Kla Ha Ya Days 7-19-14

Today's adventure was a local embracing of my new home.  Snohomish's Kla Ha Ya Days (Kla Ha Ya meaning 'welcome') was this week and I just scratched the surface of this fun celebration.
I got downtown a couple hours before the parade and enjoyed wandering around the eerily empty streets playing with my camera.  I had a delicious raspberry white mocha from Rock City Café.  I was told they have the best coffee in the state and I certainly believed it after having mine! 

By the time the parade started, the streets had been thickly lined with a multitude of people.  Little kids eager for candy, local shop owners washing their windows, people with dogs, tall people, short people, old people, people with pink hair... but mostly happy people (the little boy in the monkey backpack near me alternated between candy ecstasy and screaming overload).  I LOVED the beautiful horses, but if I was handing out awards, the grand prize would have gone to the Sauerkraut band/group.  These people were having such a great time out there, you just couldn't watch them without grinning.


This Viking was advertising a pumpkin toss/medieval faire and would stop and blow his horn and then shout "BECAUSE I CAN!!"



"Boba Fett!?"



These horses were made of poetry.



Hello handsome!



This dog was super happy to be in the parade!



The Sauerkrauts.  Great band, great costumes, and great smiles!



Haha.. vote for Pedro.

This was just the parade.  There was also a River Run before the parade, I think people could run 1 or 5 miles.  I enjoyed vendor/craft booths filling a couple streets, a chainsaw artist, and a man balancing a unicycle on his face.  This is just what I saw.  There was so much more to do, including a bed race, salmon BBQ, Frogtastic Kids Fair, etc. 
On my way back to the car, I stopped in to the Cabbage Patch restaurant for a bite.  I have never had anything there that was not superb, including the service, and enjoyed a fresh scone while I waited for my smoked salmon scramble.
Snohomish is just a fun, friendly and picturesque town, and full of great antique stores as well.

Old Robe CanyonTrail 7-16-14

With beautiful summer weather and the light lingering late, I decided on a short after-work hike today.  Cedar and I headed up the Mountain Loop Highway to the Old Robe Trail.  I have hiked this only once before and it was in deep snow with it falling thick and fast the whole time.  This was the 1st time I would actually see the trail I was walking on. 
After a short jaunt through some small conifers and 5 easy switchbacks, we came out on the Robe Canyon floor.  Huge mossy maples stretched their limbs out over the trail and other deciduous trees towered above, shading the trail.  I was expecting it to be oven-like at the bottom, but it was actually quite nice.  There were some ponds and marshy areas though and I was not expecting bugs, so I did get gnawed on a bit. 

Soon we were at the banks of one of my very favorite rivers, the Stilliguamish.  It was gorgeous, babbling and shining in the sun.

 

A bit further, and going over dry creek beds, I saw the 1st sign of old ruins.  I'm not sure what this was.. maybe the remnants of a bridge or part of a building?

 

 Further yet, and I could see where the railroad had gone. First there was just the kind of cement and stones that I saw a lot of, and then further on and I could still see some of the wooden railroad ties with spikes in them.  It's amazing they built a railroad in this canyon at all and also amazing that any of it is left at all!

The canyon deepened and narrowed with the Stilly sometimes churning and thundering over rocks and sometimes hushing into turquoise pools.  I imagined the fish that might be in there.

Here was a little sluice that went under the railway to channel the water coming down the bank into the river.

 

 Suddenly looming ahead (a ways after the "go back, this is the end of the trail" sign) we saw the 1st tunnel!  I ran into very few people on the trail, but the last group had told me that the going was safe and easy even for Adventure Dog all the way to the 2nd tunnel.

The first tunnel was long and had a bend in it, so I actually put on my headlamp.  The second tunnel was short, but I didn't go in.  I just snapped a picture and that was our turnaround point.

On the way out I spied a water ouzel doing what water ouzels do best.  They are so fearless!  This one bobbed in and around all the frothing whitewater.  He landed on one rock where a gush of water washed him off, but nonplussed he just landed on a different rock.  This was a great hike!  I'll do it again for sure.

Northwest Trek 7-6-14

Pets aren't allowed at Northwest Trek, so Dave and I had to leave Adventure Dog home for this adventure.  It was a beautiful hot sunshiny day and neither of us had ever been to Northwest Trek.  Despite the heat of the day, the parking lots and walkways are well-designed under existing forest, so we didn't overheat and we didn't come back to a furnace either.  We just completely enjoyed the experience!
With your admission to Northwest Trek, you get a "tram" ride included.  This is a 3 sectioned bus that takes you on a guided tour of the large hooved mammal section of the park.  Our guide, Mike, was super informative and I learned a lot about antlers and horns, behaviors of the hooved mammals there and history of the area.  We saw bison, elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, deer and caribou.  This was a GREAT time of year to go, as most of these animals had babies at their sides (awwwww).  The hooved mammal we did not see was a moose.  Apparently the park has 3 of them, but they must have been forwarned how much I would love to see a moose and brought my camera, so they were all hiding.  Along the nearly hour long ride, we also saw Canada geese, a beaver and I glimpsed a weasel run across the road but missed the pair of trumpeter swans.  Here are some of the pictures of the deer, goats and sheep we saw.

Besides the tram ride animals, we spent a couple lovely hours meandering around viewing the various other northwest denizons' enclosures.  It did seem to get busier in the later afternoon, but this park was far far less crowded than the zoos usually are and I felt we were able to view the animals better as well. 
The other animals included black bear, brown bear, cougar (which we didn't see), lynx, coyotes, raccoons, fishers, beavers, otters, a wolverine, birds of prey, and wolves among others.  (sorry a couple of these are blurry)

 

 

 

 

This last picture is of a fisher who is being lured toward her 'holding area' with meat.  She was being lured there by the keepers who were then going to have to go in and retrieve someone's water bottle that was thrown or dropped in.  I was really impressed with all the staff I interacted with.   Even though there were several of them trying to solve the water bottle issue, they still took the time to explain the situation, answer people's questions and didn't mind that I was bobbing around in the way trying to get pictures and video.  There was another staff members feeding the beavers and she also answered my question about what they were being fed in a very friendly and thorough way. 

I was super excited to see a wolverine up close and completely charmed by this formidable animal.

I highly recommend Northwest Trek and will definitely go again!