Going Losting IX

Hello! Hi! I'm sorry, you said what?! A blog? What's that? I have a blog?! Are you serious? No WAY. Well, I should probably do something about that then, huh?! Here's a long overdue post... My sewing machine and my canning have been holding me hostage. Since it's been a few weeks, and I have a few weeks of material, I went ahead and excersized the right as blog writer to pick what excited me the most, and blog that first thing. I'm coming back with a bang, baby! A going losting bang. Which, very well could bore my readers, as this is my 9th going losting post, but I find it pretty cool. As a side note, I am very glad I know Roman Numerals. I think this feels like a milestone to me because it's my first going losting post to have an X in it. Even though the I comes before the X, and therefore it is my 9th going losting post, as opposed to my 10th, which truly would be more of a milestone technically, I still find it cool that I am breaking from the V's and I's and headed into the X's and I's--I can't wait to get to the three character Going Losting posts, with the X's, I's and V's!! OH BOY! Ok, I'm done being a nerd (for now).

So, last Saturday we were feeling Going-Losting Deprived. I believe that's actually a medical condition. Anyhoo... so, we headed to one of our favorite spots South of Wenatchee, Stemilt Hill, and took a different turn-off road this time.

Check out our new toy!!! We have an aversion in our family to household appliances and tools that can only be used for ONE THING. Occasionally unavoidable, but as a general rule, what a waste. So, we've been looking at getting a GPS for a LONG TIME. But, who wants to pay hundreds of dollars for something that only does ONE THING? Along comes my genius husband, who hatches the evil plan to get a netbook, a GPS locator-commune-with-satallites thingymabobber, and GPS software, and we not only have a netbook for surfing the internet on the couch, or toilet, if that's your thing, (it's not mine, for the record) but we also have pretty sweet GPS capabilites when we go losting!! I married him not only for his astounding good looks, but also his brain and inginuity. So, we headed up, and found Jumpoff Ridge, and drove along Jumpoff Road. Which was pretty sweet. Pretty soon we crossed over to Naneum Ridge. At this point we were high enough that we could see Quincy--40 miles east-ish of Wenatchee, Ellensburg--70 miles south-ish of Wenatchee, and Wenatchee, to the north of us. We'd traveled about 30 miles (by rocky, dusty un-road path) at that point from Wenatchee. See Ellensburg, shrouded in haze, below.

Callie was in doggy heaven. She claimed Naneum Ridge for her very own. We found remarkable amounts of animal scat on this Ridge. Mostly deer, I think. Deer and Elk have wrinkly log looking scat in the spring and summer, and jelly bean shaped scat in the fall and winter. Elk scat is significantly larger than deer scat though.

The ridge runs the border between Chelan and Kittitas County. I have leftover angst from working in mortgage lending... I MUST KNOW what county I am in, or talking about, at all times. Otherwise what title company would I call?!?!?!?! It's very unreasonable, I know. But you never know when you're going to need a title company.

And now begins approximately 400 pictures of Wenatchee Valley from Naneum Ridge. It was just SO cool! Such an amazing view, and then smell of pine tree glory all around. Lovely.

The Enchantments (where Leavenworth lives), from the South.

Notice the Odabashian (North) Bridge, and the Rocky Reach Dam. Above that is called Entiat Lake, it is the Rocky Reach Resevior.

One of the coolest things about this trip was that we ended up at the very tippity-tippity-top-top of Mission Ridge.

Which made me wish for Winter. Because, I love Winter best of all here in Wenatchee. But, also, one of the coolest things about living in a valley is that there is always something neat to see when you look around. If you want to see home depot, well, just look over at it. If you want to see the Wenatchee River Confluence, well, just look at it! And, in the winter, at night time, from down in town, you can look up through the fog at Mission Ridge's glowing lights, and know that there are lots of people who are getting their money's worth for their winter passes, and having a blast on a cold night. Who knew you could wax rhapsodic over a ski pass? I'm making up for 2 weeks of not blogging. Please forgive me.

HA! Lookie here, another Wenatchee valley pic! At the top of Mission Ridge we were on Wenatchee Mountain, at 6757 feet. I love altitudes... :-) It's so interesting. For example, where my bro, The Cowboy, and Auntie A live the altitude is 6240 feet. That means that we were 517 feet higher than them at that time--in theory, we could wave down to them. However, from our house, which I believe is at something like 1540 feet, they are 4700 feet higher than us... there is 5280 feet in a mile, so they are approximately 9/10ths of a mile higher in altitude than us. Cool! I am such a nerd.

Well, I certainly did not intend for this to be a learning post, but that's just what happened. I apologize. I'm practicing up for homeschooling. Ya got her math, and yer geology, and yer animal scat reading and tracking, and yer otherwise-whatnot, but ya do not got yer grammer er yer spellin'. Ok, I'm out!