For the most part, the cats have been staying in the RV. They did get to come in a few of the days though. On Friday, we took a look at Pickles and one of her eyes looks really weird. There was a build-up of some sort in the corner of her eye and it looked worse than the first time I had noticed it a few days before. We decided to find a vet in the morning. There was a vet open on Sat. that we could walk to. They had an opening, which was great, but we had to walk over a huge hill to get there. Up a steep hill, then back down the other side, carrying a box, with an upset Pickles away from our body so it didn't bump her too much.
The vet said she had abrasions on her cornea and the weird stuff that was coming in to cover her eye was to heal it. Sometimes it can overreact though and a vet ophthalmologist has to go in and remove some of the scar tissue. The vet put a drop in her eye to relax the muscle (it was spasming) but it also dilates her pupil. So her pupil is going to be dilated for a week. We were given drops to put in her eye twice a day for a couple weeks and we also got an E-collar. Poor Pickles now has a 'cone of shame' on. It's so sad. She can't go through the cat door, so the litter box is under the table. She can't drink out of the water dish unless it's completely full and she can't really eat out of the normal dish, so we designed a dish out of some tupperware that I hold to help her eat. :( Hopefully it gets better quickly. If it gets worse, we'll have to find a vet to take her to again. If it gets really bad, we'll probably have to see a vet ophthalmologist. Hopefully it doesn't get to that point.
Well, the plan is to leave today and head to Tacoma to see someone that we work with on the game.
-Miranda
Sarah and Pickles hanging out.
Poor Pickles and her 'cone of shame.'
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Sorry for the lack of updating. That's what happens when I wait until I upload photos and then never upload the photos.
Anyway, our plan was to take a bigger hike than the Goat Mountain hike on Wed. but we missed the road because it was a turn off in the middle of the construction going on. The RV may not have made it anyway. There was a trail before a bridge over the river, so we stopped there and took the short, gorgeous trail. It was early enough that there was still a mist over the river.
After that, we headed out and went back to Bellingham. While in Bellingham, we spent a number of days with Rod and Sarah. They took us to a concert in a park. This park had over 40 different types of trees and it was the oldest park in the city. On Friday we went out to a Thai restaurant that was very good. Afterwards, we headed downtown for a gallery walk. Apparently during the summer, the galleries in downtown Bellingham open and are free to peruse until 10pm. There was a lot of very neat work.
The next day, we had a nice Indian buffet lunch, then headed to Seattle. We're hanging out in Seattle now, visiting a friend of mine that moved out here for grad school. She's renting a house so we have a perfect place to park. She bikes or takes the bus everywhere. Today, we basically spent the afternoon biking around. There are a lot of bike lanes and trails here, which makes biking relatively easy, though some of the hills are a bit extreme.
For dinner we ended up stopping at an El Salvadorian restaurant and had tacos and pupusas, which are amazing. They even had cactus in them! We'll probably stay here for a few days.
-Miranda
The misty river.
A very neat section of trail.
Yet another neat section of trail.
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Yesterday, we woke up and headed for the trailhead, which was up a road that we had already driven up and knew about. The hope was that while we were hiking, we would get the battery charged back up, so we parked in a spot where we hoped the sun would stay out and not be blocked by the trees.
The hike was 3.2 miles with a 2900 foot gain in elevation. The first couple miles were absolutely gorgeous. The forest floor was covered in needles from the pine trees and the trail continually switched back up the mountain, but didn't get too steep, for the most part. Once we started getting higher, it felt like we were walking through a jungle. There were trees a bit off the trail, but mostly smaller ones, and the sides of the trail were very overgrown, enough so that they practically covered the trail. When we finally got out of that, we started heading up a steep slope. We finally got to the top and noticed a group sitting there, so went over to chat. They were with the forest service and were up there to work on a section of the trail. They claimed the trail kept going, so we headed off.
We kept hiking up the mountain, crossing snow, until we got to a steep slope. We could see the trail up the slope, so kept heading up. A section of the trail was washed out from a mudslide. We scrambled up to the next section of trail and kept going. There was another section that was washed out! We decided to just call it good from there. That's the point where I took the first photo. It was super steep! We walked down the trail until we got to where it was washed out again, then went straight down the mountainside to the lower trail and kept going from there.
We eventually learned that the technical end of the trail was the lookout where we saw the group of forest service workers. Though on our walk down, they were working on one of the steep sections of trail. It was a huge mud pit. I just about fell in trying to balance on the rocks they were putting there. They were working on diverting the water off the trail and putting rocks on the trail.
We made it back and the RV was in the shade... Of course. We did get enough power for another day or so though, so we headed back to where we stayed for those couple days earlier in the week. The cats were happy to get to go out again.
This morning, we heard thunder, so knew a storm was probably coming. We got everything packed up in case we had to leave, but let the cats run around outside still. Now it is pouring and poor Curly and Pickles are under the RV because they're too afraid to get in the RV. Once the rain lets up a little again I think I'll try to get them again.
-Miranda
The top of the hike.
Joe in a very cool looking tree along the side of the road.
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Well, there definitely was a mouse problem.
First off, the cats did not want to come in. It was a pain getting them in for the evening. We went to sleep relatively early, but at some point in the middle of the night, Joe heard growling. He swore it was a bear. We turned the light on and see all four cats hunched down on the floor. Eventually we heard the growl again, and it was Curly, with a mouse in his mouth.... He kept letting it go, it would run like crazy, he would chase it, catch it again, then eventually let it go. I finally got a hold of it when it didn't run off right away and threw it out the door (sorry Curly).
We tried to sleep again. Pickles came and lay down between us, purring like crazy. All of a sudden, she jumps at the vent! I look at the back of the RV, and the other three cats are sitting on the table, staring up at the ceiling. It took a bit, but eventually we could hear little feet running around on the roof. I don't know if it was squirrels or mice or what, but it was incredibly annoying.
They calmed down again, only to start running around in the front an hour or so later. I kept watching for someone to come out from there carrying something, but never did. Eventually, Joe said, we're going. I ran outside, put the bike back in the rack, grabbed the solar shower and off we went. There was a very large parking area right before the highway, so we stopped there and went back to sleep. No more crazy noises, so we finally got some sleep.
-Miranda
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We've been in the national forest near Mount Baker since we left Bellingham. We left the spot we were at yesterday in order to go for a hike. Joe had checked out Google Earth and it looked like there was a trailhead for parking, then a 3 mile or so hike up a large trail (Google Earth said it was a trail, but it looked like a road) from there to "Twin Lakes", then from there, there was another hike to a peak. We got to the trailhead parked, then started walking. Unfortunately, the 'trail' was actually a road that went all the way up to Twin Lakes. We walked probably half way before a pickup was driving up the road and let us hop in the back. Looking at the road, there's no way the RV would have made it anyway.
While we were still in Bellingham, we had stopped at an outdoors store and ended up getting a camelpack (hydration pack). That was during one of our walks downtown. Before we left, we stopped at REI to get me one. We used those during the hike. It was a huge help to not have to carry the water in nalgenes.
Anyway, Twin Lakes was gorgeous. There was snow up there and a number of areas for tent campers. It was a pretty busy place. We headed up the trail, which had gorgeous views basically the entire way. There was one sketchy spot where we had to cross snow because it covered the trail, but that went fine. We met a guy part way up that told us the rest of the way was blocked by snow that was too precarious to pass. We went up to get a good view from where he was standing, had a small lunch we had brought with,, then decided to try the other trail we had seen (it bypassed one of the precarious snow spots). There was no way around the next snow spot and it wasn't a good view, so we headed back down.
It had started sprinkling, but we started walking down the road anyway, figuring someone would be down that we could hitch a ride with. It started raining harder, so we stopped under a tree and a large pickup showed up not long after. She was kind enough to pick us up. On the way down, we met someone coming up who asked her if she had a chain, because someone got their truck stuck hanging off the road. She fortunately did. And apparently she had pulled people out of these types of situations many times before.
We got to where these guys with their little Toyota truck were. The passenger side of the pickup was completely off the road. With one pull, it swung down some so the front end was completely off the road. The guys jumped on the back bumper to get that down further while she slowly pulled. When it was mostly back on the road, one of the guys jumped in so he could hit the brake once it was completely on the road. Hopefully they're more careful about where they try to pull off the road in the future.
Since it was raining, we just went to a nearby sandpit. We were having issues finding fast internet, and we were running low on power, so figured that would be good enough. We left this morning. It's still pretty cloudy, but it looks like it might clear up a little. At least enough to get some more sun. Joe had found a neat area a couple days earlier when he had gone biking, so we went there to check it out. There's a spot at the end of a relatively short road that is right next to the river, but has a number of camp spots. It was pretty busy when he had checked it out, but as we were heading that way, about 6 cars left. We went there and all the people are pretty much on one side, so we picked the spot farthest away. Joe went to talk to the nearest neighbors, letting them know we're letting the cats out and it turns out that it is the same two guys that we helped pull of the road yesterday. Anyway, they said there's a bit of a mouse problem.
We'll probably just be here until the morning, but we'll see.-Miranda
The view from the first nice view point we went to. Those mountains are Canada.
Mount Baker
The Twin Lakes. You can sort of see the camping/parking area also.
Joe and the snow crossing we did do.
The RV at the first trailhead on the road.
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