Snowshoeing at Gold Creek Pond

Published on 01/13/2008

Not last Friday but the Friday before, I went up to Seattle for the weekend and got to do some snowshoeing! I had planned the trip for a while with my friend Julie who lives up there. She and I went to the same church for maybe two and a half years or so while I was going to SPU and living on or near campus, and we have kept in touch since then. She is a fan of adventure of all sorts, so this was perfect. We each invited friends to go with us. My friend Kara from Portland and Seattle and most recently China came along. She has been teaching English in Southwest China for two years now, and is on a seven week vacation in the Northwest (Oregon and Washington). She was already in Seattle visiting with her old roommates and so she met up with us up there. Julie invited two of her friends who also used to go to church with her (after I stopped going there), Cara, and Eileen. Eileen lives near Seattle so she was already around, but Cara was staying with her sister down in Tigard (near Portland) so I picked her up and we rode up to Seattle together. She is also on vacation from teaching overseas. She had formerly taught in China as well and was currently teaching in Korea. Kara and Cara had quite a few things in common, including their names. :)

So, Friday night we got to Julie's house in Seattle around 5:00 or so. Julie made some tasty dinner for us and we ate that and some Trader Joe's dark chocolates and talked and planned until sort of late then hit the sack. We got up and planned to leave by 9:00. We got a little bit of a late start, but not too bad. We ended up choosing a shorter trip--Gold Creek Pond--that sounded extremely scenic and we weren't disappointed (although several of us would have enjoyed being out a little bit longer). We took our time, I took a lot of photos and we all had some good conversation. All the women have done a considerable amount of international travel and had quite a bit in common to talk about. It was neat to hear the stories everyone had to share.

After the hike we went back to Julie's place briefly before we split up and went to dinner. Kara and I wanted to go to my favorite restaurant--Thai Tom. I LOVE that place. It's a tradition for me every time I go to Seattle to try to make it there and have some Swimming Rama. Mmmm... tasty. So we met up with my friend Matt and his friend Andy (both of whom went to SPU with me) and sat at different tables together (since the place is too small to have bigger than two-person tables). After a delicious dinner and some pre-dinner bubble tea at W.O.W. a few doors down, I took Kara to her place and went back to Julie's. Cara's brother came by and we all played a few rounds of speed Scrabble before calling it a night. The next morning we got up early to make it to the 9:00 service at Kara's church in Seattle, Rainier Avenue Free Methodist. I missed my church, but it was good and Kara had a great reunion with so many friends. After that we quickly grabbed some Vietnamese sandwiches to go and headed back to Portland so Kara could meet up with her family to head off to the coast. Rough life, huh? It was a great trip. Great friends, food, scenery, conversation. It made us want to do it again, which we sort of did this weekend, but that's another post and another slideshow. :)

Click here to see my photos from the trip.