My Little Golden Book of Phobias

We waited in the zoo line in the rain and we chatted up our neighbors, as only rained-on people do. We made jokes, we offered each other corners of umbrellas and tarps. It was altogether very chummy. KD Lang still has her chops. I swear the woman has a four octave range. At least. And she busted out Leonard Cohen's Halleluja. Gawd, it was gorgeous. I once heard her sing Orbison's Cryin' and I fell to my knees right in the doorway of the theatre. Kathleen Battle makes me keel over too. And if I could bring Maria Callas back from the grave, I'd be having a case of the vapors for her too.


Anyway.

We sat on the grassy grass with our snacks and made friends with our neighbors once again. The group in front of us had margaritas and they gave us one. I think alcohol is not allowed but we didn't care. A grand evening.

Today, I let Holly choose the hike we were going to do. So she directed us to Heather Lake (we looked it up) and it said no snow, a lovely alpine lake, secluded, etc. I neglected to check the distance. Oops. So we ended up going over the pass on Highway 2, almost to Leavenworth, which, if you're not from here, is to hell and gone. Really. By the time I figured out how far it was, we were halfway there so well, we did it. And finding the trailhead was a challenge but we persevered, north end of Lake Wenatchee, hahahahahahahahaha forest service road washboard dirt road for about fifty miles and so on. You ge the picture. It was fucking beautiful, driving along the wild river, huge rapids, waterfalls, peaks still covered with snow. Washington IS beautiful. At the trail head was a nice sign with pictures of grizzly and black bears. (Gulp) Not a single car except us.

And we headed out. Crossed many swollen streams, hit the middle of the trail where we lost our way several times and it was straight up, not kidding, and then, aha it leveled out---we must be almost to the pretty lake, just a few snowfields in the way, a few large snowfields in the way where the hell is the trail, all this fucking snow. And there the story ends. Felix thought the snow was fantastic as he lept around eating snow and sliding. But. We couldn't go any farther because we couldn't figure out where the trail was and rotten snow collapses into huge holes.

So.

We sat on a log, ate our lunch and watched for bears. We saw not a bear but we did see deer, including a sweet buck with a small rack and a coyote. Plenty of trillium still in bloom.

It was splendid even without the lake. We pinky swore we'd go back and find the lake one day. And then the ride home down that incredible elevation through the glorious Cascade mountain range.

A nearly perfect day. And some chocolate for dinner.

Damn, my feet are sore right now. And all the animals are around me because of the fireworks.