We hitched up the trailer and headed east on highway 2, drove up across Stevens pass and then North along the West shore of lake Entiat, and about a third of the way up the West shore of Lake Chelan to the 25-Mile Creek State park where we met with my wife's parents. They brought their fifth-wheel trailer, and we got adjacent sites.

It was pretty warm the days we were there. It was a bit too warm for me, so I grabbed a book and a chair and went over to the creek and put my bare feet on a rock in the stream to read and keep cool. I did only a little bit of fishing but didn't catch anything. Tried fishing from the bulkhead when it was in the shade, but that shade didn't last long. I actually saw one trout swimming around near the docks, but he wasn't hungry apparently. The water in this lake is very very clear. Lake Chelan is over 50 miles long, and the deepest part is over 1500 feet.

We pumped up the inflatable boat, and I took the family out for a little trip around the bays on the lake near the park.


on Monday morning, we went down to the dock at Fields Point,


and picked up the Lady of the Lake boat for a three-hour ride uplake to the remote village of Stehekin. This little town is only accessible by boat, either private boat or the ferry service on the Lady of the Lake. I think the name may mean "you can't get there from here." There are two boats that service these small lake towns, the fast boat and the slow boat. We got the slow boat. Three hours each way, with an hour and a half in Stehekin, made for a really long day... A boat ride on the lake is nice, but the view is pretty much the same the entire way. It was fun, but after 7 hours, it felt good to get back to the dock and go back to camp.

We were also treated to some very nice sunsets over the mountains above the lake.


Finally it was time to go home, and we decided to stop at the Rocky Reach Dam at the South end of lake Entiat. This is a very nice facility with a park, playground, Northwest museum, visitors' center, and a nice fish ladder for watching the salmon and steelhead migrate back up the river.


I was really impressed with the well-kept grounds, the nice play structures, and family-friendly area. This may be an overlooked stop or an out-of the way destination, but we had fun and would definitely stop there again if we were passing through.


It was a long drive up to 4000 feet and over the mountain pass towing the giant trailer, but it was nice to get away for a few days. Next time though I think we'll avoid the mountain passes and hot weather and keep to the West side of the state.

With my parents in town for a visit, we decided to go up to Snoqualmie to ride on the train, and see the falls. It was kind of a cool cloudy day, but didn't rain too much on us - just a few sprinkles. The train museum is very interesting, and has a lot of information and history of how the railroads were built and used in the pacific northwest.

Here is the train pulling back into the station


We took a ride on the train down to the overlook across from the falls. We had fun taking pictures.

and waving to people on the street.

We saw the falls and the lodge from across the river.



After our train ride, we drove to the falls, and saw some kayakers on the river at the base of the falls.




It was a fun day, and not too far from home.

Here is a view from the ground, looking up at the tree that holds the platform which may someday become a treehouse.

I finally completed the fourth wall of the treehouse, and lugged it down to the back yard. I adjusted the swing so that it was a bit lower and more user-friendly to its intended audience.

I stood up a couple of the walls and began bolting them together. When they were standing and bolted, I went around and put some more screws in the plywood to hold it on as securely as possible.

With a little bit of help from my father who was visiting, I got all four pieces assembled and bolted together to make sure they fit as intended. It all seemed to go very well, and everything matched up.

Then, the Inspector showed up, with his camera...

but it was all good.

Now that I have the walls assembled on the ground,
I am thinking that since it is so heavy, more supports on the platform will be needed, so that's the next step. More to follow.

There is a new FireFox 3 plug-in called ScribeFire that makes it easy to publish blog entries direct from the browser itself. It looks like a pretty good tool, fairly full-featured and compatible with many blog formats. Try it out and see if it makes life any easier for blogging!

For the last three years almost, I have been watching movies and programming with Visual Studio, and surfing the net on a Sharp 65" DLP projection TV. For some reason a few weeks ago, it started to make this sound sort of like a jet engine revving up for take-off, and almost as loud. Since I bought the thing through Co**co.com, I decided to give them a ring to see what I should do to get it repaired. I sent them an email through their customer service link, and a few days got an email back telling me to take it back to my local Co**co warehouse for a refund. Refund? I bought this set in November 2005. Couldn't believe it, so I went to the local warehouse. Sure enough, customer service says, just bring it back in any time.

Well, the thing is truly gigantic, so I disassembled the stair railing I built about 2 years ago, and called in some guys for help. The 4 of us managed to wrestle the thing up the narrow stairs and get it loaded into the truck, where I proceeded to drive it up to the local store. I was astonished when in fact they brought out some paperwork and a check for the original purchase price, with tax and shipping. Turns out that Co**co.com's policy in 2005 was "bring it back for a full refund" without *ANY* time limit! Essentially I had full use of a 65" DLP projection set for almost three years FOR FREE!

Without further ado, I happily took my new check in my pocket, and my credit card in my other pocket, and proceeded to purchase a new 52" LCD set which I am using now. It's not nearly as gigantic, but it IS big... And it's got a much higher native resolution so development and surfing on the big screen were never better.

Just wanted to get the word out that if someone has some electronics they bought from Co**co.com before they changed their policy to 90 day returns, just bring it back to the store for a full refund!

Then buy a newer better one for half the price WOOHOO!

Today we decided that since it was cool enough and not raining, it might be a good time to get some of the log piles in the yard from the last few years of downed trees consolidated into a single pile (not on the lawn area). Its about 8' vertical and about 100' up the hill, but we managed to get about half of them rolled up the hill and stacked in a pile on some old plywood.
Even though it was cool, it was still a log of work to get about a thousand pounds of logs rolled up the hill and stacked... I would just have started splitting them except we already have about half a cord split and stacked... Perhaps I will look into a fireplace insert to keep the heat costs down this winter...