Snowshoeing at Lake Easton

With Bellevue socked in for a week-long fog bank, John and Mary Jo drove up to the Pass (and beyond) to get some clear blue skies and sunshine. We went snowshoeing along the shore of Lake Easton, which was a very nice hike on a beautiful day. And then we drove back down into the clouds!

Sunny Sunday at Snoqualmie East

Bellevue and Seattle were socked in with fog, but past North Bend was (mostly) sunny, though there were low-lying clouds right at Snoqualmie East, where we had decided to ski. But once we got to the top it was a clear blue sky and we got some great views and some great skiing in!

Return to Cougar Mountain

On January 16, John and Mary Jo restarted their quest to finish all the hiking trails at Cougar Mountain Park, which they had started last January and completed a bit more than half of before stopping due to MJ’s chemo treatments. We dusted off our map with yellow highlights and picked out a short hike to start with, from the Sun Country trailhead. Nice to make progress again!

Beautiful Sunset

Photos of a brilliant sunset in early January, taken from the Amazon building in downtown Bellevue.

Sunshine !

The past few months have been historically dreary and wet in Seattle - while every winter is dark and gray, this year took things to a new level with a series of "atmospheric rivers" dumping high amounts of rain, and keeping the sky gray for long periods of time. 

John and Mary Jo decided somewhat spontaneously to get away and, checking the forecast for a few destinations, decided on Las Vegas for the weekend. We stayed a couple of blocks off the strip and spent most of our time hiking at two different parks - Valley of Fire, which is a beautiful state park, relatively small but with dramatic scenery on par with a national park; and Red Rocks Canyon, which is just west of Vegas and has some beautiful hiking as well.

Both parks have lots of relatively short trails, and we got to explore some canyons and along some multi-colored rocks. We had been to both parks when we were in Las Vegas with the kids for one of Jack's baseball tournaments way back in 2015. 

Start of 2022 in Renton

On New Years Day, John and Mary Jo spent a holiday night away in the Hyatt in cosmopolitan Renton. We went out to dinner at an Italian Restaurant and walked along the southern shores of Lake Washington.