Another day another hat.  My fourth hat of the trip (in case you are scoring at home) and this is the first one that would not look odd in Edison Park.  However, with my very overgrown beard, dark glasses, and Teton baseball cap I do look a little like a wanted bank robber.

Yesterday we hiked up to and through Cascade Canyon (which we also did last year).  This is probably the most popular hike in the park as it combines a short boat trip to the opposite shore of Jenny Lake, stunning views of the lake from Inspiration Point, and then even more amazing views of the surrounding mountains which form the canyon walls of Cascade Canyon.  You can take the shuttle boat and hike .5 miles to Hidden Falls then return back or backpack through the terrain for a month.  14 years ago Corey and I backpacked to Lake Solitude (our first backpacking trip).  Yesterday we hiked to a pretty cool water fall just past the Cascade Trail fork (round trip 9 miles).  We saw two very cool bull moose along the way and, even more exciting, made some good friends.  Our new friends are Grace (age nine), Mike and Kerri.  Grace is nine, loves books, is read to by her parents at night, and enjoys camping with her parents at various national parks.  Henna is almost nine, loves books, is read to by her parents at night, and enjoys camping with her parents at various national parks.  Both girls are also kind of shy and love digging in the dirt for rocks and such (although Grace might like bugs more than Henna).  A quicker friendship has never been.

Grace’s parents are also very cool and, amazingly, know William Least Heat Moon (or Bill as Mike calls him)!    Mike, being a professor of geography at Missouri (MIZZU) also knows a lot about rocks and other cool things (as well as Seinfeld trivia).  Kerri has a good sense of humor (she laughed at my jokes) and has a love for all things literature.  We talked books (Grace has read many of the same books at Henna), living abroad (they lived in China for a year), climate change (one of the few conversations related to the subject this trip that did not include calling our president a Marxist), and bug based ice-cream.  We barely made the last boat back to shore and ended up eating together at the Signal Mountain Lodge.  There we sat tired, filthy, and slap happy.  I could not have asked for a better time.