Nature at Squires Lake Park

Love the Aruncus (goat's beard) and new Hemlock growth! Nine hundred shades of green. Sweet Deer Fern and love the Western Sword Fern growing from the rock!

Weekend Hike-Squires Lake Park

What a wonderful hike! It was in the lower 60s and sunny and clear. No bugs, except for the brilliant electric blue dragonflies darting here and there. From the trailhead, there's some switchy-backy elevation, but very gentle. Didn't realize we were going up, Up, UP until we came DOWN, Down, down! At the top of the first leg of the trail, we came to the first viewpoint, what a spectacular view of the entire lake...complete with bald eagle and blooming lily pads! I'm so glad we went around the lake CLOCKWISE from the first bench. It was a flat, scenic path right along the shoreline. One could walk all the way to the Beaver Pond Loop Trail and turn around and come back and have a lovely time and see the gorgeous landscape. The other side of the lake went way high above the lake (could not really see the lake at all) with a bit of up and down and though it was really pretty, the other side was more interesting and picturesque (in my opinion). We went around the lake and up to the Beaver Pond Loop Trail (unremarkable) and back around the other side of the lake.

Sarah found our gun for this hike and had a little back and forth with an angry frog! She so badly wanted a dragonfly to land on her hand and Daniel went skiing on tree roots!
Here's a handy trail map, which we took with us because we've discovered we LIKE to have the map WITH us on the trail, not just left behind on the dashboard!

On the way home, we stopped off at the Freedom Park on Camano Island because last weekend we ran out of time (and daylight)!

Wildlife:
frogs
eagle
slugs (John says the black ones are "European Slugs"...good to know!)
dragonflies
tan and green stripe garter snakes near the water's edge
mommy deer and 2 fawns off Sunday Lake Road (charming!)

Nature At Camano Island State Park

It was a rainy, cool day with lots of opportunity for nature photos! I love to look at the sand on the beach and overlapping pieces of driftwood and kelp and shells and rocks...when I looked at this little spot, I could see a CROSS! Do you see it in the first photo? The Lord reminding me how much He loves me. :) And I love the mushroom!

Weekend Hike-Camano Island

Nice cool and rainy day. The wet didn't really bother us until the end when Sarah and I went down the beach. We started with a stop at Cama Beach State Park and then to Camano Island State Park. We walked the Marsh Trail (.4 miles roundtrip behind the parking lot then up to Al Emerson Nature Trail (.6 miles as we went around twice). So that's a mile. Then we did a few little trails around through the campground area, maybe another half mile. So not much distance, but lots of great photos! Then we headed down to the beach for a picnic dinner (in the drizzle!) and some log hopping. Sarah found a rustic driftwood shelter that needed some repairs and she went right to work building support for the roof area! So fun to have Gramma with us on this outing! So I have a question...there's a sign in front of the bathrooms that says: "10 Minute Parking"...are they serious? You have to shower in 10 minutes? What if you actually, uh, have to use the bathroom for more than 10 minutes...will your car be gone when you come out!?