Mt Catherine hike

This is a hike from a few weeks ago that I haven't found time to post. This is Mount Catherine, which is off of Interstate 90, it is a quick hike to get above the trees and have a great view. This link takes you to trail notes from the Seattle PI.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/getaways/97336_hike28.shtml

To reach the trail, you take a somewhat rough gravel road. There were seven of us, so I took advantage of Greg leaving his van with me to provide bus service to everyone. The van made the trip, but it wasn't as smooth as a truck would have been.

Here is part of the group I was hiking with (L-R: Steve, Janeen, Mike, Greg)























The colors are (were) hitting their peak on this hike. I think this year has been better than most for the vibrancy of color.























In this picture, Janeen almost blends in with all the red...


















This is a dorky looking picture...



















And we submitted! and felt proud until the point where the 80 year old man appeared, and he didn't even seem winded.


















There were a few "peekaboo" views along the trip up, including this one...







The views from the summit were pretty impressive, including a view of Mt.Rainier.

My three friends

This weekend I spent painting, painting and more painting. This set of doors were my three friends this weekend, I spent many hours priming, painting, and second coating them. These are only 3 of the 6 interior doors I have the paint stripped off of. After spending so many hours putting paint back onto them, it seems silly to have taken the paint off of them in the first place. They do look better than when they had 6 layers of paint on them, the wood grain is actually visable again.























In addition to painting these doors, I finished painting the sliding cabinet for the upstairs bathroom. The same cabinet that I finished building about a month ago, that has been sitting in the middle of my hallway for a month. Sitting right in the middle of things in theory would be a good way to provide incentive to finish a job, but it never seems to work that way. Taking hikes is a more fun than house projects.

And speaking of walks in the outdoors, here's a picture of a church just around the corner from my house. My friend, Karine, had recommended I check out a house in my neighborhood with solar electric panels on the roof. The owner was offering tours of his set up and it was interesting what he was able to do. The payback time was pretty long, about 20 years. I am not convinced to put them on my roof yet. On the way back from walking to the solar house, this tree and church looked picture perfect. And the following picture is the same tree, looking skyward through the leaves.