More hikes, Deception Pass, and our cool finds!

Okay, so it's sorta late and I'm fairly tired, so I'm going to try and make this a fast post - high on the pictures, low on the jib jabber... 'try' being an action verb here! We'll see if I can do it.

Last week on Thursday we went hiking a couple of towns south of us at a fun trail Scott did on his bike before we got here. The weather was iffy and my camera battery was almost dead. Almost immediately we noticed we weren't the only ones there.
Flying overhead and chatting at us were these long necked birds. After this batch came another, and another; more and more and more.
I wanted a closer look so I lead our little hiking party off road and we followed them to a little lake that wasn't too far off the beaten path. It was like the mecca for these birds! They were everywhere and more kept coming!
We parked above this lake and it had been empty then, but during our short hike, they had all flown over us and landed here and were all talking to each other...loudly.
As we got closer we realized that they were trumpeter swans!!! How awesome is that?! Hundreds of wild trumpeter swans right in front of us! We hiked within 40 feet of the lake before the ground got to wetland-ish for us.
The noise was so wonderful, all of them honking or whatever their noise is called... it's much nicer than a goose or a duck, even if I don't know what it's really called.
Then we took Garrett to cub scouts with Scott's ward and man, they were the most organized scouter that I have seen! They worked on helping the boys get a belt loop and a pin all together and they had all the paperwork and reference materials they needed and they had a denner and assistant denner and sent Garrett home with a teeny bit of homework to finish so he could earn both the loop and pin! She had sent out an e-mail of the month's activities and everything we needed to know... she was an on-the-ball leader!

On Saturday, we woke up early and headed north to Deception Pass to hike. We stopped a little south of there at a lake so the boys could play with their R.C. boats. Little did we know we had driven into the world of Scooby Doo where the lake water is pretend green and has the viscosity somewhere between jell-o and pudding. There were even tracks where some sort of monster mobile had driven out of the depths to wreak havoc on the Mystery Machine no doubt.You may think I'm joking, but this water we seriously icky and thicky! There was too much growing in this water!

There seems to be an abundance of overgrowth everywhere in this state. It doesn't matter if it is living or dead, there will be something else growing on it!
On our hike the kids were on the lookout for how many different types of mushrooms they could find. The grand total was 9. Here was their favorite. They called it the pancake mushroom.
Garrett and Owen struggled to prove who was the best trail blazer. We ended up letting Owen lead going up, and Garrett lead on the way down.
Emmy was content to bring up the tail with Daddy. He found a stick he liked and it became his own hiking stick for the trip. Teagan was manning the video camera during the hike...that's a motion sickness video waiting to watched :-)
This was our trail... I had to take a picture of it because it was just so stunningly beautiful. Don't you think of a Robert Frost poem when you see it, or some cheesy Hallmark saying?!
After hiking there for an hour or two, we drove the rest of the way up to Deception Pass to this wonderful huge bridge and parked on the side of the road just before we got to it.
It overlooked a passageway where the water was running from inland out to the Pacific Ocean. The current was moving so fast when we were there and the water was an indescribable shade of aqua!The camera couldn't even capture the true color of it.
It was a little nerve wracking to walk across the bridge at first. Garrett was really nervous and Daddy couldn't hold Emmett on his hip for fear that if a car startled him he might drop Emmett over the edge!
This was what we saw when we looked down... fast moving water and hard looking rocks. We had to talk to Owen about not being silly because the likelihood of being 'recovered' after falling off this bridge was very slim. He calmed down after he learned was recovered' meant.
On the edge of the cliff walls were these tall pines with these teeny tiny pine cones. They were only about the size of a man's fingernail!
This is looking out to the Pacific.
Halfway across the bridge we took a trail leading under it and over to the other side of the street. Here is another shot of that incredibly aqua water.
I think the architecture of the bridge is so great! Scott works with a man who painted it when he was in college as a way to pay for school.
On the other side of the bridge was a plaque explaining how Deception Pass got it's name. The poor guy who came here felt he have been deceived and gave it it's name because of it.
The coolest part, for me, was that it gave the equations for knots and fathoms! That way land lovers like me could understand the water speed and depth just like any seasoned pirate! Owen still didn't grasp what was meant even in 'English' translations, so I told him that one fathom was equal to one Daddy, so the pass was between 4 and 37 Daddy deep...he understood it better then.
(Stick with me, I'm almost done! I know it hasn't been short, but it's all too cool to leave anything out!)

After our bridge walking escapade we drove into the camping area to scope it out for future use. There we came across this gorgeous bird...
I got out of the car and snuck up on him behind the tall grasses. It was sprinkling and cold, but very exciting too! Once I got too close, he turned and yelled at me and flew to the other side of the little lake we were at and continued to yell at me for a few seconds.. it was very funny!

So I got back in the car and we decided to head home. We had to drive right by him to get out of the campgrounds and I was once again close to him so I snagged another great shot of him. The kids loved learning that the Great Blue Heron is Granny's favorite bird... it made him the perfect ending for our fun day trip!