Yesterday we embarked on a fairly easy 6-mile (round trip) day hike to beautiful Snow Lake. Isn’t this view stunning? Oh Washington state, you and your endlessly gorgeous lakes. There are so many!

Unfortunately for me, this trip was slightly marred by the fact that I GOT MY IPHONE WET IN THE LAKE, BLAAAAARG. Pure karma. Josh did the exact same thing in the Cle Elum lake two years ago and I made fun of him for it, so of course it happened to me too.

I blame these adorable board shorts. We were both wearing them when the incidents occurred–they are very streamlined, and the one pocket is deep, so you barely feel your iphone, and therefore don’t notice when you say, go swimming in a beautiful lake. Whoops. It was only in the water for a couple of seconds–I yelled and jumped out and promptly removed it from the case, wrapped it in a microfiber towel and left in out in the sun. Now that I’ve done a bunch of Googling on wet iphones I learned that I should have immediately powered it off, but who thinks of these things in the crisis moment? Apparently I was also supposed to immediately put it in rice, but again, who has rice on a day hike? We stopped at the hardware store on the way home and purchased something called “DampRid”, which speeds up water evaporation. The iphone is currently resting in a sack of rice, and the rice is in the DampRid, and the DampRid is in the bedroom, the warmest room of the house, and I am not supposed to touch it for something like 3 days. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT, SELF!

Iphone nonsense aside, it really was a nice hike. The trail was pretty well populated, but you would expect that on a hot sunny summer day.

Once we got down to the lake we were able to hike a bit more and find a secluded portion of the beach. We brought our water shoes  and went for a couple of dips, ate Luna and Clif bars and string cheese and apples, and drank Lime Cucumber Gatorade that had been frozen the night before (mmmmm). And lots and lots of water. I refused to have a dehydration headache again, like earlier in the week. I even brought along some Excedrin, just in case.

Lake nerds! Nerds on the lake!

Maggie and Schnubs had a good time in the lake, especially Maggie dog. For a dog who is almost 10 years old (!!!), she did great going up and down the mountain. The elevation gain was the same as Tiger Mountain, but since the hike was spread out over 3 miles instead of two I didn’t get winded at all. Easy peasy.

I’m not the thinnest I’ve ever been in my adult life by a long shot, but I can jog and hike 3 miles at a time now like it’s nothing, and for me that’s impressive. I felt strong and confident yesterday. All my body insecurities melted away as I powered down that mountain.

I even wore just a sports bra and neon shorts on our way back down the mountain, and didn’t feel a trace of body shame! That’s the power of physical exercise to your brain. I wish I felt like that ALL the time.

The hike required that the dogs were leashed, so instead of Josh holding onto both leashes (this time) I held Bear Cub’s leash on the way up, and Maggie’s leash on the way down. I was so proud of Maggie dog, motoring down that mountain! Sure, she’s sort of limp this morning, but yesterday she was a bad ass. Bear Cub had a little trouble with the sharp rocks on the way back and was kind of slow, but we still passed up a lot of people.

“Adventure Liz passes people on the trail,” Josh remarked yesterday.

“Well, they’re IN MY WAY!” I smiled back.

Always on the lookout for heart-shaped rocks, but this time I decided to switch it up and find triangles, since the rocks on the trail were quite jagged.

What do you know? A perfect triangle!

Bonus! A shaky little video!

Today I plan on finishing up the metallic Mandala, assisting Joshy in finishing up that laminate floor, and getting the living room back in good shape for tomorrow…our 7 year anniversary! We have something fun planned, stayed tuned.