Rose and Japanese gardens

Steve and I left the kids at home and snuck in some midafternoon date adventures this July -- on one Saturday, we parked at the Audubon and walked down the Balch Creek trail to the NW area -- we strolled, we window shopped, we shared pizza and cookies at Pizza Thief -- and then walked back up. And last Saturday we visited the Rose Garden and Japanese Garden in Washington Park, and then had tacos and pozole and amazing black beans for lunch at La Fondita. 

It's been a few years since we visited the Japanese Garden, and it never fails to impress me with its beauty.

Clear Lake, final day

On Tuesday morning, we woke up a little later, having slept better, and had the same breakfast around the fire, with marshmallows.

Liesl roasted a perfect marshmallow and then had fun burning some others to blackened crisps.

I wanted to go for a run, so Liesl hopped on her mountain bike and the three of us ran and biked a couple of miles out and back on the trail. Liesl's new bike handles the roots and rocks much better than her old one, and it's good to see her growing in confidence.

Back to our campsite for another change, and back out on the water. Liesl was feeling a little tired from all our activity, so we tied the paddleboard to the back of the kayak and I towed her around the lake for a bit.

And then it was midafternoon, time to pack up and head home. It was really hot, which made the packing a little more painful than usual, so we just kept dunking ourselves into the lake until the final moments. We headed home, arriving around 7:30, happy to escape the bugs and heat and to have showers again. But such a good mama-daughter trip! Can't wait to do it again.

Clear Lake camping continued

We woke up early and decided it was just cold enough to make a fire for roasting marshmallows. :)  But it certainly wasn't the parka-gloves-hat kind of morning that we were expecting! We ate our usual camping breakfast of oatmeal cups, Gorilla munch, and coffee/hot chocolate, and then headed out to walk on the trail circumnavigating the lake. The water was so still and everything was quiet, and the forest is old and lovely -- really perfect.

The hike around the lake is about 5 miles, but the Clear Lake resort restaurant is at the 3.5 mile mark, and its our tradition to stop in there for second breakfasts. Liesl got a side order of pancakes, which turned out to be bigger than her head, and I got an enormous breakfast burrito. Jasper enjoyed bites of bacon and potato.

After stuffing our faces we walked slowly back to our campsite, where we changed into swimsuits and headed out on our boats. Liesl loves the paddleboard and got steadily stronger and better at maneuvering it around the lake. Jasper was so enthusiastic about kayaking -- hopped right into the front seat with me. We went all around the lake, stopping in little coves, admiring the view of the Three Sisters, laughing at some of our fellow boaters, taking pictures. In the midafternoon we got ice cream sandwiches at the resort store and tried to swim from the little beach there. Last year we both ran in from that location, but this year it was painfully cold. Like, your feet froze and started to cramp and almost burn immediately. Even Jasper was not enthusiastic about swimming and fetching the sticks we threw.

We docked at the campground pier and the water on our side of the lake felt just enough warmer that we could briefly tolerate it. After some hemming and hawing, we both managed to dunk ourselves up to our necks (and then immediately leave the lake). It felt good to be cold given the 95 degree temperature on shore.

We were tired out and spent a few hours in our campsite, reading books, drawing, playing games, eating a light dinner. And then at 7:30 we went back out on the boats to watch the sun set and the birds dive for fish. It's always magical to see them soaring ahead and then diving headfirst and crashing into the lake.