Some Glimpses

This has been a big year. A big summer. Goats. Boats. Trails. And amazing views.

Plus, it's been a big year for me performance-wise. I'm on my third show for the year, so it's been really amazing.

I think I'll just go ahead and tell you folks a little story. I'm pretty sure I have no readers left, so I could be as offensive as I like, right? Well, maybe not in this post, but I'll be sure to be offensive at some point in the future.

This story is about our 4th of July. We didn't really have any plans, so we decided to head to Hurricane Ridge for a day hike, and because, well, it's stunning. It's about a two hour drive from our house to the Ridge, and the ride is nothing less than amazing. We threw some sodas in the cooler, got in the car, took the ferry over to the pennisula, and got up the mountain to the ridge.

It was a gorgeous, clear day, quite warm, but not too hot. It's seriously the kind of location that you really do want to just run out into the fields and start singing music from the Sound of Music a the top of your lungs. It's that unbelievably beautiful.

We decided to do the loop trail and as we were setting out, we read some of the warnings. Things like don't step off the trail, don't feed the animals, don't pick the plants, and beware of the mountain goats. Basically it says that the mountain goats can be very agressive, so if you see one do the following:
1) yell
2) throw things, such as rocks or sticks at it
3) move away as quickly as possible, and ALWAYS stay more than 100 feet away.

Cuz, you know, the goats will impale you and stuff. No really, they will.

So, we set out, it's just stunning, the views are beyond amazing. We decide to do this one spur off the trail which went up to this overlook area. We get up to the top and there is this family sort of huddling around, and a guy looking over the edge of what is essentially a little cliff. We go up there, and the guy turns to us and whispers: "There is a family of mountain goats down there!"

We both lean over the edge, looking for the goats, looking down to the valley below. We turn around and whisper that we didn't see any goats. The guy points down over the cliff and says "They're RIGHT THERE!!!"

So, the hubs looks over again and jumps back, grabs me, and pulls me over and points to a large mountain goat about 5 feet away from us. We had literally looked OVER the goats, not thinking that they would be right below us, we were looking down in the valley, way down at the floor. I of course, tell the hubs to get a picture, and he turns around and shows me the shot he snapped. Which is the one of the goat angrily staring us down.

At that point, we decided to leave the goats alone, it was a male, a female and a baby goat, we thought that perhaps not angering the family with the baby would perhaps be for the best.

We continued on the hike, which was magnificent, but at one point as we were at the point where we were going to turn around, this large group of people walked by, with a boom-box of some sort blaring. Of course, the hubs and were really annoyed, going on and on about how it was destroying the pristine gloriousness!

Five minutes later, we REALLY wished that we had been walking with that group. We had happily started on our way back, and look ahead on the trail and see the family of mountain goats walking towards us. On the trail. What. The. FUCK.

The hubs and I sort of run behind a tree. I start grabbing rocks and shit to throw, and we're peeking out from behind this tree like a couple of idiots. We are frantically trying to figure out what to do, we aren't supposed to approach them, we are supposed to make lots of noise (like the damned people with the boom-box), or better yet, we should go ahead and throw things. At the goats. At the baby goat.

It was at that moment that I realized what assholes we would look like, throwing rocks at a baby goat. PETA would have a fit.

So we decide to opt for the noise option. We start talking really loudly, and banging the rocks in our hands together. The goats, who are all the time moseying along the trail towards us sort of stop at one point. They eye us for a bit, and then stroll under a big pine tree. They laid down and pretty much just watched us as we walked past them, yelling and banging rocks together.

If goats could speak they would have said "What a couple of morons."

Once we got past, we cracked up, and continued on our hike.

When we got home, it was hot as hell in the house so we decided to go out to dinner. We walked to a local bistro from our house, ate outside, and talked about whether or not we wanted to battle the crowds to the fireworks display on Lake Union. We had wonderful cocktails, we had an amazing meal, all the while sitting across from Green Lake park. It dawns on us that we could perhaps see the fireworks right from the park, so we decided that was what we would do.

We walked across the street to the park, sat down on the grass and waited for the sun to go down. Once it did, we had the best fireworks show, it was beautiful, not crowded AT ALL, and best of all, when it was done, we simply walked home from the park.

It was a great way to celebrate the 4th. :-)