The word yesterday and today was get the heck out of the house. So we drove to Mt. Rainier, through construction around Tacoma (it has never taken two hours to get to the south of Tacoma before. Don’t want to go through that again). There were, naturally, some compensating factors, like driving through a gap and finding Riffe Lake spread before us like a far flung arm of the Mediterranean.
But finding parking at Paradise? For the birds. And finding out just how out of shape I was as I huffed and puffed my way up the hill was no picnic either. Two thoughts kept running through my head: “I’ve got to get out from behind that desk more often and exercise” and “Thank God that Jim Heaney is there to hike the Appalachian Trail for me so I can live vicariously through him.” But finding the world spread out below me and around me—ringed about by impossibly craggy peaks, a meadow at my feet for miles around filled with the most beautiful flowers…and that giant heaving glaciers into the sky until fully half my vision was blue ice and brown dirt… totally worth it.
Today we got up early and drove down to the Agua Verde Paddle Club in the U-District to meet Arvind and Kim. We kayaked down through the Cut, past the shores of the Arboretum, through the lily pads in bloom, past ducks, waterfowl, an elegant blue heron, and even a startled beaver, before returning back to the dock. A quick lunch at Mama’s (since Agua Verde’s café wasn’t open), a stroll through the Market for tomatoes, basil, a whole Alaskan salmon cut into steaks for us at $4.99 a pound, and an enormous bouquet of gladiolas and we were back home…napping. So much for adventures.