Skagit Valley = lots of rain

Our most recent trip! Here you have our little home away from home. We took this picture on Friday evening shortly after setting up camp. Those tarps soon became our best friends, as it started to rain Saturday morning and stopped at some time after dinner that evening. Good BC weather. It was only mildly concerning because that river in the background had recently flooded, so there was a risk we'd go for an unplanned swim if things went badly.

(Sarah is in green). Thanks again for the tent, Julien!! It gets so toasty in there with the three of us it's like you're not even camping. Having the river right beside us was très cool.

We went for a walk on Saturday. These, by the way, are the latest spring fashions coming out of Chilliwack. Elegant and functional.

My raincoat leaked - a lot. A good lesson learned for Cape Scott - I need a new raincoat. As we are hiking in for 6 days, I can't afford to get my only sweatshirt soaked on day 2.

Where there's rain, there's slugs. People back east might think they know what a slug is, but they don't. This guy was about as long as my hand, and still smallish, by our standards.

The slugs are gross!! You may remember the ones with the black on them from Nanaimo (you can look through our archives if interested), they don't seem to live on the mainland where we have been so far. Also, Kat, if you're reading this, you would have probably spent about 65 hours looking at the fallen tree we found this guy on. There must have been at least 6 different species of fungus and mosses, bugs, etc. You would love it out here (need we keep reminding you?).

The weather was also very good for 'shrooms. There was a log covered in theses guys.

I love these little mushrooms. We've been trying to get a decent picture of different mushrooms all season. There are so many different things out here than in Ontario (so visit, you bums!).

Maggie knows where the comfort is. But the last thing we were going to do was let a wet dog into our tent.

She stared at the tent for probably about 15 minutes straight. What a suck! I would have let her in if I thought she'd stay on Remi's side ;)

I have no idea what these things are. Most likely a mushroom or a lichen or something, either way they were cool, so I took a picture. On that note, when things are damp and gross, if you don't stick your nose to the ground you won't see anything cool.

I love this picture. We really need to get a book on the various plant/moss/fungus/bug/bird/etc/etc life in BC (*hint*hint* good gift idea!).

On the way out. It stopped raining long enough for us to pack our gear and get most of the way out. Things could have been many times worse, so we're pretty pleased with how it turned out.

If we hadn't had the tarps that my fabulously resourceful and infinitely handsome (can you tell he's looking over my shoulder?) boyfriend rigged up, we would have left first thing Saturday morning!

I'm on a taking-macro-shots-of-flowers kick, so here's a sampling. If you don't know me and print this and sell it, I'll sue you into the ground. On the plus side, I've figured how to resize the pictures, which makes it easier to upload and harder to steal. Take that freeloaders!
Notes on the taxonomy of the above pictures would be welcome. But be specific. Sarah and I are big nerds, so over simplified guesses like "it's a mold" won't do.

Remi & Sarah