The Evergreen State

The rest of the journey through Idaho was uneventful. Armed with tour advice from Meg, we crossed the border into Washington and I crossed another state off my list. Drove through Spokane (spo-can) and across the suprising nothing of Washington State. I guess my impression of the state was forest and mountains, not the vast flat land that we encountered. Like Colorado, most of the state is actually flat - you know except for the really big mountains.

The KOA I wanted to crash at was booked, so we reserved a spot at the Yakima KOA, which worked out better as it was close to a good entry point of Mt Rainier. So Liz plugged in the address for the Yakima KOA into the GPS and away we went.

Having missed a key turn from the Garmin along the way, the re-route took us through Connell, WA which looked like the most promising place to stop and eat anyway. It also provided me the best church sign I've ever seen. Fantastic. Timmy, this one's for you.

Continuing to follow the Garmin directions we ended up on this road not on the map and drove several miles along a large Deparment of Energy spot of land. Not exactly sure what it was but probably better I don't know.

The west part of Washington state rivals Idaho and Montana so far for nothing-ness but the sunset as we approached Yakima was the best I've seen so far on the trip.

The area around Yakima is full of vineyards and fruit orchards. Felt like we could have been in Greece or what I imagine the countryside of Italy to be like.

We got to the campground late that night and it was underwhelming even in the dark. It was the first cg (that's RV lingo for campground) I stayed in I was really disappointed in. No matter - once you are in the trailer the outside stuff doesn't really matter too much. The next morning we took off and headed for Mt. Rainier.

Mt Rainier National Park

The winding highway road to Mt. Rainier National Park gave me a glimpse of what was to come from Washington drivers. There were a ton of RV's heading back from the park the opposite way (it was Labor day) and all driving really fast on this winding road.

We entered the park on the southwest side and parked at the ranger station at the Ohanapecosh Visitor Center. The rangers were extremely friendly and helpful, we decided to forego driving up the winding steep road to higher elevations and just enjoy the forest around us.

We took the Silver Falls trail to the Grove of the Patriarchs Trail and saw these huge Red Cedar and Fir trees over 1000 years old. Pretty cool.

The forest had a very different feel than the parks we had been too, more dense, older - felt like a dinosaur might leap out at anytime. Must be just more rainfall and more consistent, Glacier and Yellowstone felt like more harsh environments.

After our hike we drove the rest of the way through the park, and after awhile thinking we had seen Mt Rainier, there was finally a break in the clouds and there it was in all its 14,000 feet of volcanic glory.

As the road was pretty steep and crowded I was going pretty slowly down the hills, apparently much to the distaste of my fellow drivers. I managed to pull off at one spot to let some cars pass and see if we could get a picture of the peak. During which time a nice young gentleman was kind enough to share his thoughts of me and my driving.

I have never in my life encountered such rudeness, and I've lived in NJ for most of it. It's the first time I ever been called a "F*ing Douche Bag" before - to my face anyway - complete with arm gestures out the window of the truck. Needless to say Washington drivers do NOT have a warm place in my heart...

However, the other people I've met here have softened that and we continued on to Winwoodville WA where the universe had found me a place to land my trailer while I was away...

That's more than enough for this post. Stay tuned for the rest of the Washington experience.

Cheers,

Kelly