In January it was unbelievable how low gas prices went. We are used to seeing  it around $3.50 a gallon.

For this year's late summer/early fall road trip we headed to the southwest and did a lot of driving.  Our first stop was camping at Newbury Crater in Oregon.  We then stayed two nights at Mom and Dad's in Grass Valley before heading to Las Vegas.  Along the way we visited Rachel, NV home of the Little A'Le'Inn.  It's the closest town to Area 51 and it is known for hosting extra terrestrial visitors... Humans are welcome too!

A little less then a month after the 4th of July the Swiss celebrate there Independence Day on the 1st of August. It's a good reason for this 5/8 Swiss household (I'm full Swiss and Tanya is 1/4) to throw a party with some seared meat, potato chips, salad, wine, beer.....

We had a good time.

Sometime in July we had Mom and Dad California and brother Tim with his family at our house. It was a good week with many family activities going on. On the weekend we went to Darington, WA for their annual Blue Grass Festival. It was a very toasty hot day and so we picked some bands we'd liked to hear to minimise the exposure to the elements.  This is a photo of Tim and his wife Kimberly.  Dad is in the background.

The driver of the blue minivan (you can see it's crumpled front end) was badly injured and the wife of the pick up driver took a hit as well.  

We were physically fine just rattled.

We had a fender bender!  On our way home from work one afternoon early June we witnessed an accident. We are in a line of traffic on a two lane road when a minivan swerved out of the oncoming lane and veered into ours without slowing.  He hit a large pickup truck in front of us head on. The truck took the brunt of the force and then rolled back into us.  We are just glad we were not first in line.

Our next hike was to Barcly lake. A somewhat more sane distance. This time Tanya joined us. Some of those places are just neatly tucked away and require some dirt road tolerance. Two years ago Tanya and I tried to get to the trailhead with our Corolla and had to retreat, because the road was too washed out for our car. This time though Kenn graciously offered to drive us in his 4 WD vehicle. We all agreed that this hike offers the most for the footwork you have to put in to it.

Earlier this year we Invited our friends to a night of worship at our church. Afterwords we went to a local brewery in Everett. Since it was our first time at the Scuttlebutt brew pub, Lyle ordered the sampler plate of beer. Those were some big samples... and lots of them!  We like the place pretty well and keep returning to it.

Sometimes it is just nice to go out for breakfast. I don't think this was the first time that we had breakfast in this café. Wendy's Café is one of the places that's on our list for an excellent breakfast. We like the chicken theme that Wendy has going in her establishment. This food is excellent and supersized. It is also just a wonderful time sitting at a table across from my wife sipping coffee and eating a good Denver omelette.

Dear Family and Friends, 2015

Because this winter we had almost no Snow, it only took a little sun to burn off the snow there was. That meant, hiking was possible in February. Normally it is only possible after May. Kenn and I took the chance and did our first of 3 hikes, this one was to Monte Cristo. On the map it looked like a little stroll along a river in a valley. Not so. It was quite the hike for a first time of the year.

Monte Cristo is an abandoned mining settlement that was connected with a railrode.

Wir hatten fast kein Schnee den letzten Winter, und deshalb reichte ein wenig Sonne um das wenige zu schmelzen. Das bedeutete das die  Wanderung schon im Februar möglich war. Normalerweise ist das nur nach May möglich. Kenn und Ich habe die Gelegenheit beim Schopf gepackt, und wanderten unsere erste fon 3 Wanderungen, diese nach Monte Cristo. Ein Spaziergang entlang eines Flusses entlang der Talsole. So schien es auf der Karte. Nei nein. Das wahr ein richtiger Marsch für das erste mal im Jahr.

Monte Cristo ist eine verlassene Bergbau Ortschaft die mit Bahn erreichbar war.

4th of July: For the fireworks we went to Legion park in north Everett. It is so much smaler then Seattle's Lake Union show, that it just feels better. We went together with our neighbors using public transportation.