Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

A couple of weeks ago I did a little road trip with my 94-year-old mom and my adult daughter, over the North Cascades Highway and down to visit the history museum in Okanogan, near where my grandmother grew up. Along the way we enjoyed some great scenery, and Barry George at the Okanogan County Historical Society museum went way out of his way to find information for us about the family and their property. We picked up Mom Monday morning and headed north on I5. I was too busy talking and missed our exit, so we took an extra "scenic route" before finding our way onto Highway 20 (the North Cascades Highway). The highway opened in 1972, so it was brand-new when I was a kid, and I remember the excitement of it when we drove it on a family trip. The entrance sign for the North Cascades National Park. I love the "glacier" atop the rocks. We made a couple of stops along the way for scenery, including one where my daughter and I blasted through a half-mile scenic trail, hur...

The Ninja Librarian has gone hiking again (or still, depending on when you last visited). So we're having    Friday a bit early. This one's from April 2014 and might help answer the question of what I'm doing out there... Pete the Peak-Bagging Pika This is a pika. He would be just a bit large to hold in your hand . He's also a wild animal, so if you see one, treat him with res pect and don't try to pick him up. Pika Pete wasn't like the other pikas.  Oh, they all liked the rocky talus slopes high up on the mountains.  But for most of them it was enough to find a burrow near an alpine meadow where they could harvest their winter provisions and watch the seasons change from the front porch.  Pete was different. Pete would sit on his front porch and, instead of looking down over the meadow and thinking about eating grass and harvesting stalks of delicious flowers, and preparing for winter, he would look up at the high peaks and dream about climbing them.  He ...