July 4 for us was pretty much of a bust. We weren’t planning on going anywhere anyway…but the broken foot combined with the cool and overcast weather meant that we ended up canceling our BBQ plans. We had some lamb steaks that we marinated but decided since it was too cool to sit out anyway and since grilling is more work and Connie would have had to do all of the outside grill prep and cleanup we just decided to cook inside. So, we had some sautéed lamb with mashed potatoes, corn, and baked zucchini. It all tasted pretty good and we topped it off with some Malbec wine…then had some peach pie with Maple Walnut ice cream for dessert a bit later. After that we just watched TV until bedtime.
Friday we drove over to the National Guard campground nearby to see if we could get a reservation…no joy. We also checked out the McChord Air Force Base campground…they don’t take reservations but take drive ups only. We can likely get a space in there…but won’t have any internet or satellite TV and it will essentially be a crap shoot on whether we get in or not. It’s very likely that we’ll be OK anyway…but we’re still researching other options. We found a nice campground about 25 miles away in Gig Harbor, WA and are waiting to see if they have an availability for 6 weeks until after Labor Day. After that we headed over to Snoqualmie Falls which is 30 miles or so east of here. Connie visited this some years back on a COLA survey trip but it was the end of the dry season so there was only a trickle of water. Today it’s the end of the spring snowmelt so the falls were flowing pretty good. This is a 270 foot single drop waterfall; some of the water is diverted above the falls into the world’s first completely underground hydroelectric plant…it opened back in 1893 or so and is still supplying power to the Seattle grid. We snapped a few shots of the falls themselves…we had to walk maybe 150 yards from the parking lot for these and Neil was really glad to get back to the car.
After that we headed home. After stopping by the REI to cash in a 20 bucks free coupon we picked up the other day that’s only good for Fri/Sat/Sun (we got a bunch of Gu packages; they are gel packs of energy food that we carry on hikes and Neil takes them on bike rides) and then the Apple store to get a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter then headed home.Â
Dinner was Saurbraten made out of a leftover lamb steak with some wine, vinegar, and Worchestershire sauce…it was really yummy. After that we just watched more TV…evenings are going to get a little boring what with the cast, crutches and all.
Cyas.
Travels with Gunther and Kara 
hi gang – hate to hear the foot news bro… here’s hoping you get lucky and don’t need the pins – sis went thru that years ago, seems like it took forever to heal. my broke toe took a coupla months as i remember – wrapped it tight, cut up a sneaker, and kept on goin’, no doc involved. just try not to kick nuthin’, we’ll be a prayin’… the waterfall shots are cool – i never saw one ’til up in tenn., it was only 2 or 3 stories high (ruby falls). hope there’s other stuff to see/do where you won’t havta trudge too far… been rainin’ almost a week here, glad the 4th hoopla is over, da gang almost had the fireworks cancelled on them – the show at the gulf got cancelled after 3 minutes or so – wind blew the embers back at the crowd and parking lot at the hangout, caught a coupla tents on fire… glad i missed it… yall blog when ya can, keep me and sis posted – if ya need anything, jus’ holler…
p.s. – what’s TTFN?
We hope there are no pins needed either…no surgery is always better than surgery. Snoqualmie Falls is one of the taller ones out here but there are several more 200+ foot ones down on the Columbia River…we’re planning on running down there one day this week or next.