(have to add this: yesterday, as we were packing, Harris walked by Howie and actually patted it and said: soon, we’re leaving again soon!)
The view from the lodge
We had a slow start to our day. After our walk, it took us until 11 to actually leave on our trip. We were originally going to go to Mt. Rainier, but the weather forecast just didn’t look promising. Rain is one thing, but temps in the 50-60 range just didn’t appeal to us. So, we headed across the mountains to seek the sun. Some forecasts called for rain and thunderstorms, but the temps at least would be warm.
One of the cache sites just outside of Roslyn
Many years ago, we used to camp with Judy’s brother up at Cooper Lake by Roslyn, which is just over Snoqualmie pass. We haven’t been there in lo, these many years, so we decided to check the area out again. There is a big luxury development going in by Roslyn, called Suncadia. We drove through it and stopped at the lodge, which has a great view. After a quick lunch, we drove into the little town of Roslyn. This town started as a coal mining town, went through the usual downturn, then had a second life as the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska on the TV series Northern Exposure. There isn’t much left from that period now. In fact, there isn’t much of the town at all. Many stores were closed and shuttered. Harris had dropped Judy off to do some browsing, going off to do some geocaching. He thought one and a half hours would be adequate…..turned out twenty minutes was more than enough. But he found 4 caches before he came back, so it wasn’t a total waste of time.
Trying to dodge the thunderstorms
Then we drove on to Moses Lake, and went out for a memorable Chinese dinner. Memorable, because it was a buffet full of the most fried food we had ever seen in one place before. Not a place we’ll return to. (Note: Judy gets to pick the next restaurant we go to.) We stayed at Suncrest Resort, which had a large hot tub pool. The water was warm, not terribly hot, but felt good enough to us
Wednesday, August 11, 2010, Day 143
Our dinnerware should look so good
We had a bit of a rude awakening. Some small plane was buzzing the area over and over again at 6 AM. When it finally stopped, we tried to catch a few more zzz, so we again got a rather late start. We drove down to the Walla Walla area, a region of the state we hadn’t explored before. Judy wanted to visit the Whitman Mission National Historical Site. The mission was burned in 1847, so there isn’t anything of the original buildings left to see. Sites of the buildings have been outlined, and the visitor center has a short movie and a pretty good little museum. We made a picnic lunch, toured the area including a short walk along the original Oregon Trail, then drove on to Grangeville, Idaho via highways 12 and 95. As we drove, the temperatures jumped up to a high of 82, and then back down again to the 60’s when we reached our campsite at Bear Den RV resort.
A hatchet...
Judy along the actual Oregon Trail
We haven’t been through all the states yet by any stretch of the imagination, but so far, we think Washington is surely the most diverse state, geographically speaking. We live close to Puget Sound. We’ve been to the Pacific Ocean, and a rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula. We’ve been through mountains, visited volcanoes, and hiked in deserts. Today we drove by miles and miles of golden fields of wheat, then through hills of scrub brush. In short, one could never leave Washington state and still enjoy almost all Mother Nature has to offer. As we headed into Idaho, forests of pine trees appeared again. So much to see! That’s why we love traveling in Howie.
The actual site
Drawing of how the site was laid out
No comments:
Post a Comment