Canoe Canoe?

I have lots of catching up to do...The last weekend in July we went canoeing. We borrowed a canoe and headed over the North Cascades Highway. Our first stop was in Twisp for "Burger Night". Yummy! The boys checked out the tourist pamphlets.

Here is the view from my seat in the van. Awesome!

Next week we are going to Colorado, so get used to the mountain views!

This highway is closed during the winter months because of the high volume of snow that it gets.

Our second stop was at this overlook. We hiked out to this awesome view!

Our goal was to make it to Ross Lake for the night. Well, we found it, but the road takes you 1000 feet above the lake. oops...We weren't exactly prepared to pack our canoe, two boys, and all of our bags on a 3 mile hike to get to a campsite. We continued on a few miles down the road and found a campground.

The next morning we set out on Diablo Lake. It is separated from Ross Lake by a dam, but is much lower. (We could drive up to the water and unload the canoe.) This is my view from my seat in the canoe.

So, Day 1 of our canoe trip...Diablo Lake. There were some more adventurous canoers who paddled several miles to the dam, portaged around the dam, and then canoed out onto Ross Lake. We just settled for several miles on Diablo Lake.

Most of the time we were in quiet waters just like this! People we saw were surprised that we had our little guys out there with us. One man said that he was too chicken to bring his kids. hmmm....

I assure you that we were very safe!!

This is a picture of the road winding down to where we launched.

There were a couple of great campsites that could only be reached by boat. This is one where we stopped to have lunch.

Thank goodness for built-in travel pillows. Tristan was able to fall asleep sitting up!

After making it off the lake, we continued on the highway and ended up at the Milltown convention grounds. We got to see Carolyn and the other workers. We stayed the night there after a quick game of volleyball!

Saturday morning we headed out on Day 2 of our trip. We paddled out into the ocean off of the Anacortes shore. There were a couple of islands near the mainland that we ventured around.

We explored a little on one of the islands so we could check out this lighthouse.

Tristan stretched his legs and threw a few rocks.

It was a beautiful trip!

Once again Tristan falls asleep sitting up in the canoe. I realized that I didn't have any pictures of Wade. I had made a little bed for him on the floor in front of me. He was content most of the time, as the waves lulled him to sleep.

After coming in from Anacortes, we went down to Tenino for Ben and Bethany's wedding. I went to college with Ben in MN and Bethany has become our friend since we moved here to WA. It was a beautiful wedding!

We got a picture of some of us who were all friends at the University of Minnesota. Of course, the groom is missing from this picture. Ryan, Mark, Johnny, Me

Carolyn met up with us at the wedding and stayed the night with us. After meeting on Sunday we canoed one more body of water...the Black River. My camera was MIA at departure time, so I didn't get any pictures. :( It was a really pretty river with lots of lily pads.

So, our three day canoe trip resulted in three different bodies of water...a lake, an ocean, and a river. We had a lot of fun, were very safe, and would recommend this relatively cheap vacation to everyone!!! :)