My friends, Sarbar and Hoosierdaddy invited me and the Madster out for a day of wandering around Seattle, talking gear and backpacking food. How could I resist! Hoosierdaddy had brought Sarbar and I presents! I love presents! He bought us each a PCT mug. Awesome! What a nice surprise.First stop was Uwajimaya. I hadn't been here in years (there's a large Asian grocery near my house, no need). Hoosierdaddy is enjoying the entire aisle of ramen-type noodles! Great finds here... I picked up green tea powder (matcha), iced green tea mix, nori, a dried seaweed salad. I also found almond milk powder. Sarbar snagged it right out of my hot little hands as I was saying "hey! Look at this..." LOL.I've been working on a lot of noodle and miso backpacking dishes lately, so it was fun to see what was available. I picked up more peanut sauce mix too. Dang, so easy to spend a ton of money here!From here, we went to Outdoor Research in SoDo. Lots of good buys right now. I reluctantly resisted...Then it was off to the REI flagship store. I was out of freezedried green beans (they don't dehydrate well). I also found a new brand of powdered whole milk - review pending.We weren't done yet! We headed across the street to Feathered Friends to drool over the down. We were getting hungry, but had one more gear store we wanted to hit before we called it a day. Roasted garlic and olive oil called to us... We had lunch at Lombardi's before heading to Second Ascent to check out the new and used gear.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Dinsmores moving to Baring. They will continue to be PCT trail angels in their same generous and friendly style.Now Andrea has their new website up and running. It's beautiful! I look forward to seeing the new place sometime this summer. You should visit them if/when you are hiking through Steven's Pass. Andrea and Jerry are wonderful people!Dinsmore's Hiker Haven
I have blogged about this website before. It is worth mentioning again. Donovan Tracy, the owner and webmaster of this site sent me an email recently. He let me know that he has added 25 new flowers from the 2008 hiking season, bringing the total up to 180.The site is called Flowers of Rainier and it is exceptionally beautiful. My front yard is covered in snow this morning, so it is nice to dream about spring hiking and all the beautiful flowers I will be seeing on the trails soon.His photos are clear and capture amazing detail (look at the miterworts!). In addition, he has notes about each one; where you might find them, their blooming season and habitat. He is obviously a hiker and lover of nature.Gorgeous!! A big thanks to Donovan for all his hard work. See you on the trails!
