April 25, 2010

I'm at a Loss for Words...almost!

A year or so ago, the folks at John's office gave us a gift certificate to a mountain spa resort about an hour and a half from here.  We kept it tacked to the bulletin board, not noticing that months after month, we found reason not to take two days out of our "busy" life to enjoy it.  On the spur of the moment (almost - it was only about five days in advance) we decided to go this weekend.

Normally, I would write a big, long, too-detailed account of our little getaway, but I thought I'd just tell you about it in pictures (with a caption or two.)

We pulled up to our new home Friday evening...


which really took our breath away as we entered.


The we thought we'd go find a good place to have dinner, and we found this. 

We had some amazing beef stew with homemade bread here, washed down with good beer and local wine.

 ~~~~~~~~ 

On Saturday we headed up to Mt. Rainier National Park, and saw a little of this


  
and some of these


 and hiked through this


to get to this old homestead built in the 1800s.


 We drove further up into the park, and the temperature started to drop. It was pretty cold by the time we got here...


then it was freezing by the time we reached this one...  


 ...see the snow?...

...and this is where the whining started...as in, we're not hiking up here, right?


At this point, we were starving, so we headed back down, out of the park, and stopped here for dinner.  Mmmm....veal picatta and cabernet !


 When we got back "home" we John built this...


and the crackling serenaded us (in harmony with the frogs and crickets outside)
while we sat in the jacuzzi
...for two hours....

 

at which point we were hungry again.


As I'm sure you can imagine, after all that, we were exhausted!


I hope your weekend was even half as good as mine!!

5 comments:

  1. Wow, and I'm sitting here contemplating my Monday! I'm glad you had a wonderful time. It looks absolutely amazing!

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  2. The photos are amazing! Looks like a glorious place to unwind and relax! I'm envious!

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  3. Mine was not even a third as nice.

    But you really deserved this, and I'm so glad you and John took the time to do it. The places is incredible!! I absolutely love the waterfalls and bridges!!

    So you need to come visit me now. I live in the woods. I have deer. I have wine. I occasionally make good food. :)

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  4. Wow, what an awesome getaway! Good for you!

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