From ed Mon May 15 11:50:26 2000 WARNING NON-FSJ Vehicles involved in this trail ride... I decided to give my loving wife the best present I could think of..the house all to herself for the day... I went to bed at 1.30 Saturday night, (couldn't get away from the computer), and woke up at 7.30am Sunday. Got up, had a shower, threw some laundry in the washer, emptied the dryer, emptied the dishwasher, wash the pots and pans, woke the sleepy heads up, (aka, the kids), made lunches, loaded the Jeep (my TJ that replaced Ol' White as my trail vehicle), gave my half asleep wife a kiss good bye, wished her a Happy Mother's Day, (yes, she did know a couple of days prior to us going), jumped in the Jeep and headed off to Mission to meet up with new found aquaintance Richard and his buddy Jeff, who was riding shotgun. Richard works for an outfit hosting my companies web site. We made the rendezvous around 11.30, said our hellos and did the handshakes, then headed out to try our luck at our first route. We wanted to go in at Dewdney, just outside of Mission where Hwy #7 crosses the railroad tracks. We followed the main spur road up to mile 15, the took the fork and headed east to cross through Marguerites Pass, and over into the Chehalis Valley. This was the first time I head been in this way this year, and they had decommisioned the road recently. The road had not had any maintenance down, so the branches were starting to grow in and the road bed itself had been crossditched with waterbars on all the uphill sections. We got 2/3 of the way up the valley when we ran into the snowline. On the road ahead of us was the beginnings of a 2 foot high snowbank, not good news. We still had to climb approx. another 600-1000 feet in elevation..so..being smart guys, we abandoned this route and retraced our steps back to Hwy#7, and the headed east on it to drive out to the Sasquatch Inn, which is a well known loggers resteraunt and motel situated at the junction of Hwy#7, the Chehalis Valley Road and The Harrison Lake West Road. We flew up the Chehalis Lake road heading for mile 23, which would put us at the north end of Chehalis Lake, at the Forest Campsite there. Richard, not caring or thinking about being behind me, ate my dust for all 23 miles in..poor guy.. Sun was shining, he had his TJ's ragtop folded back and the entire interior of his Jeep was white with dust.We had a quick lunch at the campsite, then crossed over Mystery Valley into Harrison Lake area, and headed North for 15 minutes to get to Twenty Mile Bay. We drove down to the lake and played in the shallows of the lake shore and played on the beach sand, driving in and out of the shallow ponds and spring runoffs that flowed into the lake. Wrapped up there, and then made a bee line south down the Harrison Lake West Road. We stopped to play at a sandy hill, and Richard showed how easy a locker in the rear axle takes an obstacle that my TJ had to work at to get up... < My TJ..stock, 31 inch tires, 4.10 gears, 4 banger> < Richards..4 inch lift kit, 33 inch tires, rear locker, six cyl. 3.73 gears > Fun over, we skedaddled south again, eventually coming out at the Sasquatch Inn completing a 60 mile loop on forest service roads. We said our goodbyes, with a promise to get together again for another trail ride soon, then joined the cars heading back to Vancouver. Got back home at 7.00, just in time to wash the Jeep so my wife could take a "clean" car to work tomorrow. For those of you with kids, you know how hectic life can get running around doing the kid taxi service, errands to run, chores at home, etc. I usually work six days a week, my wife works 5-6 days a week.. not much time to just sit like a bump on a log and do absolutely NOTHING to only do want you want to do, no kids, no husband, no phone, no friends over, no kids friends over..nada, nothing, zero to do or have to do.. SO, keeping that in mind, that was how I spent my Mom's Day, taking all the distractions and annoyances away from her...I think she enjoyed it.. Ed Vancouver Canada