After an exceptionally damp drive north Saturday morning, our expectations as a group for our hike to Lily Lake were low. Setting out in a light drizzle, we even joked about shortening our hike and instead spending the morning eating brunch at any number of delicious (and dry!) places in nearby Bellingham. While the rain persisted as we hiked, the magical, mist shrouded forest we walked through soon distracted us from any lingering concerns we had about the weather.
Read moreLife: Week 12
After a long wet winter, it's finally beginning to feel like spring! It rained almost every day this week, but most days, there were at least a few hours of sunshine. The rhubarb in my parents backyard has finally started to sprout, a promise of rhubarb pie in the near future. Skunk cabbage is blooming, and while I have yet to see any, I've heard the trillium is too. Even so, our March Alpine Trails Book Club hike on Saturday was surprisingly wintry. On a trail a little over 2000' above sea level, we wound up in an unexpected snowstorm. While the cold, damp weather made our 7 mile hike one of the quickest in book club history, the storm made for some magical conditions along the trail. Once again, winter seems reluctant to leave Puget Sound!
Read moreLife: Week 11
After a frustrating week filled with rain and too much work stress, it was extra lovely to have my cousin and her daughter visiting from Portland for the weekend! We spent the weekend brunching and aimlessly browsing bookstores. If I can't be out on a trail, bookstores are definitely my favorite place to be, so spending almost an entire weekend in them did wonders for my stress level, although my bank account certainly didn't benefit from all that book buying! If I keep this up, soon my to-read book pile will tower over my bed, and I may run the risk of waking up to a book avalanche one day soon. At least they're mostly paperbacks...
Read moreLife: Week 10
The photo above is not remotely representative of this past week! It was a week of rain, rain, and more rain, with just a few hours of patchy blue sky to remind us what we'd been missing. Obviously, the moment I saw sunlight hitting the trees outside my window, and I had to dash outside for a short walk on the Powerline Trail. While it still looks very much like winter out there, I was able to spot a few early bloomers. Hopefully there will be more to follow soon. I'm definitely ready for some color around here!
Read moreLife: Week 9
Spring is coming, but winter certainly isn't going down without a fight! Monday morning, we woke up to snow, and although it had mostly vanished by the evening, we had cold, stormy weather for most of the week, including plenty of hail, and a few thunderstorms. All this dramatic weather, combined with an increasingly busy work schedule, has made it hard to find the motivation to get outside. Even if I spent most of my time indoors, I did get to spend plenty of time with friends over the week! Good times with good friends are the perfect way to fight through this lingering winter gloom.
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