Summer season is officially under way

Mike, Rich, Chris, Al

Yes, I know it's raining in the picture, taken this morning on our hike to celebrate the Memorial Day holiday at the beginning of our summer season. We haven't had ANY rain in several weeks and it was just saving up for today, I'm sure! When I woke to rain and saw on the weather forecast that there was a chance it would stop by noon, I figured we would still have a good time with friends and a moderately dry potluck afterwards.

Trails behind Lake Padden

On this hike, we usually head to the trails behind Lake Padden to make about a six-mile-long trek and then have a potluck gathering around noon with all the Senior Trailblazers from both the fast and the slow group, as well as any other Trailblazers who didn't go out with us in the rain today. Al follows his trusty GPS to keep us honest. Here's a map showing all the trails around the lake area.

We started at the southeast point

Al had rented one of the picnic pavilions for us to use for the potluck afterwards, and although there were only a dozen of us out hiking in the rain, we hoped that our friends would join us afterwards. Sure enough, they did.

Standing on the "summit"

But first, back to the trail: when we got to this place on the hike, Al told us we were at the summit, having reached the highest point of today's elevation gain. I see from the map that it was at 940 feet (285 meters). Altogether we gained and lost around 1,200 feet in around six miles, so it was a good workout. And gradually the rain slowed down, and finally stopped. We even had some sunshine! Good thing, too: when we finished our hike we saw that others were already beginning to arrive at the pavilion laden with food.

Just a small portion of the incredible spread

Almost everybody from all our Trailblazer friends and family were there by the time we sat down to eat. And although the rain had stopped, the sunshine was intermittent and a cold breeze began. Brrr! It was only around 59 deg F (15C) so we were not exactly dry and toasty. But it didn't matter, we had a great time.

A great feast

The food was so good that I found it difficult to stop tasting a little of this or a little of that. We had at least half a dozen different potato salads, fruit and vegetable salads galore, hot chicken wings and pizza, not to mention desserts that I found it hard to stop eating. Doug brought a homemade rhubarb pie that was still warm from the oven! He was the last to arrive and as full as I was, I still had to make room to taste a little bit of his heavenly pie.

So now I'm home, warm and full, and happy to have had such a great beginning to our 2016 summer season!
:-)