9/14/12 -- Salt water and Puget Sound

We woke up yesterday morning to the sight of smoke laying across the mountain tops.  We knew that, once again, it was time to move on.

I have no pictures from the drive down off Stevens Pass, as beautiful as it was.  The smoke would have masked the beauty that we know so well.  Another time, I'll share that journey with you all.

We drove out of the mountains to Puget Sound, a body of water connected to the sea by the Straits of Juan de Fuca.  Puget Sound is about 280 miles long.  Actually, that's what it used to be called.  Now only the southern portion bears that name.  The northern part of the Sound and the Straits of Juan de Fuca are now called The Salish Sea.  I'll adjust to the new name but for this blog, I'll continue to use the name I know best. 

Whidbey Island lays north-south in the Sound.  It connects to the mainland by a bridge at Deception Pass.  This is a passage of water, not a mountain pass.  The bridge was built in two sections with an island between.  The water through the pass swirls and the tides pull it is several directions, making it a dangerous pass to attempt in a sailboat.  Doesn't stop people from doing it, of course. 


The second span of the beautiful Deception Pass bridge

The drive down the island was lovely with many snapshot views of the Sound.  Puget Sound has a smell like no other -- salt water and seaweed and maybe something else.  For us, it is the smell of home.

We stopped in the little coastal town of Coupeville.  What a fun place!  The wharf now houses several shops, as well as services for the people who dock at the wharf (bathrooms and showers).  People dock there just like we pull into a campground.



The Coupeville Wharf

Adina found a friend and they had quite a conversation.  This cute little guy was reading in front of the old firehouse.  What a fun sculpture!  On the other end of the building sat a fire plug with a bronze black lab chained to it.  Someone had put out a bowl of water for the dog.



Adina and her bronze boy

There are virtually no roads across Puget Sound.  Originally, a conglomeration of boats known as The Mosquito Fleet provided transportation across the Sound.  Today, Washington State operates a system of ferries to take people back and forth across the Sound.

We took a ferry across the water to Port Townsend last night.  As we pulled away from Whidbey Island, I watched a sea lion surface twice, right in front of the ferry.

We got on first so had a great view all the way across.  It was windy, of course. 

At Port Townsend, we camped at the downtown marina.  It was interesting to be camping in the midst of all these beautiful yachts and sailboats.  I know better, but it felt like being among the rich and famous.



Port Townsend Marina, taken from our campsite (on land)

Adina's cousin, Jim Finkbeiner, came over that evening to say hello and we had a great visit.  We hadn't seen him for several years.  Jim and I were colleagues in the United Methodist church years ago.  I've known him longer than I have known Adina.  We were both so happy to see him.

This morning, we woke up to visions of the Sound from our trailer windows.  When I went out to sit in the warm sun, I spotted this blue heron and his sea gull buddies on the breakwater, about ten feet from shore.  They were all meditating and soaking in the beauty of the water, the wind, the islands and the blue, blue sky.



Blue Heron and his gull-friends

Today, we are at Jim and Nancy's, doing laundry and blog.  They have a beautiful home, overlooking the Sound, um, Salish Sea.  Adina is paying some bills.  We are both enjoying a chance to visit with Jim, enjoying his quick smile and the twinkle that comes often to his eye. 


Jim relaxing at home

It was great to have a relaxing day at their home.  Their amazing gardens and sweeping view of the water brought more beauty into our beings.  Tonight, we'll have dinner with Jim and Nancy.  I think somebody said something about Thai food!  Yum!


Adina, Nancy and Jim looking at a map book

Tomorrow we'll be on our way, heading for the Olympic Peninsula and the far west coast.  Every day is a new adventure! 

9/13/12 -- Across the Last Range of Mountains (mostly)

Crossing the Cascades

We enjoyed Nason Creek Campground so much that we debated about staying there a couple more days.  Then, on Monday morning, it was really cold.  The sun stayed cold and the day didn’t warm up at all.  I checked with the campground host, just passing the time of day, when the host mentioned, “Oh, yeah, we should have snow in the next couple of days.  It’s cold enough and it smells like snow.”

We knew we were cutting it close, but we didn’t know it was that close.  Our last range of mountains still stood before us.  It was time for us to leave. 

We drove across beautiful Steven’s Pass at 4000 ft but didn’t stop to take pictures because, once we got to the top, most of the pass was enveloped in a rain cloud.  Western Washington is known for having a lot of rain.  Most of it falls as mist.  This was more than mist.  It wasn’t a Wisconsin downpour with buckets in the clouds but it was enough to require windshield wipers all across the pass.
Our “favorite of all time” campground lies off Stevens Pass on the western flanks of the Cascades.  We wanted to see it.  If it was closed for the season, we figured we’d stop and hike through it, just to see it again.

Beckler River

We were in luck – it was open and most of the campsites were available.

It is as incredible as ever.  The underbrush is full and lush.  Thick moss clings to tree trunks and hangs from branches.

Moss hangs like expensive lace

Some branches have several kinds of moss growing on them.  This moss has leaves that are nearly an inch across.

Even the roots that have not found earth to cling to are covered with moss.  They all look like they are wearing bright green fleece garments.  The bark of the Douglas fir is covered with moss like green beards.

Water drips from the trees long after a rain has passed.  The day we arrived, we had lunch in the trailer.  The sun was shining, making all the greens, greener.  At the same time, rain was falling.  Then we knew we were home.  Best of all, it wasn’t snowing – and wouldn’t for a month or so.  At Beckler, we could count on rain, but we wouldn’t have to shovel it.

We called Dad Monday night, as we do every day that we have phone service, and he told us that the lightning storm that we experienced just a couple of nights ago started major wildfires.  One was at Lake Chelan, one of the places we spent a couple of days.  The other was at Wenatchee.  It’s bad enough that they have evacuated people in that area.

We missed it by one day.  The smoke won’t come here.  The Cascades will hold it back.  We are fortunate to have missed it.

The timing on snow and on smoke were perfect.  I think we are not alone on this journey.  Thanks to the spirits that watch over us.

Beckler River flows all along the campsites.  At one point, rapids sing the river's song a little louder.  It is beautiful at all times of the year. 

Beautiful Beckler River

When we used to come here, our little schnauzer, Tasha, came with us.  She and Adina would sit on the bank of the river and meditate together.  When Adina got busy, Tasha sat for hours and meditated, watching the water flow past.  She was amazing.  We miss her and feel her spirit with us here. 

On Tuesday, our first full day at Beckler, Adina sat by the river in the sun and meditated.  I’m sure that Tasha joined her there.

This campground lies at 1500 feet elevation.  It’s cold there.  It was 53 degrees when we woke on Tuesday and, because it is a very damp cold, it felt colder than the 38 degrees we experienced in the mountains of eastern WA.  However, we know how to deal with this kind of weather.  We wear layers of clothing, then un-layer as the day warms – as much as it ever does.  On Tuesday, it didn’t warm up much, even though the sun was glorious.

Still, this place is like a fairy land.  How can I ever capture its beauty in a two dimensional photograph?  Douglas fir stand throughout the forest.  They are second-growth.  The old-growth trees were harvested by loggers years ago.  Those stumps still stand.  You can see from the following picture how big they are.  


Old Growth Douglas fir stump with Adina

The other tree that is common to western WA forests is vine maple.  This tree has regular maple leaves but small, usually a couple of inches across.  They grow on slender trunks that tend to bow and bend to the gods of the forest.  They are, of course, covered with moss. 


Vine maple arches

The size of the fern will give you some idea of this forest.  Some of them stand as tall as a half-grown child. 


Tall ferns!

Beckler River is COLD – fresh from the glaciers that we can see from the bank.  Some brave souls have waded out into that icy water to play recently.  They built cairns – stacks of stones – all down the river. 



Sculptures in the river
The trees with white bark are alders, not birch
Alders have both leaves and little cones

Adina says that one of them looks like a temple.  Makes the place feel holy.  She says that the energy at the riverside was so powerful that it took her breath away. 

I think they look like stone people wading downstream.  I wonder where they are all going?  I must be more relaxed from the move because I'm writing poetry again.  I wrote a poem about the stone sculptures in the river:

just a pile of rocks

just a pile of rocks
laid in the riverbed
glaciers grooved the ground
dropped them like sand
from a beachcomber's sandal

just a pile of rocks
gleaned from their bed
a bubbling, singing river
hurry!  hurry!
got a date with an ocean

just a pile of rocks
people aboard a raft of stone
scattered tribe guards their journey
traveling upstream
seeking wisdom at the summit

just a pile of rocks
ancient history, river-smoothed
trailed by the faithful
a temple-shrine
again, the sacred breaks through

The people who built these sculptures even left a little artistic offering in the forest by the campsite they had enjoyed.

Who is this person lost in the forest?

Wednesday morning we were treated to helicopters flying overhead for about three hours.  We worried that they might be flying giant buckets of water to the fires east of the mountains so gave the ranger a phone call.  The folks at the Ranger Station told us that the helicopters were flying information cable to a construction site high up the mountain.  We never would have guessed that one!

We sat in camp on the bank of the river eating out lunch when the camp robbers arrived.  There were a couple of little beggars that showed up.  The blue jays are the size of a large robin, deep blue bodies with black heads.  They yelled at us a lot, asking us to leave the table so they could have their share of left-over crumbs.

The chipmunks were even more aggressive.  They wanted more than crumbs and came right up to us to ask for their place at the table.   

Isn't he adorable?

A black squirrel yelled at me for being in his way but otherwise, he ignored me. He was busy gathering food for his long winter sleep when the snows come. His black tail was edged with silver, as though he had already swept it through a snowbank. 

We watched the river flow by all afternoon on Tuesday and Wednesday.  The light played with the waves and colored leaves floated downstream, gifts of trees who had already changed their colors, gifts from higher elevations on the mountains flanks.  Even the stones in the river glistened with colors like scattered jewels.  I can see why people thought to look to western rivers for nuggets of gold.  Beckler River could start a gold rush of its own.


colors of the earth
beneath the water's surface
stones like treasured gems

Beckler River has been good to us through the years.  This week, she was there to welcome us back.

9/10/12 -- Canyon Waters, Leavenworth and Lazing About

Last Saturday, we closed up the trailer and headed 20 miles back down the mountains.  We got some terrific views of the Cascade peaks through the Wenatchee River Canyon.  We were high enough to be able to really see them.



Cascade Peaks from Wenatchee River Canyon

Rivers and bodies of water all across the country have been low.  The drought is present here, just as in the high desert and in Yellowstone Park.  The Wenatchee River Canyon is beautiful at any time of the year.  This fall, the water is low so that the river wasn’t so wild as we have sometimes seen it.  Even so, the river doesn’t so much flow through the canyon as careen along.

The Wenatchee River
Fall has come to the mountains and the leaves are turning

This roiling river comes straight from the glaciers as the pale green tint in the water shows.  At its flood in springtime, many of the rapids in this canyon are Class 5.  Most rafters avoid Class 5 rapids as too dangerous, even for their sport.

Even though we are still on the skirts of the mountains, we are dwarfed by their beauty.  Perhaps you can find Adina in this picture.  We see their grandeur and hold our breaths lest it all go away.

Where's Adina?

After passing through the Canyon, we entered the town of Leavenworth.  Some of you have been there. 

This town isn’t like any other I know.  According to the urban legend, sometime in the 60’s or so this town was dying.  People flew past them as they crossed Hwy 2 between the urban centers of eastern WA and western WA.  Nobody stopped.

They decided they needed to pull together and create a town that would be a destination, not a short view at 60 mph.  They loved the rugged Cascades that surrounded them and decided to let them dictate their future.

Every merchant and many houses in the town created storefronts that came right out of a Bavarian village.  They painted Bavarian and German designs on their buildings.  They introduced scrolled fascia boards on their eaves. They built carved wooden fences on their balconies.   

Merchants began carrying Hummel figures and brightly painted nutcrackers, carved wooden coo coo clocks and eastern European handcrafted linens.  They called themselves The Little Bavaria of the Cascade Alps.

It saved the town.

They are one of the most delightful tourist destinations of eastern WA.  We have enjoyed messing about in this town individually and together.  The ski areas around the town are popular.  Hikers, campers and rock climbers have known about the area for years. 

Leavenworth -- Main Street, present day

I discovered it in the 60’s when Rich (my ex-husband and my son’s father) brought me here on one of the trips we took so he could introduce me to WA.  I have been back many times since.  Adina has been here for fun, to bring her grandmother for an outing, and on rafting trips.  We have come here together many times.

So Saturday, we pounded the pavement for about six hours, shopping and sightseeing.  Even the Safeway Grocery Store was decorated with scrollwork and painting.

While we had a picnic in the park, a German/Bavarian band provided live music.  The first part of that concert was a fellow who played one of those long Bavarian horns.  It’s haunting music drifted across us as we ate.

A woman played the dulcimer, a hammered instrument.  It has a metallic sound, very beautiful. 

 

The musicians sang, played polkas.  They yodeled, too, and that was fun. 

All in all, the band played about an hour.  There was an art show next to it in the square.  We all enjoyed the music.

Sometime in the afternoon, we were tired and hungry so stopped for a bite to eat.  When you go to a Bavarian village, you eat Bavarian or German food, right? 

Not us. 

We found a place called The Wasabi Thai Restaurant and Sushi Bar.  I had tempura veggies and Adina had a seaweed salad.  It felt like home.

When we lived here before, Leavenworth had two stores that we liked a lot.  To our delight, both were still there.  At the bag store, I got a new hole punched in my leather belt (which had become too big) and Adina got a new purse.  Then we went to a store owned by a fellow named Ron.  He and his daughter make copper sculptures, taking sheets of copper and cutting them with a blowtorch, then staining them with acid.  We bought a small sculpture of five fir trees to put on the cedar fence on the deck of our new home.  It's all wrapped for traveling now but I'll post a picture of it when we get home. 

An interesting sidelight of staying here. Over 70 years ago, Adina’s parents were married. Dad’s brother John performed the ceremony. His brother Chester, who lived in Cashmere (12 miles down the mountain from Leavenworth), had to go to the church’s annual meeting so he let Adina’s folks stay at his house for a week for their honeymoon. They had received a wedding present of $25 and that funded their wonderful time of exploring this area.

Now we are doing the same thing! That feels good.

We camped near Lake Wenatchee on Nason Creek, a beautiful creek about the size of Honey Creek in Milwaukee WI when it is in flood.  Nason bubbles and sings all day and all night.

We have chipmunks the size of squirrels here.  They drop cones from the top of the pine trees and then dismantle them for the sweet pine nuts.  Piles of pine cone flakes with their nuts removed dot the campsites, driveways and paths.

These pine cones are big! 
Note complete cones on the right. 
Adina's cup in the background is for size comparison.

Sunday we took a hike in the morning and then sat by the river all afternoon.  We took our chairs half-way down the bank and basked in the warm sunshine, visited and did cross-word puzzles. 


We set our chairs right where I'm standing to take this picture

Then Adina baked cornbread in her Dutch oven in the fire. Yum!  It was a lazy, restful day.

Today, Monday, we are heading up into the mountains up Stevens Pass.  We'll take a back road part of the way, part undeveloped hwy and part forest service road.  The map shows multiple switchbacks so it should be pretty.

Where will be be tonight?  Who knows.

9/7/12 -- High Desert and More Mountains

Our first stop after leaving lovely Starvation Lake near Colville was Republic WA.  The last time we were in Republic, it was a good place to be from.  It was depressed and kind of ugly. 

What a change since then.  Someone who lives there has lit a fiery torch of civic pride.  Every building in their very hilly little downtown is decorated in a western theme.  Even the grocery story had large letters that looked like they came from an old western movie.  The hotel was particularly cute.

The picture isn't tilted -- the whole town is on a hill!

All day long we drove through tree-topped mountains, high passes dotted with constructions crews and flaggers.  That night we stayed at Curlew Lake State Park.  We were shocked at the prices -- $31/night.  It was groomed to an inch of its life and looked like somebody’s back yard park.  It was beautiful, I guess, and the lake was pretty but not our favorite kind of camping.  We weren’t tempted to stay longer.

The next day we turned south and drove along the Cascade Mountains, still in central WA.  We wandered through brown, well, either they are mountains as I claim or they are very large hills, as Adina claims.  She’s probably right as she grew up in central WA and knows the high desert as only a native can know.  All I know is that they are beautiful to me.  Some people would call them barren as they have few trees on them, but I grew to love them when I lived here and I love them still.  This is high desert bounded by ranges of granite mountains laced with lava that filtered into fissures in the rock.

Eastern WA hills

These hills are gentle during the heat of the sun but in early morning and late afternoon, their ridges and ripples stand out as if they were painted with an artist’s brush.  The brown of the hills is like the velvet on a young buck’s antlers.  Because there aren’t so many trees, each tree takes on great significance and stands out in sharp relief.

 One surprise was that the sagebrush was blooming.  Adina didn’t remember them blooming, although we suppose they always did.  They bloom with a delicate yellow flower. 

Blooming Sagebrush

We stopped in a driveway to take the picture above and a young woman with two dogs came out to see what was going on.  Adina told her our story and she said she wanted to see if we needed help.  Then she told us “Welcome home.”  So many people have said that to us, in grocery stores, gas stations and campgrounds.

Many of you know sage only as something that McCormick bottles along with its garlic, cinnamon and onion powder.  Our campground in Yellowstone was ringed with sagebrush.  Here’s the true size of WA sagebrush – it’s taller than Adina!    

We drove through the familiar towns of Tonaskat, Omak and Okanagan.  As we drove along the Okanagan River, we watched the irrigation systems come on that water the fruit groves.  Many of the Delicious Apples that show up in WI grocery stores come from the Okanagan Valley.  We stopped at a fruit stand and bought pears, nectarines and plums, right out of the field.  What a treat!

We have been wanting to drive the North Cross mountain highway (Hwy 20) across the Cascade Mountains, the last range of mountains we have to cross, but have been having second thoughts, third thoughts and more.  If we went that way, we’d be camping 1-2 nights at over 5000 ft.  September has arrived and nights have been getting plenty cold at 3-4000 ft.  Also, it is the highest pass over the Cascades in WA so we’d spend a lot of gas going that way.

We decided to save that trip for another day, preferably a summer one.  We’ve going to cross the Cascade Mountains on Hwy 2.  That route holds a lot of favorite places for us to re-visit and it isn’t such a high pass.

Before we started up the pass, we decided to stop for a couple of days at Lake Chelan.  It is said to be one of the most beautiful places in the state.  We have so many favorite places that we aren’t sure if that’s true, but it is certainly one of the most beautiful.  The picture below also shows another view of these beautiful eastern WA hills.  Er, mountains. Uh, hills.


The View from the Dock

Lake Chelan is 55 miles long and as much as 1500 ft deep.  Some of the lake lies below sea level.  The depth gives it a rich blue color as it reflects the sunny skies of eastern WA.  The next picture shows the Cascade Mountains in the distance, our next range of mountains to cross.  Those mountains are very rugged. 
 


Lake Chelan with the Cascade Mountains in the distance

Lake Chelan draws its water from glaciers in the Cascades so the water is pretty cold, as Adina found when she went swimming.  Briefly.  She got in chest deep and could hardly breathe for the cold but managed to make it back to the bank.



A Really COLD Swimming Experience

We camped on a little stream that fed into the lake.  Campers were asked to stay off the gravel beds of the stream because it is a spawning home for salmon.  We enjoyed the stream’s music as it tumbled over rocks and down one long little cascade.  The sound calmed and renewed us during the day and lulled us to sleep at night. 


Our Very Own Mountain Stream

Listening to the stream, I wrote a poem about streams I have known.  Each of them is special in its own way.

some streams slide
across a gentle land
whisper secret wisdom
to swaying willow branches

some streams meander
across marshy meadows
like a sleepy snake
green scales glistening

some streams tumble
bumping down mountainsides
falling over mossy rocks
singing a symphony

 I have been remiss.  Introductions are in order. 

 You all enjoyed meeting Winston who traveled with us and Drichab Anna as far as Yellowstone.  We have also had another traveling companion who sends special greetings to Winston.  Her name is Percy the Prayer Plant. 



Greetings from Percy the Prayer Plant!

 She is the only one of our plants that is moving to Vancouver with us.  Percy is our favorite plant.  She lives in a pot that my mother tiled so her home is special to us too.  She even has a job.  Prayer plants are good at cleaning the air and keeping it fresh and pure.  Do we ever have a fresh and pure car!  She also graces our table at every campsite.

 She has weathered the trip pretty well considering that she has always been an inside plant.  She enjoys sitting on the picnic table and prefers to bask in shade rather than sun.  At Starvation Lake, she spent her days waving at the lily pads.  They all waved back.  She misses Winston, though.

 Our second night at Lake Chelan, Adina cooked a stew.  Then we sat by the fire and watched the moon throw shadows of light across our camp.  High in the trees above us, birds (and maybe bats) darted about, inspiring this Haiku:

tree scrapes night’s black sky

moonlit birds circle its crown

just like butterflies

 Today (Friday, 9/7), we rode past fifty miles of apple groves.  Those gorgeous apples looked so good on the tree that we stopped at a fruit stand and got some.  They were good in the eating too.  We also picked up some really delicious apple butter.

 

 

The woman at the counter was proud that they finally had honey for sale.  The owner said that they hadn’t been able to get any for a while because the bears in the mountains kept destroying the hives and it was too expensive for the beekeepers to replace them. 

 

We’ll get honey when we get home to Vancouver.  Bees that are local to an area provide antibodies in their honey to the regions local ills.  That fruit stand owner sure had some rich, thick honey, though, and we were tempted.

Tonight I write the last paragraphs of this blog from the skirts of the Cascade Mountains.  We are camped at a campground in the Wenatchee National Forest.  I sit in camp surrounded by towering Ponderosa pines, their red bark burnished by the sunshine.  The bubbling creek across the road is providing healthy air and the sound of rushing water that we find so relaxing.

 Tomorrow, we’ll visit Leavenworth WA, and wait until I tell you about that – in the next blog!  It’s a very special, very unusual town!

We’ll stay here until Monday, and will go sightseeing in the area.  We’ll leave Monday or so and ride Hwy 2 across Steven’s Pass.  Follow our adventures on any Washington map.

Are we there yet???  

 

Several of you have asked if we aren’t almost home now.  For those of you who have wondered how far from Vancouver we are, we are 276 miles.  I suppose that, if we drove hard, we could be home in a few days, even considering the Cascade Mountains and having to fight Seattle traffic. 

 

We’re not doing that. 

This is such a wonderful opportunity for exploring all the faces of this beautiful state and we are taking full advantage of it.  We don’t have to be in Vancouver until the first week of October – or so.  We’re having an awful lot of fun being vagabonds.  Wish it could go on forever, except that, even in WA, winter will come.  There will be plenty of time, then, to unpack that mountain of boxes that wait for us in Vancouver. 

Meanwhile, come vagabond with us!

9/4/12 -- We have been having the best time!

We spent the long weekend at Starvation Lake (not starving, I assure you) just a mile or two outside of the Little Pend Oreille Wildlife Preserve.  The area is named for the Pend Oreille River that passes through the northern part of the reserve (named for the Pend Oreille Indians).  Sculpted by ice sheets during the Ice Age, it is just east of Colville WA.  Our destination, Vancouver WA, is in the southeast corner of the state. 

Our destination, Vancouver WA, is in the southwest corner of the state.

We took a couple of drives through the forest reserve.  It is a beautiful area on the flanks of Beartail Mountain and Olson Mountain in the Selkirk Mountain Range.  Elevations range from 1800’ in the lowlands of the west to 5,610’ on the east.  We are camped somewhere between those extremes.  As we drove through the Reserve, each turn brought a new ecosystem, new trees, new views.  This is the only Reserve in America that contains a mountainous, mixed-conifer forest refuge.

Now, when I say that we took a couple of drives through the reserve, many of you are imagining a nice asphalt, 2-lane road and since it’s primitive, maybe it doesn’t have a yellow line down the center.  Perhaps you imagine gently rolling hills.  The reality is far from this picture.

All the roads are dirt – not even gravel.  A logging truck would have trouble getting through some areas.  Most roads are wide enough for one vehicle.  There are 2 foot wide spaces now and then so you can pull off if you meet someone.  This allows both vehicles to keep one set of wheels on the road, anyhow.   
 
Sometimes the road winds through forests where you can see through the underbrush.  I guess that’s misleading too.  In one such area, we saw a buck with a full rack.  The underbrush was so think that we couldn’t see his legs at all.  It looked like he was floating on the grasses.  We saw a lot of deer.

Other times we drove through an area that had burned some years ago where nature was reseeding it.  In these places, we saw fireweed for the first time since returning to Washington.  This is one of the first plants that sends it emissaries in after a forest fire.

Sometimes the narrow roads climbed steep mountains.  We looked down into deep valleys full of trees.  Actually, we looked down at the tops of the trees.  We passed several log cabins that were falling apart.  Winters are severe here – 4-6’ of snow or better.  Since you can’t see ‘round the next bend, and since we didn’t want to frighten any animals, we drove at 15-20 mph.  Of course, for all those mountain roads that climbed to the peaks, they had to come down too! 

Here’s one of the roads we drove. 

Some of them were even more primitive that this.  It is the kind of mountain back-roading that we love best.  We had such a marvelous time!

Sunday, we lazed in camp all day.  That morning, a young buck with velvet antlers led a parade of wild turkeys through our campground.  Morning and evening, a young doe grazed just below our campsite near the cattails that ring the lake.

Took a walk down to the lake and watched our neighbor fly-fishing off the dock.  It’s catch-and-release until October 31^st.  Fishing here is strictly for fun.  After he left, we sat on the rocks in the shade and enjoyed the lake.  It was so still.

Reflection on Starvation Lake

The water was so clear I could see fish swimming.  Made me wish I had my fishing gear.  In this picture, I just missed the fish but you can see by how clear the water was that I could have taken his picture.  The campers here who have been fishing have been pulling out rainbow trout nearly two feet long, and that's no fish story!

 

Starvation Lake's clear water

Later as we sat in camp, a cheery voice called out, “Hello!”  Donna, from across the circle, stopped by to chat.  Her husband is an avid fly fisherman.  She was taking a book and a folding chair down to the lake to watch him fish.  She said she wanted a chance to visit first.  Donna and her husband and us are the only campers in camp.  We really enjoyed her visit. 

After she left, we built a fire, but not for warmth.  (Although temperatures dropped into the 30’s Saturday night).  No, our fire on Sunday was designed to created lots of coals so that Adina could bake a cake. 

She uses her Dutch oven – it has three little feet.  In this campsite, we have a raised barbecue stand as well as a fire pit so we can create coals in the fire pit.  We take coals from the fire and slip them under the Dutch oven, then take more coals and lay them on the lid. 

Adina with a shovel full of coals

Adina can hold her hand over the Dutch oven and tell when the temperature is right for baking. 

Testing the temperature

To me, it is like magic. I just build the fire. 

The cake was, of course, delicious.  We tasted bits that fell off and then took it down to our camp hosts, Bill and his wife as a thank-you.  Bill had brought his tools down on Friday and repaired a couple of things in the trailer -- minor to him but a big deal for us. 

Reminds me of all of you.  We have a lot of “thank you’s” to say.  We wish we could bring a thank you cake to each of you, baked outside in a Dutch oven, right on the campfire, away up on the flank of a Washington mountain.  There isn’t any cake that tastes better!

Monday, we did cross-word puzzles and lazed about camp all day, enjoying our view of the lake.  We didn't enjoy the fellow across the lake who spend the afternoon shooting at his personal target range, but it 's all part of the journey.  Just a slow, easy day.

We did walk down to the lake where we saw coots swimming.  They are funny little black duck-like birds, black with bright yellow beaks.  They have webbing on their feet but the webs don't connect so it looks like each of their toes has a lace outline.  I have always like coots.

First time I ever got a picture of a coot!

I also got a picture of the local osprey. 

Osprey in flght

Donna stopped by for a visit, which we really enjoyed.  We got to know her a little better.  Then the campground host's wife, Joanne, came down to see us too.  We were thankful we were able to provide seating for all of us, with three camp chairs and my walker.  Joanne is a quilter, imagine, right in camp.  We had a good gab-fest with two delightful women.

This morning - Tuesday - we broke camp.  As I write this blog, Adina is at the laundromat, a necessary stop on a trip this long.  This afternoon, we head west on hwy 20 toward Republic, Omak, Okanagan and then the Cascade mountains.  We don't know where we'll be tonight, but armed with our Campground book and our map of DNR campgrounds, we are prepared for whatever comes. 

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