Mary's Peak, I made it this time!

Last time we drove up to Mary's Peak, it was a beautiful day like today. I believe I could nearly see the ocean off far to the west (perhaps one can on a slightly clearer day). The number of snowy Cascades peaks visible to the east from Mary's Peak are worth the long drive up the well-paved, but winding road. There have always been trails I wished to take atop Mary's Peak, but when I was tipping the scale at 300, I never dared. While those trails once seemed to be calling fitter people up to the summit to gaze down on the sprawling valleys, forests, and farmlands below, today they called me.

Now that we are really eating and living better, Pedal Poppers, and I took our good buddies Cassie, Wompit, and Ziza with us for an afternoon outing. The great weather was really calling for a hike. While I would rather spend a whole day biking, my only real excuse for a lighter day of exercise is that my ass is recovering from 12-miles in the saddle yesterday. Sure, we've seen guys stay on their bikes for 100 miles at a time, but Mark Beaumont we are not. 12 wee miles yesterday made us both sore enough to be sitting on pillows and weeping on each other's shoulders.

It was 63 degrees when we left the house today, and Wompit has been almost impossible to get to come inside. He sits on our covered deck rain or shine (especially shine), in a bed I've moved out there for his comfort. I'll ask him to come in and drink water or spend some time with me, but he looks at me like coming inside is a punishment. He does nothing but take deep breaths and stare at the nice weather all day. He needed a good outing.

Wompit is without a doubt our easiest walker and best trail dog (pictured above). Cassie, with that bit of Shepherd in her, is constantly on some search and rescue mission, skirting back and forth in front of me, sniffing under every tuft of grass. Yes, there's Jimmy Hoffa, Cassie, so glad you found him. Now, for God's sake, let's take a proper walk! Ziza is a ridiculous walker, pulling as hard as she can, twisting her leash around legs, other dogs, you name it. This feels and sounds faintly like a mad honey bee on a leash. It also tends to give her asthma. It's pretty much an embarrassment to me as a dog owner. But what can I do? That's actually not a rhetorical question. My answer is that I have Pedal Poppers walk her. If it gets bad enough, I keep my distance and pretend I don't know them (pictured below - Ziza is there somewhere, she's just little and the same color pretty much as the grass).

And that's about it. We got back home a bit ago, Wompit's still sitting on the porch of course, and it's 6:30, so I'm off to make some dinner. Hope you enjoyed the pics of Mary's Peak. The views in the distance seemed a bit hazy and over-saturated to me, certainly due to that crazy imagination of mine conjuring up quite a few chemtrails on an otherwise perfect day. But for some odd reason, they also showed up in my pictures. Surely, you'll be unlikely to see them at all, and if you do, hopefully you just think they're natural clouds. In either case, don't judge my pics too harshly; here's one last lovely view of the valley and mountains for the night.

Hope to catch you all soon again.

-Sprocket