Hey Third Graders!

I went on a couple of short hikes recently. One of them was very short. I have lived here for three years and I had never been to Battle Ground Lake State Park. On Monday I decided to stop by and check it out and ended up walking around the lake. It's very beautiful out there! It was also very busy with people swimming and floating around on various inflatable things. I'm sure some of you have been out there, but I took a couple pictures.

On Tuesday I went out to Moulton Falls and walked a trail out there. It was beautiful! This is another new place for me. I lived out that way for a short time last winter, but I didn't do any hiking or anything. Now I wish I had known about all the hiking out there earlier. I will definitely do some exploring out there in the coming weeks before summer school starts, and then the regular school year. Here are a some pictures from the Moulton Falls hike. It ended up being 6 miles.

I just realized I'm not smiling in this picture! I was happy to be out there enjoying nature, so I'm not sure why I didn't smile. I forgot to say cheese! :) Do you like my new hat? Be honest! I can take it!

Other than hiking, visiting family and friends, and enjoying the sun I have also been doing a few things in the classroom. I am getting ready to paint the back wall that goes behind the library and the comfy chair area. I'm painting it a light blue. I'm also covering the pink cabinets and drawers with some stuff called contact paper. It's basically a big rolled up sticker. It's a color that will match the paint and look way better than that weird pink color.

Shelly wanted to say hello to you all, but she was too busy feeding her face! I took a couple pictures for you.

Miss you all! I hope you're enjoying your summer vacation and I can't wait to see you in the fall!

Home!

Hello third graders!

I'm home!

I left San Diego yesterday morning at 6:30 AM, drove 1,150 miles over 19 hours, and got home at 1:40 AM! 19 hours of straight driving is exhausting, so I slept in this morning. I'll probably take a nap today too! I just wanted to be home. I wanted my own bed instead of another hotel along the way. I didn't take any pictures along the way to show you. I just drove drove drove!

Now to get some rest!

More to come soon!

I hope you're all enjoying your summer! I miss you all!

San Diego Day 2

Good morning San Diego!

This is the morning view from my sister's balcony.

The San Diego Padres are playing in Cleveland today, so here is the ballpark where they play when the are home. If they would have been in town while I was here I would have gone to a game.

We went to the beach today and wandered around. It was beautiful! It reminded me of riding my bike along the beach last summer. I even saw some of the same route I rode last summer. It seems like it was just yesterday I was on that ride.

 Here's something you don't see in Washington! A cactus taller than me!

 This is a view of Fault Line Park from my sister's balcony. There is a fault line that goes right through the park. It is marked by the path that goes straight through the park. Over time as there are earthquakes the park could change shape slightly. This could take MANY MANY years though, so I'm not too worried about it while I'm here.

 Here are a couple of pictures of the firework show we saw last night. We watched from my sister's balcony, so they are kind of far away. It was a very cool show!

 Outside the baseball park is a statue of one of the best hitters ever, Tony Gwynn. He died a few years ago, so the Padres put up this statue to remind people of all of his accomplishments in baseball and for the team.

We walked out to the end of this pier. There were people fishing. It was beautiful!

 This is one of two giant chrome steel balls in Fault Line Park. They are super shiny! If you look closely you can see me taking the picture.

 These shrubs are all sculpted into different animals. It must have taken a lot of time to do this! They did excellent work.

 Sunset in San Diego

 A couple of women were making fresh tortillas by hand at a restaurant. Yummy!

I will be here one more day before heading back toward Washington. I will try to post another blog before I go or along the way.

I hope you are all having a great summer so far!!

Short hike and the town I grew up in.

Hello third graders!

I drove up to Montesano to see my parents today and decided to go for a short hike around Lake Sylvia. This is a lake that I grew up on. I used to ride my bike from our house in town up the hill to the lake. I would have an inflatable raft in my backpack along with my fishing gear. I'd paddle around the lake fishing all day before finally deflating my raft, packing it up, and riding my bike back home for dinner.

There are two trails at Lake Sylvia. One trail is 2.8 miles around the lake and the other is 2.7 miles down the river past the dam that holds the water back making the lake possible. Here is a link to a Google map showing where I am. On the map you can see the dashed lines that represent the trails that go around the lake and the river past the dam.

Lake Sylvia State Park

Below are two links to two videos I shot of the falls at Lake Sylvia and a video of a woodpecker. In one of the waterfall videos I zoom in on a hole in the rock in the middle of the falls where the water pours in. When I was a kid my friends and I would climb up there and swim in the hole. IT was a little dangerous, but very fun!

Lake Sylvia lower falls from above 1

Lake Sylvia lower falls from above part 2

Woodpecker

Below are a few pictures of the dam that holds the water back to create Lake Sylvia. Back in the 1800s the damn was used to generate electricity to run a saw mill that cut logs into boards to be used in the construction of houses in the area.

Here is some leftover evidence from the old saw mill. This saw blade is huge! What's left id half of the circular blade but there is still about 5 feet of it. Imagine a saw blade taller than you!

The picture below is a picture from under the dam. When I was a kid my friends and I would go underneath and let the water splash on us and cool us down.

The trail I hiked was the nicest I have ever seen it in all the years I have hiked on it.

I love Foxglove flowers! 

The town of Montesano, where I grew up, is the Grays Harbor county seat. This is the court house. It's a beautiful old building. All of the floors inside are marble.

 This is the little league field where I played little league for many years. Every time I visit this field I have old memories that come back.

 This is the house I grew up in. The two windows on the top floor were my bedroom windows. I loved this house. I hope to own it someday.

That's all for today third graders! I hope you're having a great summer and I miss you all very much!

Shelly's trip to the vet

Today Shelly has an appointment with the vet to get her yearly check-up and to get her nails trimmed. I have to convince her it's kind of like a spa day so she doesn't get nervous. I tell her "Shelly today is spa day! You'll get a manicure and a pedicure, you'll get a massage, you'll get to ride in the car with me, and maybe we'll stop and get you a treat on the way home. The truth is that she's going to the vet to get her nails trimmed. She hates it. She closes up inside her shell to hide and the vet has to try to get her to open up enough to hold onto one of her legs so she can trim her nails. Last time I took her this took over an hour because she was so closed up. Shelly stays mad at me for a few days afterward. Maybe if I painted her nails she would forgive me sooner!

The picture below was right before I took her to the "Spa." I don't think she even realized she had a piece of bark on her nose. HAHAHA!

Below is a picture of Shelly in the cooler I transport her in. She doesn't like the bumpy car ride.

This is the veterinary technician that worked with Shelly today. I told her I was blogging for my third graders and she was happy to pose with Shelly.

Shelly was not happy when the technician started clipping her nails. Shelly sealed up so tight inside her shell that we couldn't get her out for another hour and a half! We were there for two hours and only got three out of four legs out long enough to trim her nails. Shelly didn't have fun today. She is back home in her tank resting now. She might be mad at me for a few days after this. Or maybe not since she has a pea brain. HAHAHA! It's literally the size of a pea!

First post for summer 2017!!

Hello Third graders!!

I have been having a really difficult time deciding what to do this summer. There are so many things I would like to do, but haven't settled on a plan. So many of you enjoyed my blog when we read it in class, and many of you wanted me to do one this summer, so here it is. Even though I am not planning on riding my bike to Mexico or taking a rocket ship to the moon I can still blog my fantastic journeys. If you'd like to read them and look at the pictures, and possibly a video from time to time, awesome! If you'd like to comment, or email me, that's awesome too! If you're too busy enjoying your summer before you become FOURTH GRADERS that's fine too!

I miss you all very much!

So my first adventure starts with a drive to Seattle for a baseball game at Safeco field. I watched the Seattle Mariners play the Houston Astros. It was a very good game! As you know I love baseball. I wish the Mariners would have been playing the New York Yankees, but I still enjoyed it.

I sat out in left field right under the big Safeco Field sign. A couple of home runs were hit my way, but I didn't get a chance to grab the ball. Remember when Max brought the ball he got from the Mariner's game? Lucky kid! I've been to hundreds of games over the years and have only gotten maybe 5 balls in all those years. Way to go Max!

My seat was in the second row right behind the Mariner's bullpen. For those of you who don't know what a bullpen is that's where the pitchers warm up. I was looking down from my second level seat right at the starting pitcher Felix Hernandez. He ended up pitching a great game.

The last picture I have is from the outside of Century Link Field where the Seattle Seahawks play football and the Seattle Sounders play soccer. I have never been inside for a game, but maybe someday.

That's all for my blog today. I need to check out of my hotel and get going. I will try to have more exciting adventures for you to read about soon. Maybe I will take that rocket ship to the moon! Maybe I'll go find Peggy the pegallamacorn!!

Miss you all and hope you're having a great summer so far!!

Day 37: Home!

Today Hank and I made it home!  We were gone for 36 days and returned on the 37th.  We are both excited to be home, but we are so tired right now that we really just need to go to bed.  The train ride went through some really beautiful areas, but I wasn't able to sleep very well, so I'm going to post a few pictures I took and then go get some rest.  In a couple days after this whole thing has sunken into my brain I will write a blog talking about how I feel about what I  have accomplished.  I think somewhere along the way I promised Hank he could write another blog too, so stay tuned!

Day 36: Started the train ride home!

This morning Hank and I headed to the train station for our journey home.  We were both excited, but maybe not excited about what time we had to get out of bed, 4:15 AM! I don't think my sister was too excited about getting up that early to help us get to the train station either, but she did and we are so grateful.  We would have had a really hard time getting there without her.  Check this out...I had Hank in a box 6 feet long and 3 1/2 wide on a dolly, a 40 pound bag, and a 30 pound carry on bag!  No way I could have carried all of that AND rolled Hank down the street to the train station all by myself. Here's a couple pictures of me rolling Hank down the streets of downtown San Diego at 4:45 AM!

Once we got to the train station we were good to go!  Hank was in good hands with the Amtrak handlers and I was in my seat by 6:00 AM.  We had a 3 hour ride to Los Angeles where we switched trains to the one we would ride for 33 more hours to Vancouver Washington.  That 3 hours to Los Angeles I was pretty sleepy.  I closed my eyes for a few times but I stayed awake mostly because the train was following the route I rode Hank last week.  It was really cool to see our route from the train. This was the first time Hank and I had gone North toward home in 35 days!  We are actually getting closer to home rather than farther away.  That feels pretty good.  We are both very excited to get some rest, and then of course go on more rides with what is left of our summer.

You may remember a little over a week ago when we rode through the Big Sur forest.  Well today the train went along the east side of the Big Sur forest.  Since we rode through there a big forest fire has broken out.  Where we were today we could see the smoke.

It's almost time to try to get some sleep on the train.  I'm sure Hank is snuggled up in his box sleeping already.  I'm going to have to try to get some sleep too.  We'll see how that goes.  This time tomorrow we should be home!

Goodnight all!
Home tomorrow!

Day 35: SUPER TIRED!

Hank spent the day packed up in his box ready for the train ride home tomorrow morning.  He will be in there for a few days.  I'm betting he will be a little crabby when I pull him out.  My sister and I went to breakfast this morning, but I was so tired that I had to come back and take a nap afterward.  I think my mind and body are starting to come down from the month long ride.  After my nap we went to see my cousins who live about a half an hour away.  It was really nice to see them but I felt like I wasn't really myself because I was so tired.  On the way back we had to stop at a Home Depot to rent a hand truck/dolly to roll Hank to the train station in the morning.  His box is 6 feet long and 3 1/2 feet tall!  It's huge!  Once I check him in at the train station I won't have to carry him or get to see him again until we get to the Amtrak station in Vancouver.  That will be weird!  He hasn't left my side in over a month!  Who will I talk to on the train?!  I told him that I might let him write a blog when we get back so he can tell you all about his ride in the box on the train for 36 hours and whatever else is on his mind.  I'm sure he will be quite chatty once he gets out of there!

The rest of my day/night here is going to be eating and sleeping.  I know that doesn't sound too exciting for my last night in San Diego, but that's all I have the energy for.  Besides, we have to get up at 5 am to catch the train by 6 am!  I didn't want to have to set my alarm at all on this trip but it looks like I'll need to after all.

Take care blog readers!

Day 34: San Diego to the Mexican Border. 19.4 miles

Today Hank and I completed our goal!  We rode from my sister's apartment in San Diego to the Mexican Border.  It was pretty incredible to be riding along and see Mexico up ahead.  For 34 days we rode toward this place that we weren't really sure what it would look like or what it would feel like and all of a sudden there it was.  It was fairly emotional.

 The picture of Hank turned out dark, but he is still looking good!

The Mexican flag in the background is in Mexico and I am standing in the United States

For all of my third grade readers I hope this journey of mine shows you that if someone sets their heart and mind toward reaching a goal it can be done.  Don't ever give up on your goals.  You will run into things along the way that will make it seem impossible to reach your goal, but you have to keep going no matter what.  On this bike trip all I had to do was just keep pedaling no matter what.  So that's what I did.  If I was having a bad day, not feeling well, riding into the wind all day, getting flat tires, or whatever else, I just had to keep pedaling to reach my goal.  Whatever it is you do just keep doing it, and do your best, and you will reach your goal.  It's up to you to make it happen!

Today I went and got the box that Hank has to ride in on the train.  He wasn't very happy about being taken apart a little bit and stuffed in there, but he will be OK.

So Hank is relaxing, I am relaxing, and on Monday we will get on a train to take us home. The train ride is 36 hours, so I will blog about the train ride and some other words of wisdom.

Time for rest!