Mazama--A REAL vacation

The official "End of Deployment Leave Period" finally came to pass this last week and we hit the road. We travelled about three and a half hours on the cascade loop to a little hamlet called Mazama, and we had ourselves our first *REAL* vacation. It was unhurried--so unhurried that most of the time we didn't know what time it was. We hiked our little legs off. We revelled in the yellow beauty of fall in the Methow Valley. We travelled up really, really scary washboard-ridden dirt roads in our Goobermobile for no other reason than to find a beautiful viewpoint (much to Val's protest). We had an unfortunate run-in with one of the highly over-abundant suicidal deer in the area. We sipped hot cider and enjoyed being together as a family, doing fun things and forgetting about housework and Andy's shop.

It. Was. Fantastic.

I know there are more photos here than anyone could possibly want to see, and I'm posting them all mostly for myself... But if you happen to scroll all the way through, enjoy! We sure did. (P.S. There are some photos of Carolyn taking swimming lessons after this gargantuant post. Check those out too!)




















































He has what it takes