went into the visitor’s center to strip off wet clothes and use the restrooms – and I was shocked and terrified of how badly I had burned myself.  The pain had not set in yet (except for my lips) and I knew I was in for a lot of pain to come.  The whole ride home I wrestled with the idea of calling in sick, but ultimately decided to go to work because I knew the family’s day nurse had called out sick.  Boy did I learn my lesson! Check out the post When it Rains, it Pours.

24 hours post-hike... sooo swollen!!

48 hours post-hike. The next couple days, the skin got really dry and tight around my lips then peeled off.

To Sum it Up:

The hike to Camp Muir requires a full day commitment – it isn’t fun to be pressed for time.  It requires a moderate level of fitness, but I think anyone could make it up there if they made up their mind to do it.  It is not technical, and even in low visibility like we had in the cloudy part, we had no trouble following the markers.  We didn’t need a map or compass, although if a storm hit, that could definitely pose a huge problem with navigation.  Although unneeded, we had extra food, water, warm clothing, and first aid equipment in case we had to bunker down in a storm.

We completed: 8.3 miles, 5300 feet of elevation gain/descent in 6 hours and 45 minutes.

Next time:

• Leave earlier
• Less frequent, shorter breaks
• Keep the long sleeves on, wear a hat and maybe a bandana to cover the face and neck
• Ski down!
• Summit!!

I wish I had brought:

• More food than just granola bars. Yuck.
• Waterproof gloves
• SUNSCREEN SPF 30 or more, in the lotion form
• Hat
• Chapstick with SPF
• Yak Trax
• A pair of trekking poles rather than just 1
• Ski’s to ski down
• A thermos with hot chocolate : )

Blooody

After a few days... bruised!

I took a ventilator class so that I could start more home health cases.  Last week, I oriented in a home of a vent patient who had a spinal cord injury.  He’s a teenager and has several siblings, 2 of which are largely responsible for his care when a nurse isn’t there, which shocked me!  It was a distracting environment to learn in, but this position will be a night position and I have 2 orientations at night to do (one of which is tonight).  The family has a dog that jumped on my car and scratched the paint.  Since this is a new car for me, I’m pretty upset by that. : (

The weekend started off okay, then got downright devastating for me.  I worked my weekend nights job on Saturday night, but I packed all my hiking stuff because we were leaving at 7:30am to go to Mount Rainier to climb to the base camp, Camp Muir.  We got a little behind schedule, so we had to rush it a bit so I could get back to work in time.  I’ll write a detailed post about the trip, but we made it!

We all got very sunburned, and I suffered on the ride home.  I debated for a long time about whether to call in sick, even waking my parents at 1:00am to talk about it.  Eventually I decided to just suck it up and go, mostly because I knew the family’s day nurse had called out sick that day.  I thought I was just being a good person!  Boy did I learn my lesson!  Over the course of the night, my face swelled up and started to grow leaky blisters.  It was painful, but it kept me awake!

This is 24 hours post-hike... lesson learned!

I returned to my car to find the passenger window smashed and my ipod missing.

nooo!!!

Later in the day, I realized that my Timbuktu messenger bag full of hiking clothes and showering stuff was also missing.  It was just one thing after another… scratched paint on the car, a horrible sunburn, a broken window and stolen ipod, and now a bag full of sentimental and essentially value-less (to anyone but me) things stolen.  I felt violated!!  Here’s what was in the bag:

• My favorite blue North Face hiking shirt from volunteering for an ultramarathon
• My favorite blue sports bra
• Patagonia Capilene long johns
• My favorite pair of underwear
• My new Smartwool socks from Christmas
• My yellow “Where the Wild Things Are” t-shirt from Second Nature
• My toiletry bag with Nalgene shampoo bottles, my glasses case and my contact lenses
• My cell phone battery (good thing I have the bulky spare one!)
• My yellow towel from a triathlon I did in Puerto Rico
• A small Snapware container from my lunch the night before
• My favorite stone necklace from Derek that I never take off (and only did because of my sunburn!)

Here’s a photo of me in my shirt and necklace for the last time : (

On Mount Rainier (Derek took this photo)

My Timbuktu Messenger Bag: RIP

It has been hard to deal with this.  I keep wondering why this would happen when it seems plain to me that I chose to do the kinder, more generous thing.  Maybe because I was also thinking of the income when I chose to not call in sick… and I was getting punished for being selfish.

It was the right decision: If I had gone home sick and I did not have this happen to me, then I would continue to be careless with items left in my car (for example, my wallet was often stored in the console).  And then at some later date I would lose something much more valuable and/or non-replaceable than the items above.  This was a hard path to take but I think it was the right one, so I don’t make mistakes down the line.

I’m no longer working on that case, since my employer refused to pay $7 each way for a taxi for me.  It’s unfortunate – I had finally gotten into a groove with that family and I think they were really nice.  Oh well, not worth the risk of another break-in.

This week I’ve been taking care of my skin and trying to recover.  I got the window replaced, and some gouges were left in my door panel from their poor workmanship.  Wish I had a photo of how it previously looked, because it’s my word against their’s.

Anyway, thanks for reading through my huge rant-fest.  I hope your week has gone better than mine!

The hike follows a river upstream, taking hikers through a succession of waterfalls.  It was so green and lush!! We had a great view of the valley (along the power lines unfortunately) before heading into the woods.

A map of the peaks

There’s an option to take the Woody Trail or the forest road.  Of course, being the hardy hikers we are, we took the Woody Trail. Traffic on the trail in the opposite direction was quite busy at first, and we passed several hikers on the way in.  We kept track of the time, and at the picnic site we checked our mileage.  We were making great time and could probably get to the highest falls!

Classic shot, blocking the waterfall

As we climbed higher and closer to the waterfalls, there was a huge difference in temperature as the spray of the cool water hung in the air.  The trail took us steeper at the end, ducking back away from the falls and warming up, then finally bringing hikers out to a view of the top of the Upper Falls.  The Middle Falls is actually the tallest of the 3 waterfalls, and in my opinion, it’s the coolest looking.

Middle Falls

View of the valley from Middle Falls overlook

Colby was in trouble for trying to go under the railing

We had a mishap with the camera tripod that Derek wrapped around the railing!  We had it all set up to take a delayed shot, when it started to slide off the railing.  The camera took the shot right as it fell, capturing a look of horror on our faces!  (Luckily it was caught on a tree branch, otherwise it’d have fallen 200 feet over the cliff!)

oh no!!!

I dipped my feet in the water on the way back… brr!!

Snowmelt is coooold!

The River

We made it back before dark (dark is like 10:00 here!) and in time for me to get home, eat dinner, and head off to work for the night.  A nice 3 hour, 5.5 mile hike to enjoy the summer day.  Colby did great!  He was pooped, and I love pooped puppies : D

Oh, and check out Derek’s video of the trip, it’s great!!

We completed: 5.5 miles, 1200 feet elevation gain/descent in 3 hours

Next time:

• Leave time to play in the river
• Eat lunch at an overlook
• Try out the campground
• Trail run?
• Bring navigation tools and other supplies to do a longer hike and find Wallace Lake

I wish I had brought:

• Other than bringing nav tools for next time, I was pretty much set for this short trip!