a real hike! (or, how to spend your first day of summer in seattle)

This past Saturday, Bob and I went on a "real" hike to test out my CamelBak. We went for 6 miles on the Coal Creek Park Trail, which is in Bellevue, and really quite close to home for how isolated the area felt at times. ...At other times, you could hear cars from the trail...but you couldn't see any houses at least.

There were lots of giant ferns...

Raspberries were ripening along the trail...

Here is where the coal mine was (aka "giant hole in the earth")

And we saw quite the assortment of snails & slugs...


And there were two "waterfalls" which were not as impressive as we were hoping...but they did have falling water, so I guess that makes them waterfalls.
There was also evidence of flood damage along the trail -- one little footbridge was washed down ~2o feet from where it was supposed to be, and one bridge had a sign that it was unsafe (they were in contact with FEMA...in January. Its nearing the end of June, and there was no evidence of work...clearly FEMA has better things to do than to fix this bridge (and no, I'm not being sarcastic). We were able to cross at both points relatively easily without the aid of the bridges)

Hopefully we'll get out more into the mountains for hiking soon...

Also...if you're reading this - leave us a note or some feedback or something! We'd like to know who is checking in on us... :)