Studio711.com – Ben Martens

I haven’t had a real weekend recap in a while, but this one was so full, it deserved a post. Commence the bulleted list!

• On Saturday, I met Tyla and Oskar at Twin Falls State Park. I hiked this alone last summer and thought it would be a good quick hike for us. We just went up to the falls and came back down (only ~800 feet vertical and ~2 miles roundtrip.) Oskar loved all the water although I was a bit nervous to let him swim in the swiftly flowing current. The trail was completely packed with people. It’s probably a combination of it being Mother’s Day weekend and most of the good mountain hiking still being snow covered. It was a beautiful hike with a beautiful girl. At the falls we made a video for nephew David who had a birthday on Friday. Pictures are available in the photo gallery.
• We headed back to Kirland, picked up Tyla’s sister Megan, and headed up to the outlet malls in Marysville. After some shopping and exchanging by the girls (I picked up a couple things too), we came back home and grabbed some Mongolian Grill dinner.
• Instead of heading to church on Sunday morning, we participated in a 5k run/walk which was partially sponsored by Tyla’s company. The main event that morning was a half-marathon. We walked although I’m tempted to try to run it next year. Maybe I’ll just run the downhill parts. (FYI, Pastor posts all his sermons online which is great when you miss a Sunday.)
• We headed back to my house and jumped on the motorcycle for some exploration. I thought it would be fun to go on a ferry so I looked at a map and stabbed my finger on the Bremerton ferry. After getting on, we found out it was an hour ride. It was our own little hillbilly cruise. Round trip was $18 for 2 hours on a boat on the Puget Sound. Not too shabby! Bremerton wasn’t much to look at, but once we got out into the trees of the Kitsap Peninsula, the roads got pretty interesting. I’ll have to look at the GPS logs to figure out exactly where we went, but we cruised along the north and east sides of the Hood Canal straight west of Bremerton. After stopping to check out Belfair State Park and getting some ice cream, we missed the return ferry by 5 minutes and had to wait an hour for the next one. Looking at a map, I realize now it would have been faster to drive around the Sound, but the ferry was fun too. Next time we’ll know to grab a ferry schedule. We rode through a small shower on the way home but thankfully dodged the heavy rain. I wouldn’t mind heading back over there with a little better idea of the route I want to take. Pictures are in the photo gallery. It’s the first 8 new photos.
• The weekend was capped off with some delicious homemade burgers, fries, and fresh raspberries and strawberries. Yum!

Thanks for a great weekend Tyla!