We talked about going hiking early after we first woke up this morning, but figuring out finance, working on taxes, and other last minute Friday things got in our way. We were finally heading out the door at 2:30, a bit worried we wouldn’t get a chance to hike as much as we wanted to before it got dark.

We drove to Latourell Falls the long way. And isn’t God’s timing just so amazing and interesting sometimes?

We arrived at the trailhead fully intent on hiking to the Upper Falls. It was just .8 miles up and then 1.1 miles down the other side. We climbed our way to the first overlook, just .1 miles above the parking lot. My legs burned already from the incline. We looked at the waterfall and the path far below us. It lead straight to the bottom of Latourell Falls. The water crashed into the rocks and the sound roared to where we stood.

“Let’s go down there instead,” Rick suggested.

My legs were so relieved.

We made our way down the path, the mist hit us full on and we were still 20 yards away. We continued on on the asphalt path until we were just 15 feet or so from the base of the ??? foot waterfall. The recent rains had the falls thick with water destined for the Pacific Ocean.

A young couple came up beside us and asked Rick if he would take their picture. We love to take strangers pictures, so he happily agreed and then offered to do a mini photo shoot with them and email them the pictures. To say they were thrilled was an understatement. The posed in front of the waterfall, on the bridge, and then later, after they’d made their way back to the parking lot, they stood on the bridge as we stood 100 feet below them and we took more pictures. They kissed once, but I missed it. So I leaned over and kissed Rick, they instantly knew I was signaling them to go in for a kiss one more time.

It was a sweet encounter. The young man was completely smitten by his girlfriend and we could tell she adored him as well. She works for a major league ball team and told us if we are ever in their area she would totally get us tickets to a ball game or at least a tour of the stadium.

It turns out that they live in the same town as my sweet friend Betty now lives. I guess when me make a trip to visit our Betty we just might have to go to a ball game as well.