Here I am squeaking in with one journal entry for August. By rights it should be a monthly check-in on my resolutions for the year, but as I’m sure surprises no one reading this, I haven’t been paying them any attention. Instead I’ve been enjoying my mountain (so many huckleberries to pick and trails to hike to get to them) when I haven’t been traveling. Today I have some images from a short trip Mr. K and I took at the beginning of this month; I’ve just gotten around to looking at them today, what with having done another longer trip in the interim, which I should be ready to post about next month sometime (at least here; I’m going to try and get a post about part of that trip up on my nail blog yet this month, as the first weekend was very nail polish intensive).

Since we moved Mr. K’s mom Joan out to Bellingham we’ve made many trips there. At first we were helping her get settled, bringing furniture and boxes over to her apartment from the storage unit (which is still mostly full and probably will be for the rest of her life, but it’s easier on everyone if we let that be). Since then our trips have been partly visiting, partly Mr. K helping her take care of her money matters. Usually we don’t venture off the path between my sister-in-law Kathy’s house and the retirement community, but this last trip we did, going on an outing to their mountains with Kathy, her husband, and one of her sons.

Our destination was Artist Point in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, a spot which has gorgeous views and several hiking trails. Mr. K and I hadn’t been there before, though we had skied nearby (and been to the restaurant called Artist Point at the American Northwest themed Wilderness Lodge at Walt Disney World).

You can see some vehicles parked on the shoulder of the road in the photo above … that shows the drawback of going on a weekend day when the weather was nice: so many people there that the large parking lot was overflowing. We felt fortunate to find a space only a few minutes walk down the road from the main trailhead.

Despite all the people, we enjoyed our time at the point. Once away from the parking lot and on the trail, the density of the crowd was much less oppressive. The views were expansive and that helped at lot … there were many places to look where there were no people at all in vast stretches of land.

It’s certainly a beautiful spot, at least when the weather is clear. I hope to get back there on a less crowded day sometime and explore more.

(Photo set from this outing is here.)