I had a Beary Nice Mother's Day

Thank you to all of my sweet children and their spouses for remembering me on Mother's Day 2012.  It was a delight to talk with you, receive greetings in the mail and (finally) have a few of Katie and Zac's wedding photos!   It is an honor to be called Mom by you all.

Although my sweet hubby has been very busy with all of his new responsibilities and studying, he took the entire weekend to just hang out with me!  The weather was absolutely stunning, so we got up early, made the necessary stop at Albertson's for food and we headed for the trail and a nice easy day hike up the Elwha River.

  

Above Port Angeles, we made the turn off just before the Elwha River bridge and traversed up the mountainside a couple of miles on a narrow dirt road.  There were several short waterfalls and even a peek-a-boo view of the Glines Canyon dam being torn down in hope of restoring the salmon run.  Two dams were built on the river about a hundred years ago but the equipment, etc, needed for power was really antiquated.  So a grand experiment is underway to see if they can restore the river and the salmon runs.

Here we are ready to go.  It is about 2.5 miles to our destination....

Humes' Meadow!

On the way we took a detour, down into Rica Canyon.  It was a short detour, but very downhill!  The trails were beautiful!

Although the day was warm, the spring runoff had not yet begun.  We found this great camp spot next to the river, and we promised ourselves we would remember to stay overnight there at sometime in the future.  The grandkids could even hike into this place!

As always there was a lot of scenic moments on the way along the forest trail.

At one point the trail came to this beautiful bend in the river.  Someone had erected a stone bench overlooking a 10-foot drop into the water, which would have been an inviting spot to "cliff" dive  on a hot day.  You would, however, need a rope to get back up onto the trail unless you wanted to float for several hundred yards!  Beautiful.

I can't remember where in the trail order this picture was taken, but we stopped to fix a hot spot on my foot.  It was a really pretty location along the river.  I am facing Goblin Gate, a narrow canyon that the river blasts through.  We didn't hike over to see it, but we could hear it from several points along our way.

Points of interest along the way:  Cool mushrooms everywhere...

Dragon Skin-- a lichen that grows in the trees

A rock eating tree..  you know, all the usual stuff.  We actually went down a detour trail that Tim had never been--Krause's Bottom!  It was a bit steep, but short and you could tell near the end that it hadn't been used much.  Cross another trail off Dad's Olympic list!

I love how the moss looks like someone forgot to vacuum the forest carpet!

You could tell near the end that the trail had not been used much lately--it peters out and there were downed trees that we got to climb over.  Instead of retracing the trail back out, Tim decided to blaze a path along the river gravel beds.  He knew pretty much where we were when we cut back into the forest-- no surprises there!

As we walked along, we started to notice some bear scat, not terribly fresh, but not old either.  Tim is always watchful when he comes up over a rise, especially when he knows there is a meadow on the top!  Sure enough, there was a momma bear and a year old cub eating in the meadow.

This is the baby bear--about the size of a St. Bernard dog... around 25 yards from us...

Momma bear was off a way further  --maybe 150 yards-- and ever watchful of our movements, so near to her little one!  At one point she stood up on her hid legs and sniffed the air, then moved off towards the tree line.  A herd of elk were also in the tree line, but the bears were cooler!  We stayed in the meadow and watched them while we ate our lunch--about an hour. Once I got over the initial shock of having bears in the wild so close to me, I enjoyed my experience very much!  Happy Mother's Day Momma Bear....Now if I can just see an Orca one day... ;)

We enjoyed our hike very much. -- Nice place Hume's Ranch/Meadow...

Sunday, Mother's Day,  began with my sweetie making me a delicious breakfast with all of the trimmings.  We didn't have early morning meetings, so we got to sleep in a bit--always a bonus when you are on the 9am schedule.   The priesthood took over Primary the last hour of church, so all of the women could attend Relief Society.  It is always a hoot to watch this organized chaos unfold.  The kids get so excited--and I think the guys do too!

After church duties were complete, we sat out in the SHADE in the yard--it was a warm day.  We fell asleep and then went to Marc and Jesica's for dinner!  Bryan came too!--so basically I was a bum on Sunday--as Mother's Day should be!  Dad even took care of the laundry for me! 

It was a great weekend, and beary, beary nice.  What a blessing family is!

I love each and everyone of you!

Momala, Momasita, Mom, Mamma, aka Peggy