Methow Valley ... again

Methow Valley ... again

10/28/2009 4:58:50 PM

Friday October 23rd - Sunday October 25th

We made our annual trip east of the mountains to view the fall colours last weekend.  Instead of a day trip to Leavenworth, we decided to return to the River House in Mazama.  We had a good journey along the North Cascades Highway (see map of our route below)

Scenary along Highway 20 ...

Friday evening we ate at the Mazama Country Inn, wonderful comfort food (beef pot roast with parsnip mashed potatoes and asparagus followed by the best pumpkin cheesecake we'd ever tasted!).  We were lucky to find the restaurant open, this was the last weekend before their closure until Nov 26th, when they reopen for the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Saturday morning was bright, crisp and sunny so we decided to do the same 12k river walk we did back in the summer.  It was really difficult for us to regulate our body temperature as we walked along the valley, luckily we had layers we could add and remove as appropriate.  The dogs ejoyed the walk and a dip in the river.

Here are some photos from along the walk ...

As you can see, there isn't nearly as much water around as there was in the summer, we had to walk along the riverbed to find a place for the dogs to have a drink and a dip.

After our walk we headed into Winthrop and Sherri's Sweet Shoppe for sustinance ;-)  Following our browse around town we headed back to the River House via Mazama store which was absolutely packed with hunters, hikers and fishermen. 

Saturday evening we ate at Freestone Inn which was very much up to the usual standard :-)

Sunday we had to pack up an travel home but not before stopping at the Mazama Store for a coffee and a freshl baked 'little something' to get us on our way ;-)  We decided to drivve an alternative route home, see below, which meant that we had driven in a huge circle.

We stopped off inLeavenworth for lunch and to give the dogs a walk so we got to see the fall colours there as well.


A great weekend was had by all and just in time too as there was a winter storm watch for the northern Cascades on Monday warning of the first significant snow of the season and Tuesday there was about 12 inches of snow over the passes.  Looks like we were lucky, not just with the dining but with the weather too!! 

Only one qualifying run this weekend ... multiple handler errors :-(

Only one qualifying run this weekend ... multiple handler errors :-(

10/4/2009 5:16:11 PM

Stephen and Kohl were competing at the Puget Sound Labrador Retriever Agility Trial both days this weekend at Argus Ranch.  Yesterday was their best day, although Kohl was slow, with one qualifying score in Open Standard Preferred, at least they did it in style and came first in the class (score of 96, with 4 time faults)!

 

JWW yesterday Kohl clipped the top bar of the tripple jump and knocked it off as well as being over time.  Today, Stephen wasn't on top form and even Kohl couldn't make up for the handling errors ... Kohl doesn't hold it against him :-)  Kohl surprised Stephen with his turn of speed and Stephen wasn't prepared for Kohl's new found enthusiasm for the sport which caused them to miss the third jump, Stephen recovered but lost 5 points for the failed jump and acrrued lots of time penalties getting back on track.  These errors resulted in a score of only 63 points (85 required to qualify).

 

Click here to see their Open Jumpers run.