Lost Lake and Llamas...

We got blessed with the most incredible sunshiney, warm, beautiful day on Saturday! It was such a great reprieve from the cloudy, drizzly, coldness that has graced our days as of late. So we took advantage of the amazingness of the day and went on a good hike with a bunch of friends to find Lost Lake. Tommy's on the far left with his wife Morgan in front of him. Mark (one of Isaac's roommates) is next to Tommy, Stephanie is in front of him and Katy is beside her. Jordan (another one of Isaac's roommates) is behind Katy, then there's me and Isaac. Doesn't his hair look fantastic, by the way? I LOVE it longer!! Here's a closer view so you can see it in all it's goodness...mmmm, mmmm, mmmm. We drove up to the incredible lookout you can see behind the group of us and hiked a roundtrip of somewhere around seven miles. We're so excited for summer when every weekend and many of the weeknights will be filled with adventures like that. Yay, summer! So, we're hiking along maybe about a mile or so into the trail, when lo and behold, we run across a man walking his SEVEN LLAMAS! Just nonchalantly walking the beasts along the trail like it's an everyday thing. It was pretty hilarious! I don't know how many of you all have seen a llama close up, but they are on interesting creature. I captured one in all of his glory so we could share the experience with you. Cute, isn't he? Apparently this man goes out for several days at a time and just walks in the forests and takes his llamas along so they can graze. What a life...
Another high point from the trail was the excessive amount of mud that we encountered. Katy and Stephanie were the lucky two that decided to wear their Chaco sandals on the hike which quickly sealed their fate. Halfway through, they gave up trying to gingerly sidestep the mud and began tromping purposefully through the deepest parts since their feet were caked already. Notice they're in shorts, by the way...and it's only April in Bellingham!
So, we're almost to the lake (we can see it about a hundred feet below us though the brush and trees) and all of a sudden Isaac and Mark disappear. And then we hear shouts and laughs of excitement and adventure mixed with the sound of branches cracking left and right coming from the nearly vertical side of the hill that's between us and the lake. Being that bushwhacking is one of their favorite things, the boys decided to take full advantage of the opportunity and scramble to the lake the 'quick' way. I tried to get pictures of it, but all I could see were the tops of bushes swaying after they'd lowered themselves through them. Needless to say, the rest of us stayed on the trail like civilized people and met up with them at the lake (which they, of course, beat us to). Although there's no picture of that, this one on the left is proof that we found the lake! Yep, that's Isaac out on a fallen tree in the middle of it. All in all, it was a great hike. It did feel like a disproportionate amount of the hike was uphill, but it was fun nonetheless and we felt great afterwards. We went home to a dinner of barbecued chicken from the grill, salad, and the most incredible kettle chips. Happy summer! We're off to visit the families this weekend, so that will bring some good times as well. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!