The day before Mom had an idea that we should take a family hike this weekend. Mostly to get Doug out of the house. We all agreed. Mom talked to Erika, and she liked the idea. Now we just had to decide where to go. Mom threw around ideas such as the Mima Falls walk in the Capitol Forest and possibly the Sequalitchew Creek Trail in Dupont. Either were fine with me and both allowed dogs on the trail. Erika's car had a bum tire and she stressed out about getting it fixed so that morning she spent most of it worrying about how and when it was going to be fixed. Mom helped her figure it out, so we got a later start on the morning than we intended. Due to that issue, we chose to do the trail in Dupont since it was closer to us all.
Erika and Zach were going to meet us in Dupont and Mom and Dad were going to drive Mom's Expedition to my house. Our target time was 11:00 and we told Erika to be on standby. She just said to let her know when we left the house.
That morning, I got up around 9:30 and laid in bed for a while. Ben had a 24-hour shift at the station, and he left that morning at 6:30. I got dressed and ate some breakfast. I kept reminding Doug that everyone was going to be here at 11 and he needed to be ready to go by then. Of course, he laid in bed until Mom and Dad got here. He didn't want to go but he didn't have a choice. He slowly got ready, and Erika and Zach were getting really impatient. I told her we were getting in the Expedition and leaving in a few minutes.
I went the back way down Yelm Highway to 510 to Reservation Road and finally to Mounts Road to get onto I-5. It was a short stint on I-5 and took the Dupont exit. I followed the main road through Dupont and found the road I needed to turn down to park at the city hall parking lot. Erika and Zach were already there and ready to go. We got there just before noon. We unloaded and got everything we needed and made sure all the dogs had their poo bags and such. Zach walked Emmett, Erika walked Toby and Doug walked Charlie.
It was a nice walk. It was a little chilly, but it also was January. I'm just glad to have a somewhat dry weekend so we could do something. Charlie and Toby misbehaved a little bit while they walked. Toby is trying and Charlie needs to be trained. It was clear as day. I chatted with just about everyone while we walked down the trail. We walked past a lot of people who brought their dogs and children. Most of them were probably military families. Emmett didn't like anyone from his "pack" to be ahead of him.
We got down to the beach and the tide was just now going out. I showed everyone where the railroad cache was and like I thought, no one really cared. The tide wasn't low enough to get the only one I had left down here. So, next time it will have to be strategic. Mom took a bunch of pictures, and I took a couple pictures. Mom got a photo of us with the posts along the beach. It turned out pretty well. We were down there for about 40 minutes or so.
We started back up the trail. It was pretty uneventful but a lot more people walked past us on their way down with their dogs and children. I am glad we got there when we did.
We reached the top of the trailhead and I think it was either Mom or Erika that had to use the restroom. The porta potty was there and apparently it was frightening. They decided that they could wait until they got home or to wherever we were going for lunch that afternoon. We walked back to the parking lot, and all decided on the Meconis near Erika's house but first we had to drop the dogs off at their homes.
We drove to my house to drop off Charlie and to grab my Escape because Mom had to do some shopping and Dad didn't want to go. So, after we were done eating, Dad would drop Doug off at my house and Dad would head back into Rainier. Erika and Zach took Toby and Emmett home and then decided to go grocery shopping because they thought we were going to take longer dropping off Charlie. We also changed the Meconis location. Erika didn't think the one by her house would allow indoor dining, so we went to the one off of Pacific instead.
We went in and ordered our food. Erika and Zach still weren't there. I thought they were just going to drop the dogs off. We were halfway done eating our food when they rolled in. I asked her, why did it take you so long to drop off dogs? She said, we thought it would take you guys a long time, so we went grocery shopping. I added, I thought we agreed that we were going to drop dogs off and head to lunch...I am not sure why there was a disconnect here? Oh well. Everyone was there and we were eating our food.
We chatted about random things and Doug's birthday the next day. We cleaned up our table and we all left. Mom and I went to the store in my Escape, Dad took Doug home in the Expedition and then went home and Erika and Zach went back to their house. Mom and I were on a mission--to find a store that actually had distilled water. Most stores are out of it, or you can only have like one or two. Mom needed them for work for their sterilizing machines. We tried Winco and we actually scored! They had plenty of distilled water and they let us have more than two! Then we went over to Walmart because Mom needed some stuff over there and then went to Big 5 so Mom could look at getting new work shoes. She actually found a couple pairs she liked.
We were pretty much done, so I stopped by my house first to drop off stuff, feed the cats and to see what Doug was doing. I took her back into Rainier and helped her load the distilled water into her Expedition and then headed back home. I ate some popcorn, watched football, worked on my blog, vacuumed, did laundry and got cleaned up. Today was a busy day and it was nice to get a hike in.
Next Adventure: Doug's Gender Reveal Birthday Party
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