Abbey's Road

Back in March I met a couple in New Mexico who were going to go to north central Washington to look at some property. They ended up liking it enough to buy some property so they gave me the website and contact information. I made some inquiries but never made it up here until now. The owner/realtor, Jim Platt, owns a ranch near Tonasket, a small town in an area bordering Canada which is called the Okanogan Highlands. It sits between the Cascades and the western reaches of the Rockies and is much drier than the western slope of the Cascades. It has a number of charming, little towns though no large or dominant cities. They tell me that it actually has four distinct seasons which you don’t find many places. Jim invited me to stay at his ranch for the weekend, but he also invited a number of other people too. He was so busy he didn’t have a lot of time to spend with each group, but I was able to go out looking at a number of properties with some of the other people there. I parked in front of his house and Abbey and I enjoyed hanging out there for the weekend. He has horses, llamas and a bunch of rabbits. When I first drove up I saw a bunch of rabbits hanging around. These rabbits didn’t look wild, though. They looked like the pet store variety, but were just running around the ranch loose. It turns out that one of his former caretakers raised rabbits and a couple of them got loose. True to form they multiplied... well… like rabbits, but the local wildlife has kept things under control. Abbey didn’t take long to notice them and she has been getting most of her exercise by chasing them. Once I realized she wasn’t going to catch them I let her chase them whenever she wanted to. He also had some llamas, including 3 babies, and 7 horses. Abbey pretty much ignored the llamas and horses until the last day when she got brave (or stupid) and chased one of the llamas. Luckily, it ran away instead of punting her back over the fence.

It was an interesting weekend and I met a lot of nice people. Jim’s ranch is in the Aeneas Valley outside of Tonasket and he seems to have owned a sizable amount of the land in the valley at one time or another. He has sold most of that land and he seems to have built an interesting community here. He knows nearly everyone since he has sold them the property and he tries to get all of them to get to know one another as well. It just seemed to have a good feel to me. Ironically, I didn’t get to see the property that I originally came to see. Jim had to go back to Seattle for the week so he asked me to stick around until the following Friday so he could show me the property and I could experience the Omak Stampede, a local highlight. I decided to stay even before I realized I left my camera in Jim’s car, which was now with him back in Seattle. I was going to go up to Canada for a few days since a large part of the Canadian wine country is just over the border, but I ended up staying at Jim’s place while I did some work, and had some done, on my RV. It’s nice and peaceful here, and it’s kind of cool hearing the nightly chorus of the coyotes every night around 9. Tonight’s full moon seemed to get them a little more excited than usual. During the week I pretty much had the place to myself except for the caretakers, and older Romanian couple. The wife would come over everyday to move the sprinklers (Jim’s a bit of a nut on watering his lawn and he keeps the sprinklers going 24 hours a day from May to September) and do other things around the house. I got to know her a little bit though our conversations were never too involved because her English is still pretty weak. She brought me over some peaches and tomatoes, and when Jim was there, she would bring over stuff she baked. She’s real sweet. Her husband is definitely from the old country, but they are both very hard workers. They are building a woodworking shop themselves on their own property because he plans to make furniture and cabinets after they build their house. If I ever build I know where I can get a lot of my woodwork done. One of the days I had lunch at a friend of Jim’s house. Mort is a real interesting character who I had met at dinner the previous Saturday. He’s in his 70s and still works fulltime, though for himself. He’s done a bunch of very different things in his lifetime from being a journalist to a lawyer, and he even lived on a sailboat for a while. So it was real interesting for me to talk to him and get some inspiration.

Jim came back Friday afternoon and we went to look at one of the properties again. I had gone during the week to see the property he didn’t get to show me the previous weekend, but I wasn’t as interested in it. When I saw the other property for the second time it just had a good feeling to me. I really liked the views. Plus, it has a creek running through it named Edwards Creek. How perfect is that? It is 20 acres, has some trees and some pasture land, is only one property away from the state and national forest and you can even see the Cascades from it. I had gone back and forth all week about it, but when we got back to Jim’s ranch I decided to go ahead with it. It’ll take a little while to close on it, but it looks like it should go through without a hitch. So, if anyone wants to really get away from it all, you can always camp on my land in the Aeneas Valley near Tonasket, WA. As a bonus, it’s only about 40 miles from the Canadian border and Canada’s largest wine region. See the pictures below.

Since I had already stayed the extra week I figured it was worth staying one more day to experience the Omak Stampede and Suicide Race. Jim and I went with yet another couple there looking at property on Saturday night. It was my first rodeo and it didn’t disappoint. It was a real hoot. We got their just in time to see them introduce all the Rodeo Queens from other rodeos on the circuit. I think I liked the buckin’ bronc and buckin’ bull riding the best. I don’t think I’ll ever be trying that, though. The salute to our armed forces with the Humvee tearing up the dirt in the arena, and the political/ideological editorials by the PA announcer got a little over the top, but the rest had that real, small, western town feel. It almost felt like we were in a movie – kind of like Bull Durham at the minor league baseball park. I couldn’t believe how far some of the contestants came to participate, and how much some of the better ones have won in their rodeo careers. The climax of the evening was the Suicide Race. I think you either have to be insane or drunk to participate. They ride on horseback down this unbelievably steep hill about 500 ft. down to the river, cross the river, go up the bank on the other side and then into the arena and across the finish line. Supposedly it’s not uncommon for horses to get badly hurt, but luckily none did that night. From where we were we could only see the horses go down the hill and then later come into the arena. I would’ve liked to see them cross the river too. At least now I can say I’ve been to the world famous Omak Stampede and Suicide Race. If anyone wants to join me next year, it’s always the 2nd weekend in August and next year’s will be the 74th.

There were wildfires nearby so the sky was filled with smoke on some days

Property Pictures

Posted by Ed at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Well I finally found a place in my mind to rival the beauty of the Colorado Rockies. I think I’ve fallen in love with the northern Cascade Mountains in Washington. They’re not as high as the Colorado Rockies, but they are more jagged and, I think, more picturesque. There are also a large number of glaciers which means that many of the peaks are snow covered year round. Another great thing about it is that there aren’t many people. Finding a campsite in August has been no problem at all, though I have been trying midweek. Of course, I haven’t been to the Canadian Rockies yet, which is supposed to put their American counterparts to shame. I can’t wait.

On Sunday afternoon I drove up to Baker Lake. It’s in the Mt. Baker – Snoqualmie NF. Another thing about Washington is that it has great names like Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Sammamish, and a hundred other places ending in “mish”. Anyways, I wanted to get us both out for some exercise so we drove 10 miles up a dirt road (after deflating my tires a bit so it wouldn’t be so rough) to hike the trail up to Anderson Lakes. It was late and still pretty overcast, but it felt good to get out and Abbey enjoyed the lake when we got there. On the drive up I had spotted a few good possibilities for boondocking so I wouldn’t have to drive all the way down that dirt road again ‘til morning. The best one was a little down off the road overlooking the valley which was still clouded over when we got there.

In the morning I was pleasantly surprised to see a mountain, which I figured was Mt. Shuksan, peaking out above the clouds in front of us. It’s a pretty cool thing to be above the clouds, especially when you’ve driven there. I got a few good pictures before I glanced to my left and saw Mt. Baker, the highest peak in the area, was staring right down on top of me from the west. It was a spectacular view of the heavily-glaciated peak, the same one I saw from the kayak in the San Juans only A LOT closer. What a campsite. Probably my best one yet!

After eating breakfast and soaking up the view for a while, we drove back down the 10 mile dirt road only now it didn’t seem so bad. I wanted to try and get Abbey out again because I knew the next day I wanted to take a tough hike without her. So we drove up another dirt road, this time for only 7 miles, to the trailhead for Sauk Mt. The clouds were still kind of thick and it was already afternoon so we ate lunch first. After lunch Abbey wanted no part of hiking up a steep trail (how did she know it was going to be that steep?) so I set off on my own. Well, me and the 40 other people who were hiking the trail that day. It was a good thing that Abbey didn’t go because it was one switchback after another for 2 miles, but it was worth it when I finally made it to the top. The clouds lifted enough to see many of the surrounding peaks, though not the tallest ones. At the top I met a nice older couple who lived in the San Juan Islands and had a real sweet German Shepherd with them. Believe it or not, her name was Abbey too, so I had to get a picture of her. I spent a while on top talking to the couple and a father and daughter who came up soon after. The daughter goes to school at Mt. Holyoke in western Mass. so they knew where Saratoga is. With Abbey I usually don’t get to sit and enjoy the view so it was nice to stop for a while at the top. That night we camped just outside North Cascades National Park at a forest service campground on a creek.

Of course, I took Abbey down to the creek that night and the next morning before driving up to the Cascade Pass trailhead. I had read in a guidebook that the road was really rough and I had originally figured that I would have to forgo this trail, but at the ranger station I found out that it had recently been re-graded and it wasn’t so bad. With my tires still deflated, it wasn’t too bad. At least it was only washboard for about 2 to 3 of the 13 unpaved miles. I think I got a few funny looks when I pulled into the parking lot at the trailhead. Needless to say I was the only motorhome in the parking lot. Poor Abbey got locked inside again, but she would’ve never made it. I thought Sauk Mt. was bad, but I thought the switchbacks to Cascade Pass would never end. They lasted for nearly 3 miles before the trail leveled off for the last half mile or so. But the views at the top were worth it. It didn’t take too long either, so I hiked up further still toward the Sahale Glacier for some more spectacular views. This was the type of hike that I loved last year and haven’t had many of yet this year. It got me excited about hiking again just when I was starting to get a little bored with it. The only problem was that the batteries in my camera died and for some reason I only had 3 spares in my pack. One of them fell out at some point. So I didn’t get as many pictures as I wanted to, but the pictures never do the views justice anyway. Five hours after starting I was back down at the RV letting Abbey out of her “cell”. She was pretty excited to get out of there even though it wasn’t hot at all.

A cool thing about North Cascades NP is that it is split in two and between the two halves is Ross Lake National Recreation Area. The great thing about this is that dogs are allowed on trails in the NRA. Since Abbey didn’t have much of a day while I was hiking to the pass, the next day I had picked out a few trails that she could go on, both with water nearby. After doing a short hike in the morning near the river and having lunch, we headed out on the Diablo Lake trail. There was a sign about mountain lion sitings at the trailhead so I was a bit more alert than usual. I was just thinking that I have never run into any large animals on the trail in over 11 years of hiking with Abbey when she stuck her nose up in the air and jumped up on a small embankment on the side of the trail. Right away I saw a bear cub and its mother about 20 yards off the trail. Luckily Abbey didn’t see them so I pulled her back real quick. The cub scrambled up a nearby tree but the mother only put her nose in the air checking for what was there. I don’t know if she saw us, but I didn’t stick around long to find out. After backing down the trail to what seemed like a safe distance I turned around and got out of there in a hurry. I had planned on doing a longer hike, but I wasn’t going any further after that. Instead I drove to our next campground, which was on a lake, and let Abbey swim for quite a while to make up for the lost hiking. The next day we did another hike that Abbey could go on and I could take it easy again. I wanted to give my knees a few days off before doing another big elevation hike. On Friday, after 2 easy days, I left Abbey in the RV and hiked to the top of Maple Pass. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but the views from the top were as good as I expected. On the way up I kept crossing paths with a group from the Appalachian Mountain Club, most of whom were from the northeast. It seems like I’ve been meeting more people on the trail lately.

After the hike we left the beautiful Northern Cascades for the drier climate of the Okanogan Highlands. More on that next time.

Lake Ann
More from Maple Pass

Posted by Ed at 12:56 PM | Permalink

The main reason I came back to Seattle was so that I could take Abbey to a vet there to get some tests rechecked. I took her Wednesday morning and we’re still waiting for the Lyme test to come back, but her other tests looked better than before so I was happy about that. The vet said she looked pretty good for a dog her age. I also did some shopping and got restocked at Trader Joe’s. I went a little crazy at TJ’s seeing that it could be the last one I go to for several months. We stayed in a pretty decent RV park in Bothell, near Lake Washington, while we were there. There were actually shrubs between each site so you got a little privacy. This isn’t normal for RV parks. A couple of the days I took Abbey to a park on Lake Washington so she could get her swimming in. She has been in more water lately than she has for a long time. I think she likes that better than hiking. One evening at the same park there was a free concert. Abbey wasn’t interested but I checked it out by myself. The artist was described as playing “deadpan folk and blues”. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but once I heard her music I knew right away why they called it deadpan. It was actually pretty entertaining. It was definitely folk music judging by the lyrics even though she played an electric guitar. And her style is hard to describe in words other than to say she was deadpan alright.

For the weekend we headed up the Mountain Loop Highway which is northeast of Seattle. I was itching to get back up to the mountains and thought this might be a good place to get my legs going again. One surprise was that while I was at the visitor center getting information I found out that a woman and her daughter were killed only a few weeks before on a trail in that area. It is still pretty close to Seattle so it isn’t exactly out in the wilderness. After finding a campsite Abbey and I took a short hike up to some ice caves. At first I wasn’t too excited but there turned out to be quite a few of these “ice caves” that form at the base of these cliffs. Snow piles up there from avalanches and in the spring melting snow above forms streams and carves the caves out from underneath. It may not sound like much but it sure was a popular trail. The following day I was able to hike a real nice, though very steep and challenging, trail. It started from an old abandoned mining town. The road to it is blocked off so I rode my mountain bike into the town and hiked up into Glacier Basin from there. There aren’t any glaciers there any more, but the wildflowers were beautiful and the surrounding peaks were jagged and scenic. I have missed taking hikes like this – up to a spot with nice alpine views and/or lakes. They are my favorite kind, though my legs were pretty tired. On Sunday morning it was raining so we packed up and headed back to civilization and did a few things before heading up to the mountains again – this time on the North Cascades Highway a bit farther north. More on that in the next entry.

Posted by Ed at 12:50 PM | Permalink

With the temperatures in the Seattle area unusually high I decided to head further out on the Olympic Peninsula. We got a late start on Saturday so we didn’t get too far. It was still pretty hot so after finding a campground I took Abbey down to a nearby river to cool off. The next day was supposed to be more of the same so we packed up and headed as far west as we could – the coast. In fact, we made it to Cape Flattery, the farthest you can go northwest in the lower 48. It’s on the Makah Indian Reservation, where they also have a campground at Hobuck Beach. The campground isn’t much more than a grassy field up against the dunes, but it’s only 100’ from the beach and was far more attractive than the RV park that looked more like a parking lot. I let Abbey out about 1 in the morning and the sky was filled with stars. I could even see the Milky Way. The beach was really wide, especially at high tide so it was great for walking on. The weird thing, though, is that in the summer there is always a fog over the ocean so you never get a really clear view. In the morning, after a little bit of coaxing, I took Abbey for a long walk on the beach. It didn’t take her long to get lost in the tide pools searching for fish and whatever else she looks for in the water. She was having a ball running on the beach without a leash. Morning is definitely her time. I was starving by the time we finally got back for breakfast. In the afternoon I drove into an outer lying area of Olympic National Park that is on the coast. There was a 9 mile loop trail, including 3 miles on the beach that I wanted to hike. Unfortunately for Abbey she wasn’t allowed to come. It was probably better because the trail out to the coast was mostly on a cedar-plank boardwalk, which was pretty uneven. The forest was so thick in spots that it felt like a tropical rainforest. Walking on the beach was pretty tough because there was either a lot of driftwood or it was very rocky and slippery. It was an interesting hike and pretty scenic too, but one of my knees was bothering me. I haven’t been hiking too much in the last few months so I think I’m not quite in the hiking shape I was in last year. I need to fix that before I go up to Canada in a few weeks.

By the time we got back to the campground the fog and mist were rolling in fast. We got to experience what this place is like normally in the winter. They said that it is pretty unusual in the summer. It cooled off considerably and was misting when I woke up in the morning. We went for a walk on the beach anyways and Abbey had a ball once again. I’m not sure all the sea creatures in the tide pool were as thrilled as she was. After breakfast it was still pretty overcast so I decided to head back to Seattle early. I got Abbey an appointment with a vet there in the morning. She was supposed to have some blood work rechecked 3 months from when she had it done in Sedona, which is right about now. Hopefully, all will go well.

Posted by Ed at 12:51 AM | Permalink

I was pretty tired when I got back from San Diego. I had reservations at Mt. Rainier National Park, but I decided to cancel them figuring that I wanted to rest up a bit and being in a National Park means that I would’ve been pretty limited as to where I could take Abbey. I found a nice state park just on the outskirts of Bremerton and on an arm of Puget Sound so we ended up staying there for 3 nights. It was there that I solved the mystery of the squirting water on the beach. In the mornings I took Abbey down to the beach so she could go “fishing”. The tide change was pretty dramatic so at low tide there was a huge wide beach covered with all kinds of stuff. I was watching Abbey in the water and this family came down to the beach. I saw them poking the sand and mud and water was squirting up. So I had to ask them what was squirting the water out. They didn’t know the name of the things, but they showed me. They looked kind of like slugs, but with a mouth on the end that looked like a tube. They burrowed in the mud and rocks. Sometimes they would squirt water out on their own, but if you touched them or stepped near them they would often squirt a stream of water up in the air. If you weren’t careful where you stepped, they would sometimes nail your legs. Well I felt much better after figuring that mystery out. Abbey had no clue what important things were happening on the beach, but she was just fine keeping busy with her “fishing”. She rarely fails to intrigue people and sometimes they stop for a while to watch her. I should put out a hat and see if anyone will throw money in. If she’s gonna entertain, she oughta make something from it. Or should I say, I oughta make something from it.

Bremerton is across Puget Sound from Seattle. My first full day back there I ended up shopping, doing errands and recuperating from the drive. I found out I could take the ferry across to Seattle without too much problem so on Friday I parked the RV at a mall, took a bus downtown and took the ferry across. On the way over we saw a bald eagle flying over us. It was the first one I’ve seen in quite some time. Later on the same day, I saw another one down at the beach when a lady, who was a wildlife rehabilitator, pointed it out to me. Being in Seattle I wanted to sample the seafood, so right after the ferry docked I stopped at Ivar’s Fish Bar, an institution on the Seattle waterfront since 1938. They have a unique system of ordering. They take everyone’s seafood order all at once, and while the seafood is cooking they come back to each person and get their sides and drink orders. It actually goes quite fast. I went with something simple, the fish n’ chips but man was it good. Piping hot and really crisp and tender. Welcome to Seattle! There were kids next to me feeding the seagulls, but they weren’t getting any of mine.

After stuffing myself I walked down to Pike’s Place Market, another Seattle institution. It has gotten quite commercialized over the years, but it is still a fun place to go. A must stop is the Pike’s Place Fish Co. Don’t buy your fish there ‘cause it’s overpriced, but go for the show and buy your fish across the street at Jack’s. That was the advice I got, and followed. The “show” consists mostly of the workers throwing fish back and forth from the counter to the outside cases and back. The guy on the outside shouts out an order, and the guys on the inside, in unison, repeat it as the guy on the outside tosses a fish over the counter.
Sometimes the fish start flying pretty fast. When I was there one of the customers actually became part of the show, though it was pretty sick. They cut the eye out of one of the fish and this guy ate it, though not before holding it in his teeth for his wife/girlfriend to get a picture. How would you like to bring him home to mom? I thought one lady was going to throw up. She didn’t stick around long after that. I did what I was told and bought my salmon at Jack’s, brought it “home” and cooked it up on the grill. It was real tasty that night, and the next night too in a salad. You can’t go to Seattle and not get salmon, even if you do cook it yourself.

The Space Needle

Posted by Ed at 12:37 AM | Permalink

On the 6th Abbey and I took the ferry from Anacortes, WA to Orcas Island. It wasn’t Abbey’s first trip on a boat, nor was it her first trip on a ferry, though I think it was her first car ferry. She’s a well-traveled dog. I almost went into shock when the woman told me the ferry was $125. I recovered when she said that was the roundtrip price. Anyways, it was a cloudy, overcast, cool day, but it was one of the few of those we’ve had recently. It did manage to clear up later in the day after we made it to Moran State Park, our home for the next 5 nights. Moran is a beautiful park with many hiking trails and a couple of lakes, but I did have one complaint. The campsites are quite close to each other. Luckily, no one ever took the spot on one side of us and on the other side they set up their tents back in the woods so it wasn’t so bad. Abbey wasn’t crazy about the campground either, because it was quite loud. Orcas is a fairly rural island with lots of farms and it is also quite mountainous. One day I hiked up to the top of Mt. Constitution, the highest point in the San Juans at just over 2400 ft. That may not sound that high, but when you start close to sea level it is a bit of a climb. Unfortunately, when I did it, it was still a bit cloudy so I didn’t get great views of the mountains in the distance. Ironically, I got the best view of Mt. Baker, a glaciated peak just south of the Canadian border, when I went on a kayaking tour. The kayak tour was pretty nice though not nearly as rough as I thought it might be. The one I chose was in the least protected waters, but the water was still bathtub water, except for the temperature. It turns out that the islands are quite well-protected and you don’t get big surf unless there is a big storm I guess. We didn’t see a lot of wildlife, but we did see a seal that came quite close to a couple of the kayaks and a bunch of starfish.

One problem I had on the island was parking. It is quite limited except for in Eastsound, the main village on the island, so I was a bit limited as to where I could go. It kind of reminded me of Ireland with the narrow, winding roads. The other thing about Orcas is that there isn’t a lot of public access to the water. Luckily, the state park had a couple of lakes so I managed to get Abbey in those most mornings and there was a place to get in the sound down in town. While Abbey was entertaining the tourists with her fishing routine one day, I noticed something really strange. Every so often I would see a stream of water shoot out of the ground anywhere from a few inches to a few feet in the air. It seemed to happen close to the water’s edge, but when I dug in the sand and rocks I couldn’t find anything there. Unfortunately, there were no locals around to ask what it was from. Sometimes the squirts would come one right after the other. While I was there I never found out where the water was coming from, but I did eventually solve the mystery later on. Stay tuned.

I think next time I might try San Juan Island. It’s supposed to be more commercial, which is why I stayed away from it, but it is also supposed to have more to do and more public beach access. In any case, I enjoyed my stay on Orcas, though I probably could have cut it short by a day with no real loss. It is a very scenic island and not too built up so it does have its advantages. I’d love to do the San Juans in a sailboat sometime. On the 11th we got up early, took the ferry back to the mainland and headed south to catch another ferry across Puget Sound. In case you haven’t been up this way, northwest Washington has water everywhere. The ferries make getting around a little easier, even though they are pretty expensive if you have an RV. I put my RV in storage in Bremerton, picked up a rental car and headed south to meet up with Mary Beth’s brother Bob, and his kids in San Diego. We’re all spending the week at Bob’s cousin, Andy’s house. It’s a bit of a drive but the kids asked me to come so I couldn’t say no.

Posted by Ed at 3:18 PM | Permalink

On Friday, I drove back up towards Portland. It was a cloudy, rainy day so I took the opportunity to run some errands before heading farther north towards Mt. St. Helens. Unfortunately, when you're on the road in a new area, it takes longer to do everything since you don't know where anything is. So I wasn't too productive, but the day wasn't too nice so it didn't matter much. Of course, as my brother suggested I could've asked people where things were and that just might have made it easier. The other thing I found out is that the Portland area has horrible traffic. I wasn't even near the downtown. I don't think it's a place I'd want to live. Since it was a rainy weekend, I had no problem finding a decent campground not too far from Mt. St. Helens National Monument. And what a deal - $12 with free water fillup and a dump station. Just my kind of place.

It was still cloudy and a little rainy in the morning, but I headed up towards Mt. St. Helens anyways. I was told, by my brother again, that it would be worth it. It is pretty incredible when you see the devastation caused by the volcano eruption even several miles away. It's a little harder to imagine now though, because life is starting to come back in many areas around the mountain. Not in the closest areas, but further away lakes are coming back to life and so are the forests. The eruption did not include a lava flow, only a pyrocastic (sp?) flow. Don't ask me what that means though. The other interesting stories were about some lunatics who actually caught the collapse of the crater and the eruption on film and lived to tell about it. 1 photographer was with some friends at a lookout only something like 17 miles away. The blast from the eruption traveled at 300mph so it didn't take long to catch up to them, but they somehow survived. There was also some other nut who owned a lodge on Spirit Lake only a few miles from the mountain. He said he was going to stay no matter what and he wanted to die there. Well, he got his wish and his lodge was in a spot which is now in the middle of the lake. The pictures didn't come out all that great because of the clouds. I couldn't see inside the crater and only caught glimpses of the mountain through the clouds. In case you're wondering, in the pictures of Spirit Lake, the light spot on the one end isn't snow or ice. It's a huge logjam that has been in the lake since the day of the eruption, 25 years ago. It's a lot of the dead trees that were on the hillsides that got washed back down into the lake. At one of the viewpoints I let Abbey out and was watching her when I heard some noises. I looked down the hill and saw 3 big elk trotting off.

As if that wasn't enough for one day, I drove the backroads through Washington towards the Columbia River and crossed it at Cascade Locks. Abbey had been stuck in the RV most of the day, so after I found a campground we took a short hike. There are trails that run a good part of the Columbia River Gorge. Unfortunately, they are paved and can be quite crowded and there is a lot of noise from the highway. She needed to get out and the one near our campsite wasn't crowded at all so it was still a decent walk. The other unfortunate thing is that our campground was situated between I-84 and railroad tracks. They even have a warning sign that freight trains run all night and they are required by law to blow their whistle at the crossing which seemed like it was right outside my bedroom window. I can attest to the truthfulness of the sign. Needless to say, I didn't get a very good night's sleep, though the hot shower with unlimited water in the morning made up for a little bit of it.
Spirit Lake
Elk
Storm Clouds

Posted by Ed at 11:01 PM | Permalink