what's the plan? we were going to spend the weekend at our new property outside of ellensburg over 4th of july weekend. we invited christie and her bf and his son and my mom. my mom hadn't ever been camping before, so she was pretty excited. i was excited too! eric, being the perfectionist that he is, made several trips out there before hand, continuing to improve the tent spot - flattening, removing rocks and tufts of grass and laying down gravel and sand. he made it big enough for two tents and then made an additional area for the picnic table that he built! i love the picnic table and when he said he wanted one for up there it never occurred to me in a million years that he would build it, but duh, of course he would!
And of course not only did he build it, but then he carried it around the whole place. it eventually found its home in the "kitchen" area, and wow, it sure was a nice addition!!
since it was 4th of july weekend, we had grand plans of watching fireworks from so high up! we stayed up way after 10pm to see them, anticipating greatness. instead we saw tiny blerps of color.. that's ok. now we know. and now i will no longer think about how awesome it must be to be flying in a plane while fire works are going off. because, its not that awesome. it was fun to stay up, all cozied in our blankets though.
our gargoyle making sure that only authorized personnel are let onto the land!
it was quite warm, so plenty of time was spent lounging in the tent relaxing. there is a nice breeze up there, so although it was hot, it wasn't unbearable, and the shade of the tent was relaxing. that white bump in the distance is mt rainier.
Another view from the campsite.
rock formation that we are trying to figure out how it came about. is it natural or man made?
we are still trying to determine the actual boundaries of the property. there are metal pins the size of thumb tacks out there that mark the location of the corners. we have found one! in the mean time, its been fun to explore and see how varied the terrain is.
just another view and stuff.
eric somehow spotted this tiny horny toad sitting on a rock! can you find him? i had never seen one before, but after this one, i saw another on our hike that afternoon.
we found this. is it deer? cow? elk? i dont know. but we are always finding some sort of remains out there. crazy and cool! we heard the wolves howling during the night, too, which is cool and scary at the same time!
by the 2nd night, sirus was going to rest his eyes just for a little bit. he crawled into the tent. i convinced him to brush his teeth and put on his jammies, just in case. and good thing too because he was PASSED OUT for the night after that. it was a fabulous weekend!
fast forward one month - eric was supposed to be at a mountain bike race this weekend, so i was thinking of taking the kids to camp on saturday night. we've been having a heat wave and eric said it would be too hot and he didn't think it would be safe for us there. he is a wise man! sure enough on saturday around 5:30 pm lightning struck not far from where we would be camping and a fire started. there have been huge fires in eastern washington this year, and this is just another one. although almost 4 days after it has started it has burned over 2000 acres, destroyed several homes and out buildings, is only 10% contained and continues on. we are lucky that we don't have a house up there yet but are worried for all of our Sun East neighbors and the rest of the region. I pulled the below photo from the Yakima Herald Republic website. its of a tanker dropping fire retardant. the small grove of trees on the left side of the photo, about 1/2 way from the top is where we camp.
as of Tuesday morning, it looks like the fire retardant has helped. and they say the western flank, where we are, is mostly contained. the fire keeps pushing north and north east.eric has a friend who is a fire fighter who not only worked countless hours on site at the Oslo Mud Slide, but now has worked more countless hours on the Carlton Complex Fires. Nature is crazy and keeping our rescue workers busy this year. hoping they and all the families are safe.
more information about the Snag Canyon Fire can be found HERE.
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