"We Never Stop Working for you"

You remember the commercial about Verizon Wireless "We never stop working for you"? Well, it's true. Here's the story...



After being home in Seattle for 2 weekends my hubby got a little restless and on Friday afternoon decided we needed to go on a spontaneous camping trip to the North Cascades. We loaded up the Land Rover with our camping gear and headed out on Saturday morning. We went up the North Cascade Highway which has a beautiful river running along side it. The water is a light milky green color from the glacier silt.









We stopped to take some pictures and noticed groups and groups of salmon swimming upstream in the river heading up to spawn.











We did a 3.5 mile hike to Thunder Knob that had some beautiful views of Lake Diablo (same green color as the river).













Then we were on to our campground at Twin Lakes near Winthrop.

Here is where it gets interesting (and funny). James had change control to do on Saturday night. As a network engineer he has to do all the changes to the network and other things at night. He knew that he had to work on Saturday night at 8 pm when he planned our little adventure. So, at 8 pm on Saturday...at our campground...in the middle of nowhere....he VPNed into the Verizon Network and did a little change control from the car. Luckily the campground had wifi.


We had no cell service at the campground so he had to use his soft phone on his computer. So, when you hear the slogan, "Verizon Wireless, we never stop working for you" just think of James working from his car while camping.




After a very chilly night in the tent (temp was in the mid 30's overnight) we had a relaxing morning then headed home.






We looked around Winthrop...





We bought some great apples near Wenatchee.














Then had a brief stop in Leavenworth for a snack. It happened to be the Autumn Leaf festival.

Mammoth Caves, KY

We have enjoyed spending the last couple of days with my brother Erek, his wife Laci and our nieces, Kali and Kijanna in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

Today we went to Mammoth Caves which has 326 miles of underground caves.




We are heading home tomorrow.....back to reality.....

Did I REALLY just do that....twice.....

We went to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio on Friday with Gerry and Missy Mindek and their baby Nolan and the Kentucky Gillespies (Erek, Laci, Kali & Kijanna).




Cedar Point has 2 of the top 10 highest and fastest roller coasters in the world.

Kali, Kijanna, Maija and James with Millenium Force in the background (300 feet tall!)


Kijanna and NolanMissy and James in front. Maija, Kijanna and Kali in the 2nd row of Raptor.

The highlight of the day was a ride called Top Thrill Dragster. Below is the video of us on our first Top Thrill Dragster ride (first for all of us except James)....I was really really really really nervous. The ride catapults you to 120 MPH in 3.8 seconds then you are launched skyward 420 feet with a 270 degree twist barely cresting the hill before plummeting straight down as you twist again. The whole ride is 23 seconds long . It was scary but sooooo much fun. So fun that we had to ride it twice. I was amazed that my nieces Kali (13) and Kijanna (10) went on this ride....and all the other big roller coasters.

PS. James rode Top Thrill Dragster four times on this day....he is a junkie!!!