Month: August 2023

I turned 8 this week. I requested bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, and toast for breakfast.

After breakfast we went downhill mountain biking at Mt. Bachelor – my request. The Mother was too busy trying not to crash to take pictures. After biking we picked up my bud Hunter and headed to the pool.

After the pool, we went to the Yacht Club for dinner. I was hoping for pizza, but the pizza cart was closed, so I had a Oaxacan burger from the Barrio Food Truck. It had a beef patty, bacon relish, jack cheese, guacamole, and LTO.

It was a delicious mouthful.

The Mother had the Cuban sandwich. It was pressed with pork carnitas, Spanish jamon, pickled veggies, jack cheese, and mustard.

The Father had tacos. One chicken, one carnitas, and one mushroom.

After the Yacht Club we headed home for vanilla cupcakes.

It was a pretty good day. The next day I headed out to try my new rocket. It was cool.

As you can see from the rocket picture, it is smokey in Bend. So, we decided to hit the road again. We headed up to Mt. Hood for a bike packing trip. I was particularly excited to head out because I had my new bike bag.

Unfortunately, just after we started out, it began to rain. Not sure if you can see all the raindrops hitting Clear Lake behind me.

We lunched under some trees and then headed back out into the rain.

It stopped and the rest of the afternoon was nice. Phew. We stopped at Little Crater Lake. It is 45 feet deep and a beautiful, bright blue.

A tiny portion of our ride intersected the PCT. No bikes allowed on that trail, so we had to walk them.

By the time the day was through, I had recorded my longest day ever, covering 29 miles.

We camped at Stone Creek Campground on Timothy Lake.

It was a bit smokey there too, but nothing like at home.

In the morning, it had cleared and you could see Mt. Hood.

Our second day had a lot – A LOT – of climbing.

I hung in there and finished up strong. I ended up climbing about 3500 ft over two days. Quite a bit more than The Bigs thought we were going to do.

That’s OK because now that I’m eight, I am a man-imal.

In other news, it looks like our plum tree is going to be as prolific as our cherry. We had to prop up the branches, because they looked like they were going to break….

under the weight of all these Italian plums!

Here is the 2nd installment of last weekend’s post.

We went to Olympic National Park and did some backpacking. We started at Graves Creek and headed to Pyrites Campground the first day.

Our first day was only 10 miles.

Despite the ‘easy’ day, The Mother was tired.

Probably from carrying a bear can full of food. Dad carried two! Altogether we had 37 pounds of food for our six day, five night trip. The Bigs were dragging.

We know Nan is saying, where did they go to the bathroom. Here, Nan!

DAY 2

We left Pyrites Campground headed for Siberia Camp. Today would be our first pass.

In the Enchanted Valley, there was a chalet folks could stay at in the 1930s.

We also passed the world’s tallest western hemlock (marked by this sign).

Looks tall.

We ran into a ranger who suggested skipping Siberia Camp and going a little further to LaCrosse Junction to camp. So, by DAY 2, I walked 21.8 miles.

DAY 3

Today we needed to climb our highest pass.

I summited LaCross Pass no problem. I just set little goals and work towards them.

We had to climb over and under many fallen trees and climbed and descended a lot.

We finally made it to Marmot Lake.

It was a tiring day and The Mother and I slept in the next morning.

Dad forgot to take a picture of his watch in the evening, but on Day 3 I walked 12.4 miles, bringing my total to 34.2 miles.

DAY 4

We left Marmot Lake and headed back to the Enchanted Valley.

We had one more pass and I handled it no problem.

Dad and I were busy looking at some glaciers when The Mother came waddling down the trail saying ‘Bear, guys, bear’! This guy was working his way up a hill of huckleberry bushes about 100 ft from where we stood. He was much more interested in huckleberries than us.

Day 4 was another long one. I walked 12.4 miles, bringing my total up to 46.6 miles.

DAY 5

We woke up to rain. One of The Bigs was surprised to see it was raining. Um, it is a RAIN forest…

Thankfully The Mother carries contractor bags in her pack.

After a soggy 11.6 mile walk, we made it to our final campsite at Pony Creek. I had now walked 58.2 miles.

DAY 6:

We had an easy 2.8 mile walk out. I covered 61 miles and climbed countless feet with a super positive attitude, even when I had to sit and wait for The Mother to catch up.

When we got back to our car, we found a mouse had moved in. He ate a lot and pooped a lot. After we cleaned up the mess, we headed to Westport, WA for some surfing. We stayed at a cool hotel with hammocks.

And we went out for dinner where I had my favorite, calamari

and some fish tacos.

I surfed all day

and then we checked out the town.

After surfing we headed back to our hotel. They did not have a room available so we stayed in one of their campsites and made dinner in their grill and chill area. We had lingcod and mini peppers.

We had quite a trip!

We have been very busy and there is too much to share in one blog post, so this will be the first of two.

Here we are getting ready for our first bikepacking (like backpacking but on a bike) trip.

We left from Sisters and rode on trails and gravel roads,

stopping for a treat at Camp Sherman.

The first day we rode 25 and 1/4 miles to a campground on Suttle Lake.

Here are our bikes all ready to go the next morning.

There were some steep climbs the second day.

But I made it, completing the 46 mile loop just after lunch.