It took me a little while to edit these pictures from a trip Rebecca and I took about a month ago. It was a very rainy weekend in most of the state, so we decided to go to Ancient Lakes in eastern Washington, where it was actually dry. The trip was a nice short, flat hike through a basalt canyon to a small group of lakes.

On the way through Vantage we saw a couple helicopters buzzing around, and realized that they were working to put out a brush fire. We stopped to watch them for a while, but couldn't be sure if they were putting out an actual fire or doing a drill.

We hiked up the end of the canyon above the lakes, where we pitched our tent. There were not a lot of flat spots up on the rim, but we found a one which was relatively workable.

We ate dinner at about sunset. There were a lot of mosquitoes which we weren't prepared for, probably as a result of all the shallow lakes. We ended up eating dinner quickly and going to bed early to try to avoid the mosquitoes, although we ended up getting more than a few bites.

In the morning we hiked up over the ridge to get a view of dusty lake, which is in the next canyon over. Dusty Lake looks very similar to Ancient Lakes, although we decided it might actually be a bit nicer. Unfortunately I didn't grab my camera for that little jaunt.

After getting back from the Dusty Lake overlook, we went back to camp and tried freeze-dried quinoa and oatmeal for breakfast. The quinoa-oatmeal combination turned out good, although I put a bit too much water in mine and it ended up slightly soupy. I've decided freeze-dried food is easy to over-water, and better crunchy than soupy.