Lower Deschutes trail

So the plan was to go hike 11.5 miles in on Saturday, camp somewhere, and hike 11.5 miles back out on Sunday. The wind was horrible and the clouds kept coming and going, it rained in the morning so we had a new plan, hike until 1-2 then re-evaluate whether we were staying.

 There was a ton of baby geese at the trailhead

 I always take pics of the geological survey markers

 There were times it looked like a beautiful day.

 I wasnt sure if we were supposed to go up this trail or not so i scouted it out

 A cool arch.... from the bottom

 There is a lower river trail and a higher rail bed trail, all the previous pics were on the river trail and there were some rough areas where we had to climb over boulders. it was a lot easier going on the rail bed trail. it was shortly after this point we decided to head back and try to find a spot out of the wind to eat lunch.

 we found a camp along the river where there was a grove of brush/trees blocking the wind. 

 A monkey enjoying his tuna fish at the rivers edge

 There were baby birds all over the place, little hard to see but these were baby ducks.

 The arch from the top

 We heard a lot of noise overhead, these 4 planes were all flying pretty close in a line, not sure what kind of plane but you could tell they were big.

End of the trail selfie.  all in all we did 11.5-12 miles Saturday. we saw geese, ducks, crane, a lizard, deer, beetles, bull snake, black wing tipped dragonflies. 

The Deschutes river is known for its rapids in sections, this 12 mile stretch has bathrooms and camps every couple of miles... of course some of the bathrooms were on the other side of the river lol. Here is a short video of one of the rapids.

I will have more pictures to post once i get them off the camera that Levi was using.

6-2 and 6-5

Saturday in Sunnyside, WA was the Kiwanis kids day parade. Levi and the scouts were there. 

Tuesday was the end of the year awards ceremony, Levi got his Bobcat and Tiger badges along with 4 belt slides.

Prosser science expo and lamprey release

Saturday the 21st Prosser had a science expo in the park and then a lamprey release at the river. They had several speakers talking about different things, when we got there one lady was talking about fossils and petrified wood that can be found around town. She even handed out pieces of coprolite, and for those who don't know what that is.... dinosaur poop! LOL

They had 15-20 different tables set up from 4H, bee handling, water conservation, bug collecting, and ...... you could hold an owl!!!! The owls name is E.T. and the owner said it was not for extra terrestrial. 

I think the owl was looking at a dog or something but it looked like he was waiting for is picture leaning in close to Levi.

I think mom was more excited about it than Levi.

The fire department was also there, we missed their display of lighting a plywood house on fire, well kind of missed it. we could see the flames and smoke from across the park. We stopped and checked it out afterwards though.

Then we had a little time to kill so we went and got some lunch before the lamprey release put on by the Yakama tribal nation. There were 5 tables set up down by the river and each had speakers talking about different things, the history of lamprey in the region, conservation, how to handle them. We spent about 10 minutes at each table listening and learning, then the fun started.

Levi was the first one to hop up on the tailgate to help pull lamprey from the holding tanks and put them in buckets. He did really well, some of the kids screamed and dropped them when they touched their arm.

Then we carried the buckets down to the river where some of them were put into trash cans and some were just released from the buckets.

Again Levi did really well, while some of the kids were pulling them out of the buckets and throwing them at the river, he pulled his out of the bucket, walked down to the river, and gently released it.

Mom got to do one or two also.

Its a Monkey post

Just some random Monkey awesomeness. 

Some black licorice icecream

 a spider Pinewood derby car

off to the races

they ran 3 times and it was always close

He took 3rd place in the tiger pack.

Last week we used his Tri-Fun pass his Grandma and grandpa got for him, he had an archery lesson at Ranch and Home.

Last weekend using his Tri-Fun pass we went bowling

He did pretty good, getting a 97

Then we went to the carousel of dreams, we all got a ride, a soda, and a popcorn.

Had to get a photo on the WSU Cougar

The Land Yacht !!!

With everything we have been doing around here and pulling trailers we were using 2 different trucks depending on what we were hauling, and they were both half tons. I started looking for a 3/4 ton gas dodge because i thought the diesel trucks were going to be a lot more, well they were all pretty close in price. So we found a 1 ton, with a 5.9L Cummins engine, and it was a mega cab (which Christa has always wanted). 

This thing is HUGE hence the name The Land Yacht.

You would think just coming off the used car lot that they would have atleast changed the air filter. changing this gave me an extra .5 MPG.

I am horrible at taking pictures, so far we have loaded a ton of pellets in the bed and hauled them home, loaded a trailer full of IBC totes on it, and yesterday we got pretty close to a ton of hay on the bed. This thing is a beast, the most it has squat was 2" and its never hit the overloads yet, and gets 17 MPG with a ton in the bed.

We didn't get it unloaded last night and Monkey missed the bus so it was to school with a ton of hay loaded LOL.

2-3-18 Lewis and Clark trail system

working on getting into better shape for our 22 mile long hike this summer. We went for a hike below the McNary dam on the nature trails.

Testing his new hiking pack he got for his birthday.

Fits a lot better, Thanks NaeNae.

There were a ton of ducks and birds out there.

Total we did 2-3 miles, just a leisurely walk.