Thursday, June 23, 2005
Silver Lake and Julia Butler Hansen Wildlife Refuge
Last weekend I headed down to Kelso for some hiking with Dad and Jenny. On Saturday Dad and I (Jenny was on call to help her mother-in-law deliver a horse) headed for the Mt. St. Helens Silver Lake Visitor's Center. We spent quite a bit of time inside looking at the displays, and it turns out we should have done that afterward. We barely started the walk around the lake when it started sprinkling, and in a a few more minutes it started pouring. After waiting under the trees and sipping our coffees for a while, we decided to make a break for it, and ran the rest of the way around the lake.
That night I got to see Jenny show off her riding skills, and had a nice visit with Loki, who seems to have this farm life thing figured out ok. He and Chris still have some disagreements over bedtime (he doesn't think he should have one, she doesn't want him to get eaten by coyotes), but other than that he seems to be having a good time catching mice in the woodpile and ignoring the rabbits.
On Sunday we had a nice walk down at the refuge. The head-high grass made it pretty impossible to spot any deer, but we did see lots of red-tailed hawks, vultures, and ospreys. And Jenny showed off her skills as a butterfly-whisperer.
Labels: hiking
