In search of snow.

We needed to get out of the house.  We haven't done much adventuring lately and it has shown on the paucity of blog posts.  There will be more on that later, but today we just needed to get out of the house.  Away, please.

So we loaded up Hondo and convinced the kids to get in with the promise that we were out to find snow.  Rumor had it that it was snowing all weekend in Ranier National Park, so we were off.  This time we did the same loop we had previously done, but backwards.  Amazing how different everything looks that way.


Also, thanks to a generous donation from Papa, I had a new lens to test out.  I had to remember how the camera works.  I'm still trying to recall all of it, but I will get there eventually. 

We stopped, much to the frustration of the kids, at a still, scenic canyon for some reflections.

Reflections of...the way life used to be...

This started my day's frustration with power lines.

Captain America takes a rare day off.

Beautiful

Something wasn't right.  My colors weren't popping the way I wanted them to and things just didn't look right at all.  I realized that I had forgotten all the filters Papa sent for the lenses and had forgotten to use my custom settings on the camera.  Told you it had been a while.

Pretty, but something isn't right...

What does this button do?

Ahhh, that's better.

Much better.

Mt. Rainier hides behind the clouds.

AS we drove through the park, I noticed some mushrooms at the side of the road.  As soon as we got out of the car, Michael noticed a lot more.

"Oh yeah baby!"

"That's a good one."

It was hard not to abandon the kids and sneak off for a hike when I saw this little trail.

But Michael needed me to photograph this mushroom.

Part of the loop is Chinook Pass and the gorgeous little Tipsoo Lake.  Remember it from our previous pictures?

Ahhh, warm and green and pretty.

A little different today.

Misty and mysterious

Fall colors

Michael liked this one. 

Ruthie mentioned something about a larch tree in Washington that turned yellow and dropped its leaves.  We decided that would be our species to discover on this trip if we could and we sure could.  There are two types of larch in Washington, the Western Larch, which grows at elevation between 2,000 and 4,000 feet and an alpine larch that grows above 5,000 feet.  Today we found the Western Larch.  Reminds me of a Monty Python skit.

The laaaarrrrch

Then it was time for the drive home.  We made one last stop for a look at Fife's Peak in the fog.  It wasn't the greatest adventure, but it worked.