Mail Call!!

 Hullo!! I received some nifty mail over the last little while.

First up, a post card from Oregon... must be Little Fox!

It's a post card from a section of the real PCT!! Cool!!

One day... one day... I'd like to hike the PCT for real... or at least a section of it.

Next up is a card from Jerry & Ben...

Awww... it's a Sympathy card... 

Yeah... we are sad about Gramma too... still hard to believe she is gone.

Thanks guys!

An Early Spring Hike

 Hullo... today I am out on an adventure at Somenos Marsh.

It is beary bird friendly here.

Let's see what we can find...

They have signs about invasive plants... like Himalayan blackberries... so yummy but so bad for native plants.

I wonder what it looks like in the summer... when all this grass is green.

It's pretty though.

Lots of bird houses...

And birds swooping around but we couldn't get any pics...

Beary nice boardwalks otherwise I'd be getting a soaker!

We didn't see any bald eagles today but they are around...

Oooh... do you see that...

The pussy willows are out...

Apparently there's a little creek that flows through this marsh and... there are salmon and trout in it!

It's over there...

Hmmm... OK... if you say so... this would be hard to find when everything is green and bushy!

See... marshy!!!

Oh, yeah, the invasive yellow iris... we have them in a marsh at home too. Beary bad...

They crowd out native plants... might look pretty but pretty is no excuse for invasion... just saying. Hmph.

I like these boardwalks...

Ooooh look... there are apparently beaver lodges here too!!! That's the beauty of a marsh... so many different life forms here.

Errr... maybe that's a beaver lodge?? Don't know...

Beary nice...

Such a nice day...

Bus Bingo!!! Another Winning Card!

 Hullo!!! You know Beanie Mouse and the Bus Bingo thingie?? Well... basically, you put London bus numbers on a Bingo sheet and everytime Beanie rides that bus, you mark it off!!

This is my fourth... correction... FIFTH Bus Bingo card!!! You need to get a horizontal line, a vertical line, a Diagonalley line, and all 4 corners...

And it happened!!!!

Some buses are more common than others and the 214 was holding me up but... it's done!

Now, that means I need to make a new Bus Bingo card!!

Thanks Beanie!!

Finished the Virtual Pacific Crest Trail (PCT)!!!

 Almost there... one step in front of the other... almost there... almost there...

Oh hullo... I have news!!! We (Little Fox and I) are almost done the virtual Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) on The Conqueror Challenges!!

Seeee... only 8.41 km (that's about 5 miles)... soooo close... LF and I are both hiking so this could go by very fast...

It's been a beary long road... 4000 km... 2500 miles. And every hike we did inched us along the route.

It's been really fun.

But I am beary tired too... 

It's hard to keep the human motivated!

But it's also been a great way to explore local trails...

See this... Spotted Coralroot orchid! It is (let me wiki this): "Corallorhiza maculata is a myco-heterotroph; it lacks chlorophyll and obtains energy by parasitizing the mycelium of fungi in the family Russulaceae."

It's beary cool! And I found a clump of them... wonder if there is a clump of Russula mushrooms here in the fall too?

We are getting closer!!! Less than 2 km... that's about a mile! We are doing it today!

There's a nice clump of camas up here... nice.

And... just like that... we are done the PCT!!!

The app bleeped and burped and... we got our Finisher certificate...

Wow... we're really done... hard to believe. There were points in California (longest state in history) where I thought we'd never get to Oregon...

But we have the final postcard too...

And the app map has confirmed it...

Time for a celebratory snack!!!! And thanks to LF for joining up with us to do this... not sure we could have done 4000 km in 24 months (the timeframe to complete a Conqueror Challenge)... not unless I had taken up jogging and this little bear is most definitely NOT a jogger...

Now... we just await our medals... coming in the mail... unless Canada Post strikes (AGAIN!) on May 22... ugh... Don't they know Real Mail is essential to a stuffie? Should be declared an essential stuffie service... hmph.