Cloud 9

Hi beautifuls. I hope y'all are having as wonderful of a day as I am. The sun is shining. The mountains are kissing the sky. I had my morning coffee. So this morning Aaron's parents (Roxanne and Chuck) flew into Seattle and I picked them up from the airport. They had a wonderful flight and were transported safely to the rental car agency and are currently getting settled in. Funny that I saw Aaron's parents before he did. Speaking of, he is taking his team from Amazon to hike Mount Si today. I wonder how that is going...

I was hanging out at South Lake Union Park and just taking photos of the plants. I took this photo and looked at it more closely and noticed the Space Needle chilling in the background. Turned out pretty well, eh?

Deep in their roots, all flowers keep their light. -Theodore Roethke

Before I delve into climbing and nature adventures, I think I should slow it down and tell y'all some other cool news. I had my first day of work at Starbucks and I can make a latte like a professional. I've never had a job in the food/beverage industry in high school, so it's all new and I'm learning a ton. Also, learning about making coffee beverages and different brews flavors and what food goes rather tastily with them meshes really, really well with my plant pathology knowledge of growing coffee and it's diseases. I'm beginning to know the entire process from planting coffee, disease management, harvest, drying, roasting, grinding, brewing, tastes, aromas, and techniques. I know that is exactly what y'all think when you go into Starbucks and order a grande vanilla latte. I just really like it when what seems like two totally opposite things fit together like puzzle pieces and suddenly you get a big picture but have all the tiny details as well. And the partners/coworkers there are hilarious! We are a bunch of sci-fi and fantasy movie/book nerds. Game of Thrones and Star Wars all the way. Oh, and to top if off, work is a mere 3 blocks from my apartments and I get a lot of free caffeine all day every day. Megan is happy.

Collect moments, not things.

Leave nothing but footprints. Take nothing but pictures. Kill nothing but time.

This is the creek that was right next to our campsite. So soothing to fall asleep to.

One more quick note. Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes via whatever method you used! i felt very loved. And a huge shout-out to Anna for the English chocolate - I ate half of it already :)  Although she is 8 too many time zones away, we make a long distance friendship work very well. I promise you I am doing everything I can to save up money for a flight to London because it has been way way way too long since we've seen each other.

Sawtooth Ridge looking mighty fine in the clouds.

Needle Pass! 

Okay, so now the climbing/mountain/nature spiel. On Memorial Day Weekend, Aaron and I went to Olympic National Park to go do Mount Cruiser. After battling traffic, talking to a few rangers, and obtaining the correct permit, we were on our way. With heavy packs strapped to our backs, we set off on a 7.5 mile hike to where we were going to camp. We cruised the first four miles in an hour 15. Then we hiked the next 3.5 and gained roughly 2,500 feet. We set up camp, refilled our water from the creek, ate some oh so delicious freeze dried food, hung out, and fell asleep pretty early. Sunday is the funday.

Photo credit: Aaron Wait

I'm improving on my snow skills. Slowly. Surely.

So Sunday morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and took off towards Glady's Divide. After another 2 miles and gaining 2,000 feet, we made it to Needle Pass. Thankfully we stopped to take a little break and looked around. The clouds had cleared just enough so we could make out where we were trying to go otherwise we may have walked right on by. We made our way across some talus and scree to get to the snow field. We put our crampons on and grabbed our ice axes and started up the kind of steep snow on the Pass. Miraculously, I didn't slip, fall, or stumble too much and made our way up the snow quickly. BUT, we did see bear paw-prints. Then we scrambled up some third/possiblyfourth class to gain the ridge. We made our way across towards Mount Cruiser by squeezing through some rocks (awkward photo to prove it), down a gulley, across a catwalk, and more third class. And BOOM we saw it through the clouds. Anyways, we got to the base of the climb, roped up and started our way to the summit. It was super easy climbing but it was exposed when you got up there. We were literally in a cloud. Cloud 9. You know, I thought that would have been the coolest thing ever when I was 5. At a wise age of 23, it's not what I imagined it would be. Anyways, the view from the summit was awesome! There were another 2 guys up there that we chatted with and rappelled with.

Then came the get down the snow time. Megan is not nearly as gracefully descending as she is ascending. I learned to self-arrest on the fly/slide thanks to Aaron calling up to me as I'm sliding down the slope getting snow in my pants. I was a very happy camper until that happened. Once we got back to the talus/scree my joy returned. We returned to camp, managed to get it all back in our packs and made the mad dash back to the truck. We were going to stay one more night and maybe do a short hike the next day but we decided Mexican and a bed sounded a little better. My quads would definitely agree with that decision. Anyways, Monday we lounged, ran some errands, and that's about it.

Mount Cruiser. 

The clouds were so cool. Totally disguising the peaks on one side and exposing the peaks on the other side.

Then Tuesday I turned the age nobody likes you. 23. Thanks Blink-182. Anyways, I had a nice relaxing day, enjoyed the beautiful weather, wandered around Eastlake/Capitol Hill by accident, and applied for plant pathology jobs. Then Aaron made me dinner of salmon, rice, and veggies and we watched The Hunger Games together. It was a lovely day.

As I said before, Roxanne and Chuck are here in Seattle! Yay visitors! So I best be going to finish up my odds and ends duties before we meet up this afternoon. Bye y'all. Enjoy the sun.

This view made it so worth it. We camped under the thick cloud cover in the top right corner. I love the Olympics.

As promised, the awkward photo squeezing through the rocks. More like a beached whale roll over the top.