America 2015 - part 8

I'm curious how many blog entries our July trip will have, but hang in there with me.

Our not-so-gorgeous room at the Best Western in Sandy, Oregon.

I gave my man a remote control (from the bedroom, which had a TV) and said, "Point it at that wall, it will be funny." It was, we were cracking up.




He ran with the idea and got a pillow and pretended our room also had no bed.




My turn with the remote! Funnily, when we checked out, they asked, "What room number please?" And my man smiled and said, "A.P.T." (manager's apt). They were confused for a moment and then gave us the charge, which instead of a room at their hotel, we had to pay "Miscellaneous fees." *lol*



My first up close drone, in a car at the parking lot at Wildcat Mountain again. Its owner was an older gentleman, too old to make it to the top, so he was collecting garbage that wanna-be-hunters left around the lot. All those shotgun shells from yesterday were gone. He said sadly to us, "I won't be able to get that burnt-up box spring out of here in my car." I was in awe of such stewardship. He took out so much trash from that site.

We ran into his friends hiking up Wildcat on our second attempt, and they were the most efficiently outfitted hikers I've ever seen. They had Camelbacks, walkie talkies (which they used to tell their people up ahead, "We have two hikers coming up!") and compasses, and those neck things that keep you cool (I used to have one) and these strange socklets that fold over hiking boots to keep stones from falling in. Ingenious. They were all older than us, but much better outfitted. They told us where to go to get to the fantastic view, and I desperately hoped that was where our geocache would be.

It was.




Nothing lucky here. It was not an easy hike. In fact, that day we went a total of 7 miles, but 7 miles of straight up and straight down. Half of it would have been a great hike. All of it was too much.




Near the top. What are these things? You can see the path on the left, and walking through these things was really annoying, they're heavy and stiff. I bet they were pretty as flowers once.




Nearing the peak, we can see craggy Mt Hood in the distance, and contrails from airplanes. We didn't hear any planes though, in fact, the only sound to be heard on this mountain was insects. There was one in particular, that I also heard in Portland. It was up high in the trees and made simply a long hissing noise without end. What on earth is that?




Mt Hood is also hiding in clouds, after all our work getting up there. I always knew Mt Hood by its extreme pointiness. None of its sisters and brothers are quite so pointy.






There were many different types of flowers, which I tried to capture.







Ah, this is where I found that 15 year old cache. There are purple lupines in there if you can make them out. I also found some blueberries to eat. What an amazing cache this was - the way caching used to be - hike up a mountain and find only one cache, and it was so old, the log book actually said, "Stash" on it, because at that time that was what caches were called.







Don't get dizzy and too close to the edge.




Some sort of quarry.




One for my "Textures" series.




At this point in our trek, we are at the altitude of our parking lot, we'd just hiked up Wildcat peak, seen Mt Hood, and then hiked back down to this quarry near the parking area. But J had more in store for me, even though it was soooooo hot out. We were to drop down this ledge you see here, and it's exactly as steep as it seems here, to find another 2001 cache at the bottom of the valley you see in this photo. So, another few hours of straight down, then up. My knees were hurting halfway down, and I went very slowly. Thankfully my man had my water bottle in his backpack. I couldn't believe it was a horse trail, cuz I had to use my hands to steady myself in places.




At the very bottom of that mountain was the cache, which I couldn't give a rip about at that point. I found a mosquito-filled little trickle of water (drought) and took this photo of it. I couldn't put my feet in because I'd get blisters on my way back up. There were horse tracks, I couldn't believe it. Despite me being the victim of horseflies, ticks, and fire ants in Germany, I don't get bitten by anything back home. Not even the mosquitoes flying around me at this trickly creek. Or maybe I do get bitten, but I don't react?


Thankfully on the way up, my knees were not in so much pain. But, the angle of the mountain was so steep, I felt sure I could reach my arm out and touch the trail in front of me. Indeed, I had to stop every 20 meters or so and gasp for air. I don't know what the altitude was, but it was bloody hot out, and humid, and I have never had a hill kick my butt like this, besides Mt Rainier.

When we got back to our car, amazingly, the ultra hikers were there, all changed out of their hiking gear into new clothes, drinking water and talking excitedly about their hike. They said, "Oh, we were so worried about you, because we made it back here before you, but you were faster than us on the way up!" J explained that we had also made our way down to the foot of the mountain. They noticed his accent, one lady said, "Might I guess, you are German?" They were so, so nice. They wanted to know who we are, how we met, and so on. I love the openness of Americans. They recommended that we see the  North Cascades Loop to which we replied, "That is what we're doing next week!"




I was exhausted and as we finally made our way back into Sandy, I was annoyed that the mountain had come out by then. Ugh! We had Thai food  (my man was so incredibly indulging of me this trip, letting me eat whatever food I missed the most, however much I wanted!). It was crappy Thai food but the Tom Ka Gai was great. I called my mom and she was anxious for our arrival home, as she was every day of our visit. I said we'd be there ASAP.

I was so proud of myself for driving from Sandy (near Gresham) Oregon, to SeaTac, in 2.5 hours. I was flying. I went exactly 15 over the speed limit the entire way, I made I5 my Autobahn for a day.



 
Back home in time for dinner, we climbed into the hot tub to enjoy the park-like setting of my parents' backyard. And the birds which we fed peanuts to, to Popoki's annoyance. Popoki is 15 this year, and too old to chase the birds, but still flicks his tail and meows as we feed them. Poor thing!

Next: Those birds Popoki hates, and shiny downtown Seattle