mrskroc

It has been awhile since I have posted anything and now it has been a bit since either of these trips, so the details have left my memory. I'll just give you the quick version and you can look at the pictures! :) I finally got a new digital camera, so the photos from the Olympic Mountains are from the new camera and the ones from the Herbfarm and Woodinville wine tasting are from my iPhone, so the quality of those is not that great.  Yes, I am another Microsoftie with an iPhone.

 

On May 28th, we headed up to Woodinville, WA for some wine tasting and the fabulous multi-course feast at The Herbfarm.  We went to Alexandria Nicole cellars, Brian Carter cellars, Columbia winery, Januik, and Novelty Hill.  We went to Chateau Ste. Michelle, but just to picnic on their lawn. We bought several wines, of course.

 

The Herbfarm was absolutely amazing once again! The theme was "A Copper King" since it is Copper River salmon season.  Oh, how I love Copper River salmon!  We sat at the "European-style" table and sat at a long table with strangers.  Wasn't sure if we'd like this, but by the end of the night and after several glasses of wine, people were pretty chatty and fun.  One woman even bought a Jersey Cow during dinner.  Yes, I said a cow. The infamous conversation:

Apparently a Jersey cow is for milking in case you didn't know and has big eyes with big eyelashes.  Picture making big blinking eyelashes with your hands over your eyes and that is what Angela and I were doing by the end of dinner. She owns a cafe near Lake Crescent, Granny's Cafe.  I stopped by there over the weekend, but she had already left.

 

We took a break in the middle of dinner to go feed the pigs and walk around the herb garden. I wasn't rolling around in the grass laughing like last time, but still a nice dinner. Here was the menu:

 

This morning's egg, just-now scrambled

With pastrami-spiced salmon, dill & smoked steelhead caviar

Just-landed Puget Sound salt and pepper spot prawns

Parsnip & Potato Soup with Caraway Potato Chips and Foraged Morels

Wine Pairing: Capitello Oregon Brut with "Faux Roe Salmon Eggs"

 

Champage sockeye salmon ceviche and king salmon tartare

Lovage puff pastry straws

And creamy sauce with paddlefish caviar and cornichons.

Wine Pairing: 2007 Ross Andrew Meadow, Oregon/Washington

 

Applewood-grilled Copper River sockeye

On smoked salmon and fennel raviolini with sorrel sauce

Wine Pairing: 2007 Mark Ryan Chardonnay, Columbia Valley, WA

 

Lavender Brioche, Rhubarb and Rosemary "Mustard"

Wine Pairing: 2008 Soter North Valley Rose of Pinot Noir, Willamette, OR

 

Slowly roasted red-wine-glazed king salmon with English thyme

With a salad of housemade mangalitsa sausage, tiny greens,

And a salmon sausage with carmelized onion sauce

Wine Pairing: 2005 Designee Cabernet Franc, Columbia Valley, WA

 

River's Edge Yauina Bay Pave

With sage-scented walnut bread and wild cranberry-apple compote

 

We also had a flight of Ports called "40 Years of Port" which was 10-, 20-, & 40-year-old tawny ports side by side, which I think we received around this time.  (I still don't like anything that comes close to tasting like sherry.  Blech!)

 

Maple blossom & carrot sorbet with wild ginger buttermilk panna cotta

 

Fresh Hazelnut-Angelica doughnuts

With frothy mocha cream and chocolate-devils club bud sauce

 

I think we both had the fresh chocolate mint tea.

Didn't keep the menu for the small treats, but can see a few of the items from the photo - Douglas Fir macaroons, Sicily-Pear Pate a Fruits, Rose marshmallows.  There was some sort of chocolate truffle with a liquid center, and some other chocolately thing that I can't remember.

Wine pairing: 2007 Andrew Rich Late Harvest Gewurtztraminer

 

For the weekend, I took a little trip over to the Olympic Peninsula. I ended up taking the ferry and then driving around a lot, making some scenic stops. Then went to Olympic National Park and stayed at Lake Crescent Lodge.  I forgot how much I like to hike alone. So peaceful and relaxing. Some good "me" time.  I used to do a lot outdoors by myself.  

 

Well we managed to escape the "arctic storm" in Seattle and are spending a few days in Leavenworth, WA.  The drive was a little hairy through some extreme winds in North Bend on Saturday, but otherwise, just moved slow and steady and all was fine.  Jeff has to work on Christmas, so this is our little holiday getaway.  Hopefully getting back home tomorrow won't be too much of an issue, but things are looking icy today.  I still haven't gotten our camera fixed, so no photos of this winter wonderland yet.  You'll just have to trust me that the mountains are gorgeous and the snow is fluffy and beautiful.  Maybe we'll pick up a disposable camera to snap a few pics.

 

Happy Holidays everyone!

I think I'm still full from Thanksgiving.  We had Donna, Bouncer (Donna's dog), Nitza, Matt, Becca and Gibson (Matt and Becca's 5-day old baby) over for the feast.  Most of the food turned out well.  I took a risk with a lot of new recipes.  The slow cooker stuffing ended up pretty goopy.  I'm guessing I put too much liquid in or the mushrooms had more liquid than anticipated.  The flavor was still good though and I had some backup Stove Top.  The white chocoloate mousse for the chocolate torte did not work out at all.  I ran out of some ingredients Thanksgiving morning and had to go the store, so I picked up a chocolate cream pie while I was there to replace the torte.  The salad was suprisingly good.  I wasn't sure about the combination, but I'll definitely make that again.  Helped that the pears were tasty and the pancetta was fantastic.  Nitza's Puerto Rican turkey and gravy and Donna's turkey were delicious and juicy!

 

We'll have not one, but TWO turkeys.  One "regular" style roasted turkey from Donna and one Puerto Rican style from Nitza.  OK, so 26 pounds of turkey is a little excessive, but eating leftovers throughout the weekend is my second favorite part about Thanksgiving.

  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

 

Hot spiked apple cider

Pear, arugula and pancetta salad with honey vinaigrette

Spiced butternut squash soup

Cheddar puffs with green onions 

Turkey (thanks Donna and Nitza!)

Slow cooker stuffing

Mashed potatoes and gravy

Twice-baked potatoes with feta cheese and chives

Donna's sweet potato casserole

Shredded brussel sprouts with bacon

Corn

Green beans with mushrooms and madeira sauce

Ginger-honey pumpkin pie with whipped cream

Chocolate brownie torte with white chocolate mousse and carmelized bananas

 

I haven't fixed the camera yet, so no photos from Labor Day weekend.  Just doesn't seem right...

 

For the long weekend, we decided to stay in Seattle on Saturday as the weather in the mountains looked poor.  I thought about going to Bumbershoot, but I went by the Seattle Center after running some errands and the lines were way too long.  Jeff watched football most of the day, so we didn't really go anywhere that day. 

 

Sunday and Monday we made a last-minute decision to go to Leavenworth, WA for some wine tasting and hiking.  Another home away from home.  I still think that one day we'll have a place out there.  As touristy and kitschy that the main downtown of the fake Bavarian town is and as hot as it gets in the summer, I absolutely love the scenery in the area.  Plus a lot of the people that live there or visit there appreciate the outdoors.  It's a bit like the Moab of Washington.  Good beer and wine, too, although they could use a few more decent restaurants.   I always feel more relaxed in Leavenworth for some reason.  Maybe at some point The Cheesemonger shop will need a new owner.  I think it would be so much fun to have a specialty shop and sample wine, beer, cheeses, meats, and other foods to place in the store and talk to people about the products.  But I digress...  as far as the weekend activities, we tasted wine from 3 different local wineries: Napeequa, Eagle Creek, and Icicle Ridge.  All of them had wines that we enjoyed and we came home with a few nice bottles.  Eagle Creek Winery also has a very cute cottage that you can stay in that is above the tasting room and cellar.  One of the perks, besides the lovely and spacious accomodations, hot tub, full kitchen, fireplace, and vineyard location, is that the guests get to choose one of the wines from the owner's private cellar to drink.  I'm sure we'll end up staying there sometime in the next year.  The Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon that we picked up from Icicle Ridge Winery would be soooo good with Ossobuco.  I'm hoping Jeff will make it sometime for me in the near future.  An after birthday weekend dinner, perhaps?  Of course, Ossobuco would be fabulous with a Barolo, as well, but I won't keep my hopes up on that one. 

 

My stomach had been bothering me for days and I was feeling somewhat dehydrated, so we didn't do too exhausting of a hike.  We initially were going to hike to Lake Caroline (11 miles round trip), but since I was not feeling 100%, we did a shorter hike to Eightmile Lake and wandered around the lake (~7 miles round trip).  Neither one of us, suprisingly, had been to this lake before.  It was quite a pleasant hike and not very far or difficult.  Most of the hikes in this area are either long, multi-day trips or strenuous or both.  Most of the crowds were on the way out when we hiked in, so we had the lovely lake to ourselves.  We found a nice, peaceful area of flat rock that was sort of like a solid beach that sloped into the lake.  We basked in the sunshine, gazed up at the mountains surrounding the lake, watched a bunch of crazy fast birds skimming the water, and stared at the fluffy clouds in the deep blue sky for awhile.  Eventually we hesitantly made our way back to the car, knowing we both have to go to work tomorrow.

I love Mt. Rainier!  Mt. Rainier National Park has always been a bit of a second home for me and the place of great memories.  Jeff and I met there back in 1994 and got engaged there in 2004.  We backpacked around Mt. Rainier - which I will refer to as "the mountain" for the remainder of this entry - (~93 miles) in 1997.  I still can't believe it was that long ago.  Jeff has climbed the mountain more than once and I finally climbed it last summer.  We estimate that we've hiked about 65% of the trails in the national park.  One that I have never hiked before that I've wanted to do ever since we lived there is the 35-mile Northern Loop.  Finally, the time has come!  I wasn't particularly confident in my physical condition, since it has been a bit of a lazy summer compared to other summers.  I have friends that have hiked the entire thing in a day, but that was not at all appealing to me.  We decided to have a somewhat relaxing multi-day backpack and took our time.

 

We leave Seattle after lunch arriving in the late afternoon at the White River ranger station to attempt to reserve backcountry campsites.  They set aside about 30% of the backcountry sites for first-come first-serve.  We don't get our exact wishlist of campsites, but we are at least able to get sites (turned out in the end that these sites worked better for us anyway).  The forecast called for rain Wednesday and Thursday.  It isn't raining when we arrive at the park, but by the time we drive up to Sunrise, the rain starts to come down.  We are only getting a head start on the trail and going a few miles the first night anyway, so we decide to wait a little bit to see if the rain passes.  We stop at the Sunrise snack bar for some chili and popcorn and I purchase a hat and Jeff got a chocolate bar for the hike...  we went to the Visitor's Center... after an hour or so, the rain lets up a little and we make our move.  With light showers and some sun breaks, we luck out with some beautiful rainbows.  In the valley near Berkeley Park, we see a posse of marmots - probably at least a dozen along the way and an amazing show of colors with wildflowers everywhere.  Unfortunately, when we are at the peak of the wildflowers, the rain starts to come down hard, so the camera doesn't come out.  We get to the Berkeley Park campground and set up camp in the early evening.  The campsite is close to a nice stream surrounded by wildflowers.  The rain stops and we wander around camp and make some dinner.  Shortly after, the rain starts again and the mosquitoes came out full force.  Time for bed.

 

We awake to more rain.  Partially due to laziness (I blame Jeff) and partially strategy to wait out the rain, we don't leave camp until 12:30pm.  Next stop is James Lake camp (about 9 miles).  It is quite cold and drizzly for awhile and then we get a few sun breaks.  Just long enough to get a few views of the mountain.  We pass through Grand Park, which is a stunning stretch of green meadow.  The views would be fantastic here with good weather.  At the high point, we are graced with the presence of the mountain and look far below to White River.  We're headed for a long downhill through a lot of downed trees.  I pretty much hate log bridge crossings intensely, especially in the rain.  Luckily, the log bridge over White River is reasonably stable and I make it across without any issue.  After a short break, we come to lovely Van Horn Falls and chat with a few fellow backpackers.  By this point, we have heard on numerous occassions that James Lake Park is bug central.  Great...  Up we go to James Lake camp.  We are lucky enough to get the group site reserved here, which is the highest and largest camp.  Not too wet and the mosquitoes aren't too bad.  Yet.  Overall, a really nice campsite.  We take the stroll over to serene James Lake and make a water run at the stream.  We notice how wet some of the other individual campsites are and are glad that we have the high camp.  Mmmm.... spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner.  The backcountry ranger comes by to check our permit and lets us know that Friday and Saturday are supposed to be nice and then Sunday there will be rain again.  He also lets us know that bears are active this year and to be bear-aware, particularly at Mystic Lake (our next camp) where there is a resident bear.

  

Friday:

Earlier start than the previous day, but still not exactly at the crack of dawn, as usual.  Now the mosquitoes are biting like crazy.  They always seem to like me more than Jeff and I always have them swarming around me.  We boogie out of there and hit the trail.  We have a little over 8 miles to go today, but have some big ups and downs along the trail.  The hike up to Windy Gap is beautiful.  We probably should have spent some more time exploring this area, because we likely won't be back here unless we do the Northern Loop again.  Fantastic scenery with huge cliffs and alpine lakes and meadows.  A cute baby marmot off to the side the trail, too.  Along the 3000' of downhill switchbacks, we pass Yellowstone Cliffs.  Not really yellow so much as orange and brown and yellow, but nonetheless, quite impressive cliffs jetting out of fields of wildflowers.  We stop for a snack here and enjoy the views.  Continuing downward, we eventually connect up to the Wonderland Trail near Carbon River.  We were on this trail back in 1997, but going the other direction.  The scenery changes to big mossy trees and lots of gigantic green plants.  The carbon glacier is as dirty as ever, but still cool to see.  Heading back upwards in elevation, we shortly get to our next camp at Dick Creek.  There are only 2 spots here and we met the other party that would be our neighbors earlier on the trail, so we had first pick.  Both are nice, but one is perched on the top of the cliff with a spectacular view.  We take that one...  Just as we are about to go fetch some water, the ranger comes by to check our permit.  We find out later that he booted someone out of the camp that didn't have a permit earlier that day.  It's a 2 meal dinner night and we still have hours of daylight left.  We start to wonder why we didn't bring any cards.  The bugs are nasty, so we hang out in the tent and open the vestibule to watch the sunset over our lovely view.  We see a mouse scurry just in front of the tent and quickly close the door.  We are not fans of mice - particularly Jeff.  If that mouse would have made it into the tent, I guarantee you Jeff would have been screaming like a little girl.  Just to mess with him, I say, "what would you do if we woke up to a drowned rat in our water bucket?"  Shiver...

 

This is the short day.  Only under 4 miles to Mystic Lake camp.  We were a little bummed that we couldn't get a campsite at Granite Creek, which would get us another 5.5 miles further on the trail, but in the end, we were happy about the arrangements.  It's only 3.8 miles, but it is hot out and the trail is virtually all uphill with a really steep bit at the end before going down 400 feet or so.  We are pretty tuckered by the time we set up camp.  Initially, we thought we would day hike, but instead we wander around the lake and near camp and rest.  We have a nice camp with a large area where we can lounge around and look up at the tall trees.  Jeff is fascinated with a spider web that he can see from the ground that is way up at the top of the trees.  I guess it is cool, but I lose interest quickly.  Here is also where my camera decides that it doesn't want me to take anymore pictures.  (Argh!) The battery is fine and it lets me review the photos but does not allow me to take any photos.  Just in time for arguably the most scenic part of the trip.  No photos for the last 11 miles of the trail...  I try to call my mom for her birthday, but no signal.  I at least put in a text message so it will send when we get a signal.  Now that I have turned on my phone, we might as well play games on the phone.  Ah, technology in the forest.  That keeps us occupied for about 30 minutes.  In the middle of the night, we hear something lapping at our water bucket.  Uh-oh...  hope it isn't the resident bear!  A little freaked out, Jeff pokes out of the tent and is pleased to not see a big bear butt at the side of the tent.  I can hear whatever it is still lapping water and scratching at something.  It isn't an animal drinking the water, it is a mouse in our water bucket!

 

We get up at what is an early hour for us and find that most people have already packed up and hit the trail.  For some reason, it is common for us to be the last out of camp and the first to our destination.  This trip was no different despite not being in the best of shape.  We have about 11 miles back to Sunrise today.  Amazing views of the Winthrop Glacier and a crossing over the river and the moraine from the glacier.  The trail between Granite Creek and Berkeley Park was breathtaking.  Above treeline and expansive views of the mountain and surrounding peaks and valleys.  The dark clouds start to come in, but the air is clear and you can see all the way to Glacier Peak in the distance.  As we come back down to Berkeley Park, we stop for a little food break and see a bear on the hillside about a quarter-mile away.  We watch the bear run around for awhile and then the raindrops start to lightly come down on us.  Only a few more miles, so off we go.  About a mile away from Sunrise we see another bear in a valley below.  This one was bright brown (well, a brown-colored black bear).  There was apparently a black one in the same area a few moments before we got there.  Back to the car before 2pm and ready to change into some new clean clothes and wash off some grime.  Just missed the rainstorm.  It really starts to come down as we drive away.  Jeff was talking about Mexican food for about the last 15 miles of the trail, so we make a beeline to Enumclaw for some carne asada and chile colorado and Mexican beer.  Yum!   

 

People could easily complete this trail in fewer days, but we really enjoyed taking a leisurely 4.5 days and had time to take in the surroundings and not be in pain.  The Northern Loop trail was end-to-end a fantastic trail.  Would highly recommend it!

Jeff passed the NCLEX!  Hooray!  He'll start working after Labor Day at Swedish.  I'll be starting a new job at Microsoft at the end of August, too.  Leaving MSN and the advertising world after over 7 years and going to the Entertainment and Devices division (Xbox, Zune, Surface).  I'll miss the people that I work with now a lot, but hope to still keep in touch with all my MSN friends.   I am really looking forward to a change and learning a new business.  Back to Redmond I go.  Lots of exciting career changes happening. 

 

In the meantime, we will get some outdoor play in.  Jeff and Will are climbing this weekend, we'll go on a 4-day backpack next weekend (probably at Mt. Rainier) and likely a 3-day backpack Labor Day weekend.

Once again, a late start...  The intent was to scramble up Labyrinth Mountain, but instead had a pleasant hike to Minotaur and Theseus Lakes.    It was relatively cloudy out and some bad weather looked like it could come in.  The trail was quite steep for a good portion, but only a couple miles to Minotaur Lake.  Theseus Lake is just around the corner and far below.  The clouds broke enough for a few mountain views here and there.  I was amazed that we've never been here before.  A really nice and short hike to beautiful lakes.  Even on a weekend, there were not that many people around, which was suprising since so many trails are still under snow.  Nothing too crazy, but it was really nice to get outside.

Turns out that I passed the Wine and Spirits Education intermediate certificate exam with distinction.  I'm sure I wouldn't if I were to take it again right now, but nice to know I can still retain non-work related information long enough to be tested on it.  Was starting to think my brain was too full. 

 

Returned last night from a few days in Las Vegas for a work event.  Las Vegas in July is just painfully hot.  I didn't go outside very much anyway, but still...  haven't been in that kind of heat for awhile.  Jeff went with me and mostly studied in the room, since the NCLEX is coming up soon.  So while I was there for work, I ended up partying more than he did.  I didn't feel like carrying the camera around with me, so no pictures.  I probably don't want many of the pictures from this trip posted online anyway.  I'm sure a few people have some good blackmail material now.