She who hikes and climbs

On Saturday L and I took the kids to Barlow Point off of the Mountain Loop highway after church for a short hike. We decided that we would attend the whole service at church since we read that Barlow Point was only 2.4 miles round trip with 800 feet elevation gain. After church we came back to my house, ate, packed our backpacks with snacks and water, loaded into the car and headed out praying that the rain would hold off. L drove and I feel asleep on the way so the drive there was really short. When we arrived we parked on the road because we thought the parking lot would be full due to a very popular hike called Monte Cristo which is across from the parking lot, there were cars already parked on the road, plus it was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.  There are 2 pit toilets and there is no water source in the parking lot or anywhere on the hike, so bring lots of water if you require more then one bottle of water. We stopped at the kiosk to read the information and hist...

 On Sunday L and I went hiking up in Bellingham in Whatcom County. I had originally thought that the kids were coming with us, but my husband ended up staying home, so the kids stayed with him.  Now I was running late that morning (seems to be my norm), and after gathering everything up I left. I was driving up to Mount Vernon to pick L up and was almost there when my car's check engine light came on and the temperature gauge was maxed out. I pulled over and let it cool of then made it to the next exit with a gas station for water or coolant. This put me further behind by quit a bit. After putting fluid in my car and some tears of frustration I was back on the road and made it to L's house, where I loaded everything into her car and we headed off.  When we finally arrived we found that there were lots of cars, but finding a parking spot was easy since it is a larger parking area. Looking around I noticed a couple of benches/picnic tables, a wonderful view and a pit toi...