Our hosts prep for departure

Our hosts were getting ready to go on a month long backpacking hike from Yellowstone to northern Montana. So, since they were also hosting us and our kids, and our kids were really enjoying the spending time with our hosts, but they can be a bit much when they are enjoying themselves. If I were our hosts, as much as I love our kids, I would have wanted a break, too. Especially if I was getting ready to spend a month away from home (which we were currently doing).

As a family, we decided to go to go check out a state park or two while our hosts mowed the lawn and cared for their livestock and got the house ready for the houssitter.

We drove to a local state park called fill this in later. When we got there, we ate lunch while another party of people had rented out a section with a volleyball net and a small pavilion. Unlike the last time we did this in (I can’t remember right now where that was), the people at the party weren’t starring at us like we suddenly arrived to crash our party and we had 3 heads a piece. I admit, that would be quite a site. But none of us have ever had 3 heads, and we rarely come to crash a party since we had children. We usually bring the party :) While we ate lunch, the group played volleyball and enjoyed each other. The weather was windy and a little cool, but sunny. After we ate, we walked over the rocks down to the shore and enjoyed throwing rocks in the water, trying to skip rocks, and just enjoying the natural beauty of our surroundings and appreciating that the sun was out and it wasn’t sweltering hot in the summer. That was a welcome change to our Tennessee heat.

While the kids dipped their toes in the water, I was experimenting with the focus of the camera and the rocks. Here are a couple of shots experimenting with having the foreground in focus:

And the background in focus:

After we had spent some time here, we drove to a park closer to the coast. As we were going through this area, we were going through different Tsunami zones should the big one hit and a tsunami were to strike the coast. Clearly the Pacific Northwest has this on their minds, the big question is when will it happen, or if it will happen.