The countdown has begun!

Greetings!

As a "test" blog posting, I am sending this out to those of you who have expressed interest in tracking our upcoming adventure.

We've been hiking nearly every weekend for the past several months.  Peter's been the one in charge of selecting our hikes and has done a stellar job.  The views as well as the progressive levels of difficulty have been spot-on.  I thought I'd share a few photos of recent ones to Mt Rainer National Park and the Olympic National Park.  
 

That's me leisurely strolling along the trail.  Mt Rainier rises in the distance.  (Meanwhile, our older son, Eben, and friends, Ryan and Ted, were hard at work cycling around the mountain on RAMROD -- Ride Around Mt Rainer in One Day.)







The photo (at right) is from our trek from Deer Park to Obstruction Peak in Olympic National Park.  We hiked past Maiden Mountain (in the foreground) to Elk Mountain (in the background) and then back again for a total of 14.6 miles.  (That's the average mileage for the 14-day, 192 mile C2C hike.  8.5 miles is the shortest day; 19 miles is the longest!)

Well, then!  Looking ahead, we leave Sep 11 and arrive in London on Sep 12.  Our C2C adventure officially begins on Sep 17 with the ritual of dipping one's toes in the Irish Sea at St. Bees.  If there is wi-fi access, I intend to send out an end-of-the-day posting with a brief description of the day's adventures and two pics of the day's "high points" -- literally and figuratively!  I'll leave it to you to determine which is which!