Shoulder Seasons and Rivers of Gold

Adventure time!!!

 Since we will not see each other for several weeks and didn't camp much this summer, the Otter and I  went on a short jaunt about the state before I depart for Thailand - seeing friends, hiking about, that sort of thing.
It is definitely fall now, like a flip of a switch it went from sunny and 70 - 80 to chilly foggy mornings and lovely rain.
We visited friends near Yakima, then bounced up to Baker Lake to camp and wander around a bit. It was quite nice to share huge campgrounds with only a handful of other campers.

 Many a fungus to be found.

 Baker River - from a big suspension bridge.

 Red-legged frog

 Western toad

A (red sided?) garter snake

Brandon, entertaining himself with the age old game of throwing-things-in-the-lake.

Mt Baker poked it's crown out a little bit.

 Nice foggy mornings, mmmm

We had the opportunity to go Chanterelle hunting with some friends as well. They appeared in bright patches, and little rivers of gold. 

 Katie with her sweet mushrooming basket.

 A glamour shot. Pretty pretty mushrooms.

 The monster mushroom is monstrous!

 We netted 13-14 lbs.

 We stopped on the way home to watch some Pink salmon trying to do their thing, in rather large substrate.

 Extra pretty Angel Wing mushrooms.

 We brought our haul home, and made tasty things with the Chanterelles.

 My garnish parsley sank, boo.

I am leaving for Thailand tonight, and although I am packed and ready to go, my brain has yet to truly process the fact that in 24 hours I will be in Bangkok, with Leonie.
Yesterday, in a fit of... something, I'm not sure what, I decided that rather than get ready I would can everything I could lay hands on.
So now we are 11 quarts of tomatoes, 3 quarts of applesauce, 5 quarts of pears and 3 pints of tomato sauce richer. I am still thrilled about the tomato sauce from scraps method I mentioned last post, we got 13.5 pints of it from the processing leavings of about 75 lbs of tomatoes. Not bad!
I am beginning to become legitimately worried that our pantry shelving might become too heavy and sink through our floor, an unwelcome surprise for our (slightly obnoxious) downstairs neighbors.

 I am pretty much all packed - I even mended the one pair of pants I am taking. I just hope Martha's list is truly sufficient, since I didn't stray much away from it while gathering supplies.
Everyone keeps informing me that I will have a "good time" in Thailand, but right now I am mostly very nervous. Tootles!