The Chuckanut

Sunday, August 14, 2011

We were up fairly early for breakfast at the Newhalem Creek campground near Newhalem, WA. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, toast, cereal and fresh fruit at the picnic table. We had already taken the screen houses down and stowed them for travel.

After a quick stop at the dump station, we headed west on Route 20 with Fred and Wilma in the lead. We went through the towns of Marblemount, Rockport and Concrete enroute to Sedro-Woolley.  At Sedro-Woolley we stopped at the North Cascade National Park and Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest VC where we collected 8 stamps in each of our passport books. The cancelation station sounded like a jackhammer with all of the stamping going on. Not all of the stamps were “official” but they were all put in the passport books.

We all have really enjoyed the beauties of the North Cascade National Park and Ross Lake Recreation Area over the past few days.

We drove up route 11 (Chuckanut Drive) and ate a late lunch of salad and pizza at Larrabee State Park along the way.  Chuckanut Drive is a winding and very narrow road enroute to the park, with rocks overhanging the road at regular intervals. When we left the park, we continued north to Bellingham, WA, and returned to Sedro-Woolley on I-5.  There were fewer white knuckles on the return trip. Wilma had read many reports of how pretty Chuckanut Drive is, but would have enjoyed the Deception Pass area much more. If anyone gets a chance to choose between the two, don’t choose the Chuckanut! Not much chance to even see the water along the drive.

We are now parked in a KOA just out of Burlington.  Everyone has taken a shower and we all feel a little more human after three nights off the grid.

More from the Bedrock Bunch tomorrow.

b

Saturday, August 13, 2011
Be sure to click on the pictures to see an enlargement.

You should have seen the marshmallow roast last night!  We had purchased a bag of the super huge marshmallows, and our advice is, don’t buy them.  They are way too big. After getting them just right over the coals, it’s just about impossible to get the whole thing in your mouth, and if you don’t, they make a really gooey mess all over your hands and face.  It really is quite funny to watch the other three! This one doesn’t really care for marshmallows, so didn’t partake of the fun.

That's a BIG marshmallow!

The batty program last night in the ampitheater was okay, but sort of long.  There was to be one Saturday night about glaciers, and we decided against going. Then about an hour before it was to start, some high school kids came through the campground saying they had just spent three weeks in the wilderness area, and were going to share their experiences at the program, so we ended up going.  They were pretty good, and one boy was extremely funny.  They had qualified for this trip by having a higher GPA at their high schools, and were in the “green” clubs, or some other such stuff. They were from different high schools throughout Oregon and Washington. There were 20 of them, and they split into two groups. One hiked while the other canoed on Ross Lake.  Then they changed places. Most of them had never been out like that, and really enjoyed the experience.

So we might as well go backwards through the day.  We again roasted marshmallows over a small campfire, and again, it makes a real mess.  We only have seven of the big ones left, so it will make one more campfire fun.

Just before making the campfire, Barney told us about a walk he had just done, and he found a small old powerhouse that was pretty neat. So we hopped in the Rubble cavemobile and drove over to the powerhouse. Then we went down the “Trail of the Cedars” just to see what it was. It is spectacular!  It is a fairly large grove of beautiful old growth cedars along the Skagit River. It is a loop trail, but at the far end is a suspension bridge to cross the river and goes right into the little village of Newhalem that we had visited Friday.  We are really happy we did not miss that walk!

It's a really tall tree!

This tree is huge!

Who can resist climbing a tree?

What fun!

The moss growing on the limbs
is beautiful.





From the proud child of a
bridge-builder.

Nap time came after our drive to the Wilderness Center, then we had another great lunch/dinner at the picnic table under the screen house.  We really enjoy this type of “eating out.”  And it is helping make a small dent in all the fresh stuff in our refers.

We took a fairly short road trip down to the Wilderness Information Center to get our Parks Passport stamps. The Center is headquarters for anyone hiking into the National Park, which is all wilderness area. Permits are required even for a day hike into the park.  Even though the National Park VC is just down the road from the campground, it is actually inside the National Park. We are really in the Ross Lake Recreation Area corridor.  We also stopped at a little fish hatchery, and were encouraged to feed the fish, so we did.

After cleanup from breakfast, we hopped in the Rubblemobile.

Breakfast was again enjoyed at the picnic table inside the screen house. Just enough bugs flitting around to make the screen house really enjoyable.

Now if you are really confused about the order of our day, start here and read up the page!
w

Falling Waters

Friday, August 12, 2011

Surrounded by fir and cedar trees, with underbrush of salal, Oregon grape, ferns and other unidentified green stuff, with a lot of mossy carpet, we are really enjoying our time at the Newhalem campground of North Cascades National Park in northern Washington State.

Our campsite is beautiful!

One Screenhouse is set up for the picnic table
and the other for our chairs.

Fred is really kicked back with feet up!

Today was a pretty laid back day. We had breakfast of omelet and pancakes about 9 am – not an early morning! We went back up route 20 a few miles to take a closer look at Gorge Creek. The creek falls 30 to 100 feet down the face of a rock cliff into a gorge that widens from a few feet where the water enters, to 100 or so feet where the road crosses it. It continues to get deeper and wider until it enters the lake backed up by the Gorge dam, several hundred yards from where the road crosses.

See our four shadows on the bridge?

Betty and Barney looking waaaaaay down
to the river.

After a sufficient amount of oohing and aahing, we drove back down route 20 to the town of Newhalem, WA, where the power house for the Gorge Dam is located.

The town of Newhalem is a Seattle City Light company town. It exists to house employees of the dam and power house. We went through the VC – no stamp available – but an interesting stop. We also took the self guided power house tour and walked part way up the Ladder Falls trail behind the power house.

JD Ross, the man who envisioned the Skagit river dams for bringing power to Seattle, turned the area around the power house into a garden spot after its completion in 1924. He would bring influential friends and businessmen from Seattle to the dam to impress them with the beauty of the area. He convinced many that the three dam system to bring low cost power to Seattle was a worthwhile venture. It must have worked because the Ross and Diablo dams were subsequently built upstream from the Gorge dam, and all are owned by Seattle City Light.

Fred "driving" the old #6 steam engine
from the Seattle City Light RR.

There are waterfalls of all sizes about everywhere along the North Cascades highway, and we have been enjoying them.

We got back to camp around 3:30 and just relaxed and read for the rest of the day. The day was clear and warm, with a light breeze. You couldn’t ask for much better.

We might go to the Ranger talk at the ampitheater tonight. It is about bats. There is also a light show at Ladder Falls after the batty program, but we probably won’t go to that. That would be after our bedtime!

North Cascades

Thursday, August 11, 2011

What a great day!

We got a semi early start. From the RV park it was only a few miles into the town of Winthrop. Winthrop is an old western look town that is a pretty good tourist trap.

We stopped to take a few pictures, and then went on to the area marked for RV parking.  Plenty of picnic tables there, so we fixed our breakfast and ate outside. Wonderful start to the day.

We took our sweet time going on down the road, but were careful to let traffic go on by as we were sightseeing.  It wasn’t long before we started to climb, and then the beauty of the hills spread out and up before us.  We stopped frequently for photo ops.

After crossing the summit, the major attractions are Diablo and Ross Lakes.

We stopped at most of the viewpoints and checked out one of the campgrounds. We were on the west side now, and the clouds were hanging in around the tops of the peaks, so I’m sure we missed more stunning views. We moved on down the hill to Newhalem, where the North Cascades VC is.  Our first duty was to find a campsite. We found a very suitable site that we can share, and with our geezer cards, it is $6 a day for each rolling cave. Kind of makes up for that not so favorite RV park of last night.  Of course it does not have electric hookups, but we are getting a pretty good Verizon signal. 

After getting registered and parked in the site, we took off on a trail to the VC. The sign at the entrance had said it was one-half mile.  It was an easy trail, although we did come to an area of elevation change, but nothing too serious.  At the VC we got our parks passport books stamped, and then watched the park movie, which was excellent.

By the time we got back to camp, breakfast had long since worn off. We fixed another great meal and ate at the picnic table sheltered by our screen house.

Barney is checking out the fishing regs, and the rest of us are running down our computer batteries. We will try to get this posted before hitting the end of the battery life, then will put it on the inverter as we travel tomorrow. We will be staying put in this campground for two or three days, and just do a little sightseeing.

Good night from the rolling caves. Hope all is well with all of you.

w

Trickles and Tickets

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

We made it a fairly long day of doing nothing special.  We get quite a bit of practice with that.

After listening to the staccato chirping notes of the rain birds as we went to sleep, we arose early this morning. We took a short walk in the park, did a little computing, and then had a leisurely breakfast of eggs, hash browns, biscuits, jelly and honey at the large picnic table at our site. It was about 7:00 or 8:00, depending on whether you use local time or your internal clock.  However, the time of day had no effect on the quality of the breakfast. It was delicious . 
We saved Sacajawea State Park for another time, and instead made our first stop for the day the WalMart in Richland.  We needed necessities like Washington State Fishing Licenses and a couple of other things much less important. Fred and Wilma purchased a Discover Pass for Washington State in order to avoid a $99 ticket for illegal parking on state land. Barney and Betty had already purchased their pass on line.
While we were there we decided to fuel up at the Mirastar Station at Wal-Mart.  That turned out to be a major mistake.  Fred and Wilma pulled up to an available diesel pump and started to fill up.  Betty and Barney had to wait for a car to finish up at the only other working diesel pump.  When the car finally left and Barney pulled up to the pump, Fred said “I should be full in another 15 minutes.”  Barney, of course thought Fred was kidding and went through the process of card swiping and getting the pump started.   After washing the windshield Barney checked the pump and it was just passing through 8 tenths of a gallon.  True to his word, Fred was finished in about 15 minutes.  The pump shut off at it’s maximum dollar amount and Fred said “I’m done!!!”   After Fred’s pump shut off Barney’s pump sped up considerably but it still took another 15 minutes to get as much as the pump would give.  The whole process took about an hour.  There was no attendant at the station to report the slow pumps to.  There was a sign on the pump that gave a 1-800GOMIRA number and said it was Tesoro Customer Service.  To top it off there was a sign taped to the pump that said after July 25,2011 they would no longer accept Wal-Mart gift cards and were sorry for the inconvenience.   Oh well…… It really was trickling in that slow!  It was almost funny.

Wish I could read his mind!

At the SLOW service station.

We took an assortment of numbered roads, up through the US Department of Energy Hanford Reservation, then northbound along the Columbia River as it heads south, stopping at the VC (visitor center) at the Wanapum Dam. They didn’t have a stamp, but it was an interesting stop.  The dam supplies power to the Grant County Public Utility District.  The receptionist indicated that their residential electric rates are about 4 cents per kilowatt hour.  Pretty cheap power.

Wilma and Betty at the Wanapum Dam VC

We followed the Columbia for quite a way, and it was quite busy with recreation enthusiasts. We finally made it to the VC at Lake Chelan, and got the proper stamps in our parks passport books. The town of Chelan itself is a very busy tourist resort, but the lake is beautiful. The stamps were located at the Ranger Station in downtown Chelan, and we were lucky to get parking spots close. There are a number of spots designated as maximum 30 minute parking for the Ranger Station, but many were taken by those enjoying sunbathing and swimming at the lake.  After noticing us trying to get parking spaces, the staff called in the ticket brigade, and by the time we got turned around and headed back out of town, many were being ticketed!  Hey, we didn’t do it!

We did not take the fairly expensive boat ride to the other end of the lake, even though there is a stamp available there. The lake is a 50.5 mile glacier-fed lake, 1.5 miles at its widest and 1486 ft. at its deepest point.

Continuing on towards the North Cascades highway, we stopped in a pull off to finally eat some dinner. What a feast we had that included corn on the cob that we purchased fresh along the way today.  Topped off with very juicy and delicious plums from our generous neighbor last night.

We went north on 97 to Pateros, WA where we made another fuel stop.  This stop only took about 15 minutes total time to get back on the road.  

We then went in search of a place to call it a night, and went through a very heavy rain and hail shower. For a few minutes the wipers were on high speed, as fast as they could go and were just barely keeping up with the rain.  But then the sunshine came back.  By the time we looked at, and ruled out several places, we were just too tired to continue, and pulled into an RV park in Twisp.  Cost a lot more than the park last night, is not as nice, and it certainly isn’t our first choice to stay in an RV park, but will chalk it up to averaging out in the end.

It’s time to shut down the caves. See you tomorrow.

w/b

Off and Running, and Plymouth Rocks!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

We have some new followers! Welcome Debbie and Tom, and welcome Ron and JoAnn. We hope you  enjoy traveling with us.

It is great to be back on the road! 

Fred arrived home a little late from his dental appointment because the dentist had to gab a bit about our trip, while Wilma is pacing at home, wanting to get going!    We left home just after 2:00 o-clock headed west on I-84 in the general direction of Washington State.  About 30 miles out, we crossed the state line into Oregon. Then about 30 more miles and we crossed into the Pacific Time Zone and gained an hour, getting there about the same time we left home.  

A couple of hours later we stopped in LaGrande, OR to sample the fare at their world renowned Taco Bell. It was delicious!  

Back on the road, we continued west on I-84 for another hour or so and turned north on I-82 in the direction of Tri-cities in Washington.  The head winds must have known we were not going on down the Columbia River Gorge, because they attacked us as we exited Cabbage Hill, and escorted us all the way to the turn off on I-82. We could have done without their company, but it wouldn’t be natural to be near this area without them. No wonder that from the top of the hill it looked so dirty, unlike the times you can see the distant Cascade mountains and pick out the top of Mount Adams and once in a while the very top of Mt. Rainier!

Crossing the Columbia River into Washington meant we were entering our third state for the day. Just after crossing the river, we exited towards Plymouth, Washington, and after three false starts and turn arounds on dead end roads, we finally found our way to Plymouth Park, an Army Corps of Engineers park. We are favorably impressed. It is a very nice, clean park with free showers, and with our “geezer” card, a site with water and electric is $11. And the heat we had been enduring all day is gone.  It is very pleasant this evening.

The Plymouth Park sign at the entrance.

The road into the campground
from the street.

Looking down the street showing
campsites on both sides.

Our two rolling caves parked for the night.

Wilma, Barney and Betty.

The lake next to the campground.

Betty and Barney taking a walk.

We saw an Amtrak train go by off in the distance, and a freight train or two, but no real noise from them. We can hear the whistle if we really listen. Not like the first time, a number of years ago, we stayed at Cascade Locks and thought the train was going right through our campers!

Then to top off the day, as we were sitting at the picnic table enjoying the evening, a young boy from a trailer across the street came over with two gallon size bags of apricots and plums. We figured he wanted to sell some, but he offered one bag to Betty and one to Wilma. Our neighbors had picked them from their own trees. Haven’t tried the plums yet, but the apricots are wonderful!

The rolling caves are parked for the night and we are pretty much settled in.  The beginning of another great road trip!
w/b

Home (not so) Sweet Home

Wednesday June 29, 2011

We got up this morning in the campground at the city park in Coulee City, WA.  We ate a leisurely breakfast of eggs, hash browns, and pizza before we took off for home.  Okay, not everyone has pizza for breakfast, but it was good, and something we had on hand that made it through both border crossings. We didn’t take some of our regular menu items because we didn’t know what would make it across. But as usual, we didn't suffer for lack of food!

The only thing on the agenda for the day was a stop at the Whitman Mission National Historic Site near Walla Walla.  From Coulee City, we headed south on route 17 toward Soap Lake, WA.  Just a few miles out of Coulee City we came to the Sun Lakes Dry Falls State Park visitor’s center.  We thought a quick stop was in order to see what the park was about.  It proved to be a very interesting stop.  They had an excellent video on the area and some interesting displays.  One of the displays had a number of stuffed animals, native to the area, in their natural environment.  One of the stuffed animals hidden in the back corner of the display amid some native reeds was a small Sasquatch.  Imagine our surprise at seeing a stuffed Bigfoot.  The VC also had a couple of state park stamps which were quickly applied to our passport books.



Sun Lakes Dry Falls

The remainder of the drive to the Whitman Historical Site was relatively uneventful.  When we got to the visitor’s center there were several of the Park Service employees in period costumes.  When we asked what was happening they told us that they were celebrating their 75^th year of affiliation with the National Park Service.

What timing!

It was a very good cake.

After getting our passport books properly stamped, we headed outside to a canopy that had been set up for the festivities.  Park Service Employees served each of us a piece of cake in honor of the celebration.  

It was a very interesting and fun stop, and we “just happened” to be there at the right time! We seem to have the knack.

After having dessert we continued on to Walla Walla to visit Taco Bell for the main course.  After lunch we dropped in at Color Press to say hello to Bam Bam.  She gave us a quick tour of the facility then we were back on the road to home.

We did make a quick grocery stop in La Grande, OR.  Shortly before we got to Ontario, OR, Betty got a call from her sister who let her know that the refrigerator in their permanent cave had gone out and the place was quite odorous.  Betty’s sister had cleaned up the mess but it still smelled pretty bad.  Aside from the surprise at home the trip was very enjoyable.  The Canadian Rockies are truly beautiful to see. 

The Bigfeet went to Bigfoot and also saw a stuffed Bigfoot.  Is that great or what?