Hiking to Comet Falls, part 2

In my previous blog I wrote about the trail to Comet Falls. There's good news and bad news. Bad news: it goes up, up, up. Good news: there are so many waterfalls along the way. Those made great places to pause for rests. What's the saying... "In beauty I stop to catch my breath"? Yeah, something like that.

When I say the trail is up, up, up, I mean stuff like this:



Okay, this was one of the hairier parts of the trail. Most of the trail was only half as steep. Though seldom were there steps.

Oh, but there were more waterfalls. So many more waterfalls.



We knew we were getting close when we reached this falls. We knew we were close because we were pacing ourselves. We figured we were about 90% of the way there, both in distance and elevation gain. The view I found for this picture (above) was a smidge off the trail. This is a side falls in the canyon that pours into the main creek.

Above those side falls are more side falls!



This trio of waterfalls apparently fools so many people that there's a sign next to the trail that says, basically, "NOT Comet Falls". We didn't need that sign because we'd seen a picture of Comet Falls on the cover of a calendar for sale in the visitors center the day before. As impressive as this triple falls is, Comet Falls is much.... impressive-r. And per the "NOT Comet Falls" sign it was supposedly only another 200m away.

Update: Keep reading as we reach the real Comet Falls!

Comet Falls (Finally!)

After a hike that was up, up, up but also full of waterfalls we reached the main falls, Comet Falls. Finally!



Comet Falls is over 300' high, the tallest waterfall in Washington. While the other falls we passed on the way up here felt very... Cascades-ish... Comet Falls is downright Yosemite-like.

The view above is from the point on the trail where we got the first good view of Comet Falls. It's zoomed in a bit, and you can see there's a fair bit of distance closer we can get. In fact you can see some people standing a lot closer on the hill in front of the bottom of the main tier. We'd go there next....



...But first, flowers! Always stop to smell the daisies. Well, not smell them, because allergies. 😂 But stop to appreciate the beauty in which we walk.



As we got a bit closer there was a nice log next to the trail to sit on for pictures. I swapped cameras with another couple who arrived just ahead of us to get this photo.

There's more to come... we can get a lot closer to the falls!

Update: Good news, bad news, good news as we get closer.

Delayed Watching Game of Thrones Season 3

It's been a while since I've posted about Game of Thrones. I'm still watching the original TV series... for the first time.

After watching Season 2 in July I've been on a 4 week hiatus. Why? I've been too busy. No, not too busy to watch TV.... I'm too busy to blog. Yes, my blog backlog is what's tripping me up here.

Before moving on to Season 3 I want to finish blogging my thoughts about Season 2. Already I've written a few S2 blogs, Kings and Spoilers and Terrible People Finally Suffer - A Bit. I've got two more topics I want to write about. I've just been so busy clearing the rest of my blog backlog that I've left GoT on my to-do list... for four weeks.

I hope to write those two blogs early next week so I can get back to watching TV as a downtime activity.

I Would Fly 500 Miles, And I Would Drive 500 More

Does this sound familiar?

🎵
I would fly 500 miles
And I would drive 500 more
Just to be the man who rolls 1,000 miles
To help some friends buy a new car.
🎵

It's not just a filk of a song by The Proclaimers (see below), it's also how Hawk and I picked up our new car last summer. We bought it (mostly online) from a dealership in Encinitias, CA then flew 500 miles to San Diego one Saturday morning and drove the car 500 miles home after finalizing the purchase.

Sounds fun, right? It's so fun I'm doing it again! But this time it's not for our car; I'm helping friends who've bought a new car.

Watch on YouTube

The car market is crazy, even crazier than when we bought a little over a year ago. Our friends David and Devlin had to look all the way to Henderson, NV to find the car they wanted. That's just over 500 miles away. Devlin's not well enough to do a road trip right now, and David's a bit iffy on it, so I offered to help.

Tomorrow I'll fly to Las Vegas in the morning and meet David at a hotel (he's staying overnight tonight). A driver's coming at 9:30 to shuttle us to the dealership. David will finalize the paperwork, then we'll start the drive home in the new car.

It's a long drive back: 541 miles to my place, about 30 miles longer to David's. I consider that's doable in one day though it's a tough drive. We'll split this drive across two days, though. Two reasons: One, it's a plug-in electric car so recharging will take longer than filling gas. It'll require way more planning, too. Two, David's not as much of a road warrior as I am. 500 miles of driving in a day, or even the majority of 10 hours as a passenger, is not his thing. We'll stop for the night in Bakersfield, splitting the drive roughly in half.

For now, it's time to wind down for bed. I've got to get up at 4:30am for that flight to Vegas! 😱