9/8-9/04 Bim and I went up to the property for 2 days: Wednesday and Thursday.

We had lunch at the 59er Diner and then drove in to Lake Wenatchee State Park. Bim had been in a sailboat race there years ago. We looked at the view and then proceeded to drive along the North Shore road to see the lake and the cabins. We arrived at the property sometime after noon. The weather was dry and very pleasant At the corner of the property, I could see that the balloon I had tied there had gotten tangled in lower branches so that it wouldn't be visible from the viewpoint. I figured that would be the case. There were no frogs in the cans..

After moving our stuff into the trailer, we did a tour of the cabin and I was happy to see that the peanut was still on the floor and the mousetraps were still set. After that, we walked the trails to the spring. We saw that the balloon at that corner was also fouled high up in the trees and probably wouldn't be visible from the viewpoint.

We still wanted to go up to the viewpoint so I called the rangers and found out that the road was still closed. I appealed up their chain of command and the best I got was that if we went up there, we were on our own. The road was closed. We went anyway. The view was good, but none of the balloons was visible. I'll have to try it again sometime with fresh balloons.

We fed a flock of at least five gray jays. Three of them were juveniles who were still learning how to take peanuts. A couple of chipmunks also came around for their share. Towards evening, Bim suggested that we go down to the gate to check for frogs. There weren't any, but the jays and chipmunks were down by the log pile. While we were feeding them, we noticed some very fresh mushrooms just popping out of the ground. They were perfect. I picked a bunch of them and sauteed them for an appetizer. They filled my frying pan to heaping before they shrunk down by about half. They tasted pretty good.

It rained quite a bit during the night but it had stopped by morning. We went up to the cabin and took some pictures and I pointed out some of the features of the place to Bim. Then we went looking for more mushrooms and found a bunch of new ones that had popped up over night. I picked them and put them in a bag to bring home. We fed the birds and chipmunks some more and left for home around 10:30. We stopped for lunch at Ixtapa in Monroe.

It was a very enjoyable visit with Bim and I am very glad he was able to find the time to spend visiting the cabin. We had time for a lot of good conversation.