Finding the time to post

Boy, I'll tell ya, it's been hard trying to find the time to get this post finished. I started to post this yesterday after our wonderful showshoe trip into the Mt. Baker area, but since we didn't get home until after 4:00 pm, I was famished and then got lost in the news coming out of Egypt. Now it's after 1:00 pm the following day, and I just now got a chance to settle down and write a bit.

Seven of us Senior Trailblazers answered Al's call about possibly going up to the High Country on Tuesday, with the weather forecasted to be clear and cold and, as you can see, we were happily snowshoeing on some rather pre-recreated snow. I think it snowed up there on Friday and the weekend warriors came out in droves. The snow was much more of the Cascade Cement variety than we had last time, but the sunshine was very much appreciated, and we enjoyed every second of the day. We headed up to Huntoon Point for lunch. We found that someone had carved a nice snow seat so we could all sit around and chat. Our old friends the gray jays showed up for lunch, too.

I especially love this picture of Mike feeding a jay some of his dried cranberries. If you enlarge the picture, you can see that the jay looks like he's laughing, or maybe talking to Mike about his choice of bird food. We actually sat around and had lunch for more than a few freezing minutes for a change before we headed back down the trail. I asked Mike to take a picture of me feeding the jays, so he did.

Mr. Gray Jay was less than impressed with my pumpkin seeds. I had counted out my almonds and only had 24 for the whole day, so I wasn't inclined to share them with him, but I was surprised to find that he wasn't really very interested in the pumpkin seeds. You can see he's inspecting my wares and didn't come back for seconds. They are wonderful cheeky birds, though, and I truly enjoyed having them around. By the time we reached the cars, we had covered a little more than four miles and 1,300 feet of elevation. It sure seems like a lot more on snowshoes, I have to say. I was really tired by the time I got home.

Earlier in the week I placed an order for a case of Boulder Hot Sauce, because I was sent a bottle of the pricey but very tasty sauce by a good friend. I gave the owner my credit card number over the phone, and he sent me a nice little receipt for $59.53. This morning I got a call from him, with an apology for an accounting error. Someone entered the receipt as being for $5,953.00 of hot sauce! And guess what, my bank took it without question. It showed up on my bill this morning, and when I talked with the bank clerk, I asked her if maybe it didn't look a little suspicious that I had decided to buy so much of the stuff. Nope. It went through without a raised eyebrow, which makes me a tiny bit nervous. I'm going to keep a much closer eye on my account from now on. I have been issued a refund, but it hasn't shown up yet. I'll breathe a big sigh of relief when it does.

I just love this picture of one of the jays I took yesterday. He is looking quite coy, or maybe just posing for the camera. They do get a lot of visitors up there.

:-)