Heather Lake

The beautiful panoramic view of Heather Lake.

Have you ever felt like you were being followed? I have never felt this during a hike, therefore, I must share! The majority of my way down the mountain, I felt like there was someone (or something) behind me. Eerie, right? Of course there was nothing there, and the feeling went away every time there were groups of people around. Oddly enough, that didn't comfort me. Oh well, the feeling went away about 3/4 of the way down. 

My shoes by the top of the hike.
Thank goodness for waterproof
shoes.

This was my first solo hike. No dogs. No friends. No music. Just me and nature. Of course, this also left me to come up with at least 15 ways I could die on this hike. The most entertaining one was probably slip on one of the rocks and somehow impale myself with a broken tree. There are certainly more realistic ways to die for a girl with absolutely no wilderness survival skills that she didn't pick up from watching a few episodes of Bear Grylls on Man vs. Wild. Somehow I managed not to die, I didn't even fall. Had a few close calls and the snow did swallow my foot up once. But, it wouldn't be me if the hike went swimmingly. I did manage to get turned around. "I really should start using a compass" I thought as I was retracing my steps after going the wrong way for 10 minutes.




Lastly, Granite Falls is not a pretty town. That was just a random thought I had driving down the one major street they had.

Go check out the rest of my photos from Heather Lake here.

Hello!

Not a great way to kick off a blog but it's a fairly mundane day in the life of Rita.  So I'll start this off by telling you a little more about myself and what I hope to accomplish through this blog.


I'm 29 years old as of 2016, I have two dogs and a cat and I live in the beautiful state of Washington.  Though I get a terrible case of wanderlust at least once a year, I am very grateful to come back to this state and call it home.  I can't imagine a more scenic place to live.  With that said, I love to enjoy that scenery by hiking as much as possible.  My goal for this summer is to fit in at least 11 hikes but I currently have 19 planned.  I will dedicate my next post to sharing my pictures from previous hikes this year.  My biggest passion in life is travel: I want to go everywhere, see everything.  The picture in my background is a photo of a glacier from my trip to Iceland in March 2015.  Iceland and Israel are fighting it out to see which one is my favorite place...I think Iceland is winning right now.  I'm all about the landscape and drama of a place and I have to say that Iceland certainly has Israel beat on that front.  If you look really closely at my background you can make out some tiny humans on the bottom of the photo.  Honestly, how much more dramatic can you get than a giant wall of frozen water towering above you into the sky?


Of course, the downside of all this is that I never have enough money to travel to all the places I want to visit so I am limited to one or two trips per year.  Last year was Iceland and Cyprus.  Sadly, I don't think I'll be making any international trips this year but I am planning on going to Colorado for yoga at the red rocks amphitheater.

I recently uprooted my life by quitting my job at Amazon Security that I had been in for years and taking on part time roles and volunteering.  Let's just say I had a close call last year and I decided to make the most of my life.  At the end of the day, I'm not going to care how much money I had, how many things I had, what kind of car I drove (mine is a Chevy Volt, btw), the house I lived in.  I will care about having a story to tell and that is exactly what I want to do.  I want to share my story and hope that everyone enjoys it.