Embracing 60

What to do for my 60th birthday? 

As my 50's decade was coming to a close I began to feel an urgency to start my 60's on an inspiring note. My husband and I began brainstorming ideas and finally settled on a long hike as I haven't hiked anything farther than 10 1/2 miles for several years. We decided to do a point to point hike. We dropped his car off at the North Chuckanut trail parking lot and my car at the Fragrance lake trail head across the road from Larrabee State park. The distance he came up with after looking at the trail maps of the area would be between 12 and 13 miles. Sounded good to me.

Ready to go!

We started hiking at 8:45 and began the uphill trek towards Fragrance lake. The vewpoint is always a must for us. The timing was right so I posed at 9:50 - the time of my birth!

At 9:50 am 60 years ago today I  became me!

We've had a lot of Southeast wind storms lately, so some areas of the local trails have some downed tree branches on them. My husband brought his trusty hand saw and did some trail work for us.

before -

and after.

after hiking around Fragrance lake we continued up the trail to a cleared logging area for a quick rest stop. A fun side note, we spotted Marjan and Frank from our Senior Trailblazer hiking group coming towards us and  we had a nice catch up chat before heading on our way. Marjan informed us that the faster group of Senior Trailblazers was just ahead of us on the trail. Small World!
(click to enlarge the panorama below)

My husband told me to look away for a bit and then said "ready, go ahead and look", and he had brought up a pink frosted cookie for my birthday complete with lighted candles. He then sang Happy Birthday to me. Such a sweetie pie.

After the birthday fun we continued our hike up the logging road to look out at the view looking towards the east. Dick is already there looking for our trail down.

If you click on the picture below you will notice Lake Samish in the valley on the right and Lost lake in the valley on the left. 

We hiked down a very long, steep and narrow trail off of the logging road to head down to eat lunch at the north end of Lost lake. I was so glad that I hike with trekking poles. It would have been very difficult for me to hike this section without them. It felt like a long way, but it was only 7.6 miles total at this point.  Apparently the steep trail down took more energy out of my than I realized, by the time we reached the lake I realized I was really tired. We brought a stove for cooking soup and tea, boy did that taste good. Just what I needed. Since we didn't know exactly how long it would take us to hike today we had packed warm clothes, extra food, headlamps, etc. in case the day got long and we had to hike out in the dark.

After lunch we marched off with renewed energy.

We passed so many signs on this hike they almost began to blur together.

We did manage to finish our hike quite abit before dark, with a total of 12.6 miles for the day!
 Here is the screenshot of our day, if you wanted to see it.
(click to enlarge)

All in all the perfect way to break in a new decade.

Yes, I shall embrace my new age - Today I am 60!

Endomondo stats:
12.6 total miles hiked
68 Min. altitude
1776 Max. altitude
3870 Total ascent
4261 Total descent

Picture of the week - Valentines bouquet

from my "Sweet Babboo" 

Roses and their meanings: 

White represents "true love". Red represents "love", Yellow represents "friendship"

my Valentines bouquet

Fragrance lake Trailblazer hike

16 of us carpooled from the Bellingham Senior Center to the Cleator road.

I was told that we were starting on the Two Dollar trail and would be joining the Fragrance lake trail.

We noticed pink ribbons on the road and trail as well as yellow signs alerting all trail users that there was to be a Trail Running event on the upcoming Saturday,

 The Fragrance lake half.

The trail today had quite a bit of down trees and branches. We stepped over this one near the trail head. Owen, Ed and my husband Dick in this photo, did their trail work duties on our way out and cleaned it all up. Way to take initiative! 

Here and there we got a glimpse of Bellingham Bay through the trees.

We all stopped to admire some one's great trail work.

and as I said earlier my husband Dick was able to join us today -yay!

Some of the sights along the trail today -

Eagle Scout benches

Waterfall

Wondrous Trees and Roots

After a nice walk around the (still lightly frozen) lake we stopped for lunch -

Cindy's great lunch spot

Before we left the Senior Center this morning Frank announced that it was his and Marjan's 49th wedding anniversary today. 

Happy Anniversary to the lovebirds!!

Endomondo stats:

5.15 total miles hiked

526 Min. altitude

1211 Max. altitude

1635 Total ascent

1719 Total descent

Picture of the week - Superbowl Victory parade

Seahawks Superbowl Victory Parade

Seahawks Superbowl Victory Parade

It all started for me with a text message - 

The day started just like any other day, my husband had worked an excessive amount of hours over the weekend so he took Tuesday off. We were in Bellingham running errands and going for a relaxing drive when I got a text message from my daughter Melissa. Would I want to go to the Seahawks Victory parade with her and her girls? How could I pass that up, being the huge Seahawks fan that I am. Of course I said "yes"!! We drove home and I hastily packed for my trip and drove to Snohomish. When I got to Melissa's house we formulated a plan for the next day. We needed to make sure that everyone stayed warm as we've been having a cold snap and the forecast was for temps in the high 20's.

We packed blankets, hats, scarves, gloves, enough food and Tp ;-) just in case the traffic to and from was epic. Our plan was to leave her house by 6 am, even though the parade was scheduled for 11 am. Since we were taking her girls we wanted to make sure we could get a front row seat.

We got up at 5 and grabbed a quick breakfast and got everyone in double layers and wala we were out of the house by 5:30. Yahoo!!

The traffic wasn't any worse than a typical rush hour flow, so we got in the carpool lane on the freeway and cruised on in to town. We were concerned about where to park since we didn't want the girls to have to walk too far, luckily we found the Pike Street Market parking garage was open. They have a $23 dollar all day fee. Things were definitely going our way!

 We gathered up our armload of blankets and put the food etc. in the pack that I brought to wear and off we went. After stopping off at Starbucks to get the girls hot cocoa's and coffee's for us, we walked up to 4th avenue to find just the right spot on the parade route. 

We were surprised to see that people had put out chairs and blankets the night before to save their places.

 We finally found an empty spot on the curb, between Stewart and Virginia streets. At 6:30 am we staked out our spot, it even had a port a potty just across the street - bonus!

Melissa waving at me across the street!

I handed out the hand warmers that I had brought -

yay for the hand warmers, brrrr it was 18 degrees when we got there.

Then we settled in to accomplish our mission: stay warm and enjoy our front row spots for the parade.

Luckily there were plenty of coffee shops nearby and a hardware store was open just across the street. So my daughter and I took turns walking with the girls to get their blood flowing again/to visit the port a potty and to go into the store for a bit of warmth while the other part of our group saved our spot on the curb.

My granddaughter working on staying warm.

Eventually the crowds started pouring in and pushing us forward. We started on the curb and ended up standing almost on the white lane line.

The parade had a one hour delay because some of the team members couldn't get to the parade start area. So we spent about 5 1/2 waiting for it to begin.

Here's some of my favorite pictures from our day -

The first vehicles that came by carried the players family and entourages.

Marshawn Lynch on the Duck tour vehicle that carried the Sea Gals. He was definitely enjoying himself. 

Then the Seahawks fan band, enjoy my video -

Then coach Pete Carroll -

Russell Wilson - 

Golden Tate -

Golden Tate is the one in the back with his left arm up

and my favorite "Richard Sherman" looking right our way! -

We found out that my nephew from Olympia was heading up to watch the parade. He was leaving from Tacoma on the Sounder train. I texted him and told him we'd save a spot for him. He made it with plenty of time to spare (since the parade had been delayed).

Our happy group!

We found out when we got back to the parking garage we had arrived early enough to get the early bird fee of $6!
Our luck held for the drive home, since the rally was taking place after the parade in the Century Link stadium and overflow in the
Safeco stadium the traffic wasn't too bad.

We got back to my daughter's house by 4pm, no traffic delays whatsoever!

I immensely enjoyed doing my part to represent the 12th man at the day's parade.

So to wrap it up I'll end with this video - 

"What does the Hawk say? - Win, Win, Win, Win, Win, Win, Win"!

thanks for the text message Tuesday, Melissa!

 "GO HAWKS"

Picture of the week - Go Hawks!!

of course ;-)

GO HAWKS!!
Are you a 12th man?

Cub/Smith creek Stewart mtn. Trailblazer hike

Rain was predicted and it's been rainy for a couple day so I didn't expect a large group, and I was right. Only 9 of us showed up for the
Cub/Smith creek/Stewart mtn. Senior Trailblazer hike.

We drove to the North Shore Lake Whatcom trail parking lot, and continued on to the upper parking lot for the Cub creek trailhead.
The trail starts out with a pretty good incline.

We were all decked out in our rain gear, ready for a chilly wet day.

Marijke, Jean and Cookie among the sea of ferns along the trail.

After we'd hiked along for about a mile, we saw this wrecked car in the forest 

and wondered just how it had gotten there.

Just when we were getting ready to hike into the open near the power lines the rain began to fall. The trail zigzagged through the forest and crossed a gravel road here and there.
Frank, Marjan, Pat, Cookie and Marijke taking a rest stop before heading up the road.

I love this picture of Pat and Frank walking towards the fog, along the trail beside the cascading ferns.

We hiked just a bit beyond two miles and our fearless leader Pat stopped and had a chat with us about turning around and eating lunch at the Senior center in town as we'd already had rain, sleet, and a bit of snow falling around us. I have to admit that when the breeze came up it was chilly. He explained that we were near the last section of the way up but there would be limited sheltered areas for us to stop and eat our lunches. The low clouds kept us from seeing any views anyway.

So we all turned around and did a quick walk back to the cars and
with all of the uphill hiking so we weren't too disappointed in our days hike. 

Our late lunch at the Senior Center was just right, thanks Pat!

Endomondo stats:
4.44 total miles hiked
401 Min. altitude
1710 Max. altitude
1294 Total ascent
1282 Total descent