Tolmie State Park
We stopped by Tolmie State Park near low tide, and saw sooooo many tiny crabs. Had fun just watching them doing their crabby thing. Besides the beach and about 3 miles of forest trail, Tolmie also has an underwater park...
Author: Rob Portinga
Divorce Rate After Bariatric Surgery
Divorce after significant weight loss, in particular with bariatric surgery, is a topic I hear come up fairly often during support groups and in online forums. When it does, time and again a divorce rate of 80-85% keeps popping up....
Guillemot Cove & Stump House
This was a short hike, we looped around some trails at Guillemot Cove Nature Reserve, which includes the “Stump House”, a bit of a “house” carved out of an old cedar trunk. It’s rumored the Stump House was once used...
Mt St. Helens – Coldwater Lake
On today’s trip, we headed down to Mt. St Helens. We had hoped to hike the Boundary Trail from the Johnston Ridge Observatory down to Hummocks Trailhead, but the cloud level was just way to low. Instead, we went down...
Ipsut Creek Backpacking Trip
My first backpacking trip… we did a bit of an easy hike in to the Ipsut Creek Campground along the Carbon River on the North side of the Mt. Rainier National Park. Once there, we did another hike, not quite...
Your Input Needed: Online Support Groups
Over the past 9 years, I’ve done a variety of things related to health and wellness. From The Wake Up Call Radio Show, to facilitating a men’s support group for the center where I had my surgery to podcasts and...
Surprise Lake & Clipper Mine
On this hike, we did the fairly short trek (just over 5 miles round trip) up to Surprise Lake, located off an old logging road just across the Carbon River from Mt Rainier National Park. Near Old Baldy Mountain, it’s...
Point Defiance Beach
I’ve done Point Defiance before.. you can watch the previous video if you want to see it… but this time we took a different route. Instead of being up on the trails, we timed things with a low tide and...
Umtanum Creek
We wandered over to the other side of the mountains today… the Yakima River area, specifically along Umtanum Creek. The climate on the East side of the Cascades is very different than on the West, more arid, much warmer, and...
Reflections – 9 Years Later
Nine years. What seems like a lifetime ago that went by in a blink of an eye. It was 9 years ago today I “went under the knife” and had gastric bypass surgery. While I will be the first to...
