Hikes with Hannah

Because Hannah is taking half high school courses and half college classes, she doesn't get a full spring break like the years past.

A few weeks ago she had her time off from the community college, so she'd go to school in the morning at Ike and then come home around 11:30 each day.

So on a couple of those days, we took off on a local walking/hiking adventure. 

The first day we walked the Greenway and ended up at the Arboretum.
The weather is warming up a bit and things are starting to bloom.

Taking serious photographs was our goal!

Ha!

The second time out we walked from Naches Heights Winery down into Cowiche Canyon.
A beautiful day and a lot of fun!
Better views, a lot more silliness and amazingly...pictures of me!!

I know that these days of being together like this are numbered.
In a year and a half Hannah will be leaving home and these opportunities won't come so easy.
I'm soaking them up while I can.

A Week in Pictures: 29 March - 5 April

3/29 - With Hannah in Europe and a big vacation planned for May, we decided that Spring Break for the rest of us would be a close to home (cheap) week.  Because we've had such an early spring, the tulip fields in Mt. Vernon were in full bloom, so I took Jenelle for an overnight trip.  We got a cheap Best Western hotel for the night and she was extremely excited when I told her she could jump on the bed.

3/30 - Meanwhile, Donald and Ivan camped overnight at a place they hike a lot near the Yakima Canyon.  They purchased a machete before they left Yakima so they could cut down brush for their tent, then set up camp and made spears and a fire.  Quite the opposite of our tulip expedition!

3/31 - The tulip fields were AMAZING and I will bombard you with more photos of tulips than you've ever wanted to see in a few days.  I could have bought tulips there, but Jenelle and I were going to take our time getting home the next day and I didn't want tulips to die in my van! But when we got home I picked some up at Fred Meyer because I had to have some in the house!  They are my favorite flower!!

4/1 - A delicious beans and rice recipe that Donald found and a cute son who is willing to make cornbread are ingredients for a great night!

4/2 - Donald and I went on a tour with rotary to a place called B Reactor in Hanford...just about 45 minutes away from Yakima.  It was the first full scale nuclear reactor built in the world...part of the Manhattan Project!  If the sound of that interests you at all, I really encourage you to take a minute to go here and read about it.  I can tell you that prior to our visit I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but it was fascinating to learn about it!  No kidding!  The site is actually becoming a National Park.  The picture I took was of the front face of the reactor and had over 2000 ports for the uranium fuel elements to undergo a nuclear chain reaction and produce plutonium that would be used for weapons.

4/3 - An afternoon walk in Cowiche Canyon...our backyard hiking area.  Ivan told me very matter of factly that I am not to "blog" about the hike...because I've done it too many times before.  So...I'm just slipping in one picture of the wildflowers that were growing there!

4/4 - And if I didn't have enough pictures of flowers for this week...here's one more.  Jenelle and I took a walk today around the neighborhood and I couldn't resist these white blooms against the incredible blue sky!

Wild Horse Monument and Ancient Lakes

A gorgeous weekend needed a hike!
Last Sunday, Hannah and a couple of her friends, Jenelle and I took off for a day of hiking around.
We stopped the Wild Horse Monument just outside of Vantage.
A steep hike up (that felt even steeper going down) gave us beautiful panoramic views of the Columbia River.

photo by Hannah

Next we drove to a place called Ancient Lakes.
It's an amazing place that was created during cataclysmic floods after the ice age.
The massive basalt columns were once solid lava flows called a coulee.
The current landscape is a result of those flows being eroded by the ancient glacial floods.
After walking a long way across dry ancient lake beds, we came to the area where there are still lakes being fed by a waterfall.
It was such a contrast.
Dry desert landscape with a waterfall right in the middle.

The girls wanted to hike closer to the waterfall.
So I took their gear and walked around the other side so that I could watch as they explored.
It's very hard to give perspective with a camera to how large this area is.
This picture is a zoom of them while they traversed the rocks toward the base of the waterfall.

And this picture is what I saw with my eyes.
If you look dead center...right above the grasses around the lake, you can see four tiny people.

And they made it!!
(See Jenelle in the pink shirt to the right of the waterfall?)

After this picture, Hannah and her friends stayed here and ate their lunch

Jenelle and I walked further and hung out for a while.
We had all pretty much run out of water (should have brought a couple of bottles each!) and Jenelle was dead on a rock...

 ...or was she???

I took a few more pictures of the beautiful scenery...

 (It's actually a triple waterfall!)

...and when the girls caught up with us, we were all ready to go!
We had a long walk ahead!

Once we made it around this last column, we knew the parking lot was close.

It was a long day and a much longer walk than we expected, but once everyone was replenished with water, everyone agreed it was fun!

At the same time we were out, Ivan and Donald were having their own adventure!
They hiked an area off the Yakima River called Umtanum Creek Canyon.
Donald took this awesome picture of Ivan pointing at a cairn (man made stack of rocks) they made on top of a hill.
I've enlarged these pictures, but you still have to look very closely to see the rocks.  The cairn is at the very top of the hill and Ivan is near the bottom for the picture.

My goal this summer is to take advantage of this amazing place we live and get outside as much as possible!!