Weekend Warrior Part 3

I woke up earlier than my companion again this morning, Riley and I wandered around for awhile to use the bathroom and get our morning walk in. The mosquitoes were still annoying, but not horrid if you kept moving. I greeted people with a happy 'good morning' as I passed by their camps.

One couple I greeted invited me into their camp for a cup of coffee as I was making my way back to camp. Knowing my partner in crime could use a bit more sleep, I agreed.

We sat and chatted for over an hour about life, dogs, family, camping, nature, their eventual retirement, travels, and my tiny house. One comment they had made about my tiny house struck a chord with me, "We would be happy as can be living in our little trailer here, but it would mean we would have to get rid of all our stuff. We do not even want to buy a new house, as that means we would have to go through 30 plus years of 'stuff'". Reminded me that I had to go home and start getting rid of all my stuff, and realized I was excited about it.

After a bit more chatting, I wandered back to camp to check if my companion was awake. He made a few gruff (half-asleep) comments in reference to the mosquitoes I had let in when I opened the car door to get out.

Me: I shut the door as quickly as I could!
Him: Yes, while you locked out the 20 million out, you let 50 in. All of which seem to think I am delicious. (Note: Outside of the car, it probably sounded like he was explaining war tactics in Klingon).

He awoke and decided that we needed to leave post haste to avoid further devouring by mosquitoes. So we high tailed out of the campground. I waved to my morning coffee buddies on the way out.

There was a sign pointing to Lake Chelan on our way back out of the National Forest, he looked at me and asked if I wanted to go. I noted that it was a really rough dirt road, and that it said 30 miles. I was delighted we were in the Subaru and not my Toyota when I said yes. To your left is an example of the road. This road is quite rough, I do not recommend it if unless you are an industrious sort.

This road takes a minimum of two hours to get to Lake Chelan. Had we known what we were getting into, we would have fueled up first. But, that is part of the adventure. This road quickly climbed elevation and became more and more 'rough'. There were not many definitive signs that we were going the correct direction when we would come upon a fork in the road.

We had a scare about halfway in, as we saw an equally traveled path leading in either direction with fresh tire tracks on both. There was not a sign telling us which way to go. We decided to take the road to the left, do not do that... it is the wrong way. Luckily, it comes to a hiking trail eventually that makes a good turnaround.

The road continues upward, I vetoed going further up as it appeared to be the wrong direction...not to mention there was snow. I envisioned us being snowed in, and ill prepared as we were...this made me rather uncomfortable. While unlikely, the idea of running out of gas without working cell phones on the top of this mountain did not appeal to me.

We took the correct fork in the road on the second go round and we both relaxed. The view was phenomenal. There were many boondock options along this route (sans mosquitoes), next time I am doing that instead.

We came upon Junior Point Campground, we stopped here because I needed to use the bathroom. The bathroom is a lie. However, there is a SPECTACULAR view at this spot. Take those stairs up and oggle the view. There is wildflowers, ridge lines, trees, the road, and visible trails. You can also notice the effect that fires and bark beetles have had on the forest, which is a bit sad. But the view is breathtaking.

Outside of this campground there is a yurt. A random yurt, just sitting there. I had to investigate (just in case they were hiding the bathroom in there). I still want to know exactly what it was for. My friend suggested it was a place to review the beetle bug infestation. It had a picnic table and a wood stove inside. I hypothesized it is a point for research for the National Forest in general. If you note on the sign picture listed above, there is a map posted. This map details trails that can be taken via snowmobile.

We slowly wound our way down the mountain, noting campgrounds and old forest roads along the way. Though it is redundant, the view was exceptional for the whole trip. Beautiful flowers along the mountainside were purple, orange and yellow. As we got closer to Lake Chelan, I even started to spot wild sunflowers.

The road finally brought us out to Lake Chelan, where we stopped at a mini mart, grabbed drinks and used the (much needed) bathroom. The town was quite full of tourists. We laughed about the signs that pointed to Entiat via the way we just came and shook our heads a bit.

We started the journey home from there, slowly making our way through the North Cascade Loop, which was (again) beautiful. I was sad to see the road trip end, but it was nice to be heading home.

Weekend Warrior Part 2

I woke up fairly early in the morning and took me and the dog (Riley) for a bathroom run and a bit of a walk, as my companion was still asleep. Lake Quesna was beautiful with the sun rising over it. The other campers and fisherman were very friendly and greeted us with "hello" or "good morning" as we passed by the makeshift camps.

After walking around awhile, I walked back to the Subaru to see if he had awoken yet. He was laying there with his eyes closed and agreed we should likely get moving before the sun starting baking him alive in the car.

We drove for quite a distance once we got moving. Made a few pit stops for bathroom breaks along the way. However, Riley does not do so well in the heat. As a fix, he will crawl down to the floor in the front seat where the air conditioner will pour onto him directly. Unlike usual though, he continued to pant and be displeased with the heat. I was debating how to best fix this as we drove along.

We happened to be close to Soap Lake, as we drove by... I was super disappointed as it was packed full of people. So we continued on by and there was another lake! I was thrilled. We pulled off the road so we could jump in.

We ended up at Lake Lenore, which was blissfully people free! There was an outhouse, blue dragonflies everywhere, the sun was in a beautiful position, the water was just the right kind of cold... felt a bit magical.

We hung out at the lake for an hour or so. Riley is not a fan of water, but he bravely jumped right in and soaked for awhile in the cold water. I did not have a bathing suit with me, so I took one of my wrap skirts, wrapped it around me and hopped in. After swimming for a bit we continued down the warm road, Riley happily cooled down and asleep at my feet.

We drove for a bit longer and ended up at Dry Falls. This is yet another place that is overwhelmingly gorgeous. I have included a couple pictures, but they do not do it justice.

I included the Wikipedia article as a link above. A portion of it read as follows: "Dry Falls is a 3.5 mile long scalloped precipice in central Washington, on the opposite side of the Upper Grand Coulee from the Columbia River, and at the head of the Lower Grand Coulee. Ten times the size of Niagara, Dry Falls is thought to be the greatest known waterfall that ever existed. According to the current geological model, catastrophic flooding channeled water at 65 miles per hour through the Upper Grand Coulee and over this 400-foot (120 m) rock face at the end of the last ice age. At this time, it is estimated that the flow of the falls was ten times the current of all the rivers in the world combined."

We took a large number of pictures at Dry Falls, working around tourists. I was pretty surprised at this location, as I did not know it existed. I think that is my favorite part about spontaneous road trips, especially with a friend who is open minded to my magpie tendencies.

My companion and I did not have a planned route and we were in the thick of Eastern Washington by this point and he was wandering down memory lane. He determined he wanted us to go hit his old stomping grounds north of Wenatchee, where him and a bunch of his friends would take their motorcycles to the Apple Blossom Festival every year, and then camp in the (formerly) tiny Silver Falls campground. My companion did not remember the name of the campground, only how to get there. Seeing as we were coming from the opposite direction, it was a bit of a hunt.

After a bit of driving around for a time, he found the road to the campgrounds. I was quite impressed that he was able to find it, as it had been about 15 years since he had been there. A number of campgrounds had been added since his last visit. We ended up at the Road's End Campground

We had wanted something a bit more private that we could boondock at, but it was getting late and we did not want to push our luck. So we settled into the campsite and paid our fee. Excited, we sat down to eat a picnic dinner at the provided picnic table. However, the mosquitos were horrible! So we jumped into the car and ate in the back. We took a small hike after dinner, it started getting dark so we bunked down for the night.

Weekend Warrior Part 1

With all the craziness of life as of late, I have not taken much time off. I figured it was high time that was remedied, a close friend of mine agreed. My requirement was only that we go somewhere warm, as Washington has had a rather wet and dismal summer season thus far.

My companion suggested Eastern Oregon, as it has similar weather but a highway I had not yet traveled via the Columbia River Highway route (I-84). We only had a weekend to work with. So this sounded like a fun adventure, so off we went.



So we left Lacey and headed towards Portland Friday evening. On the way to I-5 we spotted some hitchhikers with a Portland sign. We picked them up since we were headed straight to Portland. Molly and Kallum had come from Australia and were hitchhiking the states. Molly is an expat and vagabond from California and Kallum is an Australian native.

Molly and Kallum made the drive to Portland speed by pretty quickly. My dog, Riley (a shih tzu) found them interesting and almost immediately ended up in Molly's lap in the back seat. It was nice to chat with them about traveling, vagabonding and other such things. Running into other travelers is always a good time.

After that we hit a little place for dinner in Portland that my companion suggested, Bubba Bernie's, as he had a craving for cajun. I got a pulled pork sandwich and he got a shrimp po boy that was spicy and delicious!

We drove on through Oregon and it started to get dark. What was neat about the drive was that we were able to see Multnomah Falls at night. We took the old Columbia River Gorge highway through this portion and it was breathtaking, even at night.

At this point we were pretty tired. As we were in a Subaru station wagon, we planned to sleep in the car. So we were searching for somewhere to boondock for the night. I received a bonafide high five by utilizing google maps on my phone to locate a gem of a location, Quesna County Park. There were outhouse style toilets, a boat launch and free camping. It was perfect.