Before heading into the woods, my car takes a nice group photo of us all.

Just up the trail we paused to take a photo in front of Blue Lake. Now you may be wondering why Andra has her sleeping pad strapped across her chest. Well, I could tell you that she's just weird and most of you know that's true. I could also point out her Gilligan hat, but in all fairness I must explain why her pad is on her chest - right?

Ok, ok, I'll talk! Andra has a bad rotator cuff and when the backpacking straps press on the front of it, it can hurt. We experimented with things we'd normally carry like our towel and this Termorest. We discovered the Termorest could keep the backpack straps off the sensitive area. Some days she packed it as normal and some days she wore it in the front just to confuse the forest animals. You should have seen the crazy looks we got from the squirrels!