Free food and used shoes

Couldn't let a lovely fall weekend day pass without a hunt for wild blueberries thinly disguised as a hike in the Cascade mountains, just a bit over an hour's drive east. And north. Then west and south, then east again. The road is very indirect. The day before I'd scored when killing time at a consignment store. I've needed new hiking boots for over a year, my 1997 Lowa's are about dead on the inside. Loosely living by the Compact standards, which I do just slightly better than my no-sugar standard and worse than my no-dairy standard, I'm not required to buy used shoes. But these Mephisto suede hikers looked barely used and were probably only there because the original purchaser hiked Everest and lost both feet to frostbite. Even the tongue slot for the laces was virginal. So here I am posing in my newly acquired shoes I paid less than $20 for (retail similar? I couldn't find them. But men's equivalents were upwards $350) and some early A.D. Maddox original hand-painted jeans. I'm stainding next to a rock pile, one of the few we left standing. Nothing is more fun than wiping out a carefully constructed rock tower (there were hundreds of them) by flinging another rock. Bonus points for using a small rock as your weapon. So this is not much of a hiking outfit, but I was more concerned with these:
Plus I knew that it would get us away from the high-pitched whine of offspring. On such a nice day parking was tight. The vending machine for parking passes was busted in one area and non-existant where I'd bought one last year. Sorry Northwest Forest Pass beneficiaries. Fix your freaking machines.