Father's Day Sunday Hike

For Father's Day Sunday, Lindsay & I decided to take Tad on a wonderful day of hiking fun at Mt. St Helens. There is a trail that goes from the closest observatory, down toward the base of the volcano. So, we packed up a picnic in his backpack with all good intentions.

I was going to wear shorts, it was nice here at home, but last minute I decided to put on jeans, a Tshirt and a thin flannel shirt of Tad's. I should have known it was going to be a funky day when Lindsay began hiking carrying her purse .. LOL ..

At the trailhead, it was 47 degrees. We set out anyway figuring we would warm up as we hiked.

A few minutes after we left on the trail .. it began to rain. We were so unprepared (except for Tad of course) He put on his rain jacket and handed me a bright orange Walmart poncho and Lindsay an umbrella ... then it started to hail and the wind was blowing cold and gusty!! ahahaha ... OMGOD Lindsay with her purse and inverted umbrella, hair wet and splattered, make up wet & smeared - me in a bright orange poncho and Tad full steam ahead ...



Finally it cleared for a bit and we stopped, righted the inverted umbrella, Lindsay fixed her hair while staring into her reflection on her cell phone, took some photos and ate some lunch. My face & fingers were cold but we were still determined to continue and make it a good, fun day hike..



then we looked over our shoulder and saw the biggest black cloud, raining, headed straight for us. Well, I took off running like an fat orange telatubby down the trail back towards the visitors center, Lindsay's still trying to maintain and look cute as we passed a few other hikers and Tad's just moving right along.

I was laughing SO hard. We got soaked! I turned to Tad with my cold wet face surrounded by orange plastic and sputtered out "I AM Spartan!" ROTFLOL (I think I'm funny sometimes) .. it was so much fun just being silly and laughing at our unprepared selves!!



We headed back down the road and stopped at the Johnson observatory cafe for coffee/hot chocolate to warm up a bit.

Back home it was sunny and warm... of course...