Centennial Trail ride

Where to ride and how far to ride? Those were the questions we asked ourselves this morning. We haven't gone on a long bike ride this year, and we decided this would be the day.

We decided to go to our favorite trail - "The Centennial Trail", and ride to Armar and back, it should be about 25 miles round trip.

We started at Nakashima barn and headed south (after we got ourselves organized!).

We stopped at Arlington, and attended to some necessities of life ;-)

and there was a small event going on at the park, we watched some very excited children ride on a cute little train.

There is a nice little parking lot and port a potty at Armar - Armar, so called because it's half way between Arlington and Marysville. Interesting combination of city names.

Wardrobe change time for me. I was getting warm, so it was time to take the sleeves off of my windbreaker.

My husband below riding up out of the parking area at Armar -

Sign board at the Armar junction.

We turned around here and began our return trip. When we got back to Arlington we were told by some other bike riders that they had been turned back at the trestle bridge heading out of town by Police officers. They were told that there had been a large mudslide near Darrington and they were concerned about the debris bursting and causing damage further down river. We thanked them for the info. and rode on up to see for ourselves. Sure enough Police had barricaded the trestle bridge to traffic. So we headed out to hwy 9 and rode about a half mile north till we found a road that accessed the trail again. 

Wonderful day on the trail, our total miles biked was 25 1/2 miles, not bad for the first ride of  the year.

While we were driving home, I searched for any info. on the slide and sure enough, it had been a devastating mudslide. Life's were lost and people were injured. They put out announcements of possible evacuations to any people along the banks of the Stillaguamish river, south of the slide. At the time of this blog post no activity had happened to burst the blockage on the river.

Read about the slide and look at pictures HERE.

Pine and Cedar shuttle Trailblazer hike

16 Trailblazers joined together to hike on this first day of spring "Tra La".

We planned on hiking from the Pine and Cedar trailhead and then to finish at the Arroyo trailhead parking lot. We arranged for the cars and drivers to be at the appropriate ends and off we went.

Heading Up for a very long time - 

It had been 3 weeks since I'd gone on a Trailblazer hike. I've been tending our 3 granddaughters for my daughter and her husband. Once segment of time was for the two of them to get away on a work/play vacation, and the second time I stayed with the girls was while they went to stay with my son in law's mom. She had been recently diagnosed with cancer and her first round of chemo left her feeling pretty rough. 

So after a long absence, I was thoroughly enjoying my time today with these fun kindred spirits of the trails.

We were so surprised to see snow beside the trail, it had been chilly but I didn't expect to see any today.

This would definitely NOT be our lunch spot!

Pat, our fearless leader managed to find just the right place at Cedar lake for a sunny lunch.

Our view of Cedar lake -

There were some twist and turns at the end of our hike that made it interesting, but some tales just don't need to be told ;-)

Arroyo park was just gorgeous as we headed out with the sun's "spring" light leading our way.

As I was walking up these last steps towards the parking lot, I looked at my phone to get today's distance from my tracking app I saw that I had a several texts on my notifications, so I checked to see if they were messages that I needed respond to right away.While I'm hiking I turn off all my sounds (except my gps distance audio) so my phone won't be so noisy while we're out, then I usually check my messages when I'm done. My daughter had been trying to get a hold of me to let me know her mother in law had died today.

A jolt of reality to my spring filled carefree mind. 

I was instantly so glad that I had been able to help them last weekend, so my son in law could spend one last weekend with his mom. Not knowing this would be their last time together.

So Lois on this day, while my thoughts are still at this glorious place, I dedicate this blog post to you, may you rest in peace as you are now forever free from pain. You were a lovely, caring person and you will be greatly missed.

Endomondo stats:
8.50 total miles hiked
100 Min. altitude
1864 Max. altitude
2840 Total ascent
2942 Total descent