I've been told that I don't post enough pictures, so this time I posted around 70. That's about 20% of the photos that were taken. Between Chelsea and I, I don't think anything was left undocumented. It's a beautiful area. You'll need to book early to get a camp site, but it's worth the effort if you get a chance. Try to snag site #30. We had complete privacy. Nobody could see us while we sat around the campfire.
We also took a bit of video which again seems little a good match for stuff you find on YouTube. There's no editing or anything like that, but it might make you chuckle.
I walked around the campsites and saw license plates from all over the United States. When I was at Mt. St. Helens, I listened to the crowd shout out where they were from, "New York! Japan! Texas!" It makes me smile to know that I only had to drive an hour or two to get to these places.
Today a plan hatched in January comes to fruition. Seven month ago, we made reservations for the oh-so-popular 
On Saturday, Tim and I hiked up to the top of Tiger Mountain along the West Tiger #3 trail. I’ve read about it online and it’s often mentioned as one of the most popular hikes in the area. Tiger is the mountain (large hill) that stares you in the face as you get off of I-90 on exits 17 or 18 and when you leave my house and head down Trossachs Blvd. There are over 80 miles of trails on Tiger Mountain, but the trail we hiked was 2.5 miles and 2000 vertical feet one way.
Happy Fourth of July! I hope you're remembering the significance of this day by eating lots of meat, drinking lots of beverages, and exploding gunpowder in the sky.
Tim, Chelsea and I headed for Penrose Point State Park on Friday. It rained most of the day but stopped before we arrived at the site. We had just enough light to set up the tents before spending the rest of the night around the campfire. Saturday was full of cornhole, hiking, and sleeping. We packed up on Sunday morning and headed home. The weather was 75-80 and sunny all weekend.
I must say that I've been jubilant since receiving the good news from my doctor. This must be how Paris felt when she was released from jail… minus the withdrawal effects.
A few weeks ago, I ordered some official 
What a weekend. I always forget how far away the east coast is until I'm sitting on a plane for 4815162342 hours. But I would turn right around and do it all over again. I had a great time.
Keep It Simple Stupid. Thanks to RickB for pointing out that my photo frame submission scheme is way too complicated. I had grand plans for how it would work, but A) nobody really uses it and B) it's a crazy process. Maybe those two things are related.
Lost My Marbles
I'm not really into modifying my vehicles. Upgrades to my motorcycle consist of a new seat and a little stick-on clock so I know what time it is. So what's the first real change I made to my Vulcan? I shoved a marble in the engine. Let me explain…
My bike has always popped/backfired when I decelerate hard. The exhaust pipes were also really blue when I bought the bike. After searching around on the web the other night, I learned that this is a common occurrence with Vulcans. It's caused by an EPA addition to the bike that allows extra air into the exhaust system upon deceleration to burn any unused fuel and reduce emissions. Side effects are an overheated exhaust (blue pipes) and loud popping.
The solution is to remove the gas tank, change some air hoses, and remove that valve. The easy solution is to remove the air filter, find that the vacuum hose that controls the valve, and shove a marble in the end. This seems to be a pretty common solution. As one forum poster put it, "You don't need to buy marbles. Just go find any other Vulcan owner. They probably have a bag of 99 marbles laying around."
I was more than a little nervous about the change. After studying some websites and reading the maintenance manual, I was about 90% sure I had the right hose. So I shoved a marble in the end and reassembled the bike. As I turned the key, I had visions of a marble bouncing around in the cylinder, but it all sounded ok. The engine purred as I flew down the road spewing gas droplets into the environment and killing wildlife for 100 miles in all directions.
After a 15 minute test ride, I think I'm going to declare this a tentative success. I was unable to get the bike to backfire and it ran well. The real test will be coming down off of Mt. St. Helens on the big Sunday ride. When I rode down Mt. Rainier last year it was backfiring like crazy.