A journey to fill my soul

Hit The Road Road

When I left you last time I was completing my visit to Olympic National Park. On my final thoughts on this park visit I feel the park itself is amazing, there are areas that are incredibly beautiful but to easy to reach therefore making them, I’ll say, uncomfortable for some. I find no joy in large crowds, and see no reason for commercialization of our park systems. But I would suppose, in order for some to say they’ve been there, it could not happen without some ornamental attachments to be included. Guess I’ll leave it at that and join the crowd and say I’ve been there and yes, the park is beautiful.

Port Townsend, Washington

After a short drive east on the infamous Highway 101, I jumped onto Highway 20 for the beginning of a very long drive across Washington. But first we need another ferry ride. Port Townsend is another place I would put on my list of ‘come back and see’ places. This place is not heavy in tourism, it’s just a place for commuters to get across another Pacific inlet which heads towards Puget Sound. The homes and businesses look as historic as the area is but kept up to modern standards making the visit here feel very comfortable. I love port towns, the smells and views draw me in and make me just want to sit down and take it in.

North Cascades National Park

This national park is called the least visited park in the national park system. To that I say, hear hear!!! If you’re coming from the west, which is the way I would suggest beginning your visit to the North Cascades National Park, you’ll come to the park visitor center. This is probably the best visitor center in the park system I have seen. The layout of the center is very well done as it prepares you for your visit to the park system.

Newhalem, Washington

Following your visit to the National Park visitor center you’ll head further east on 20 to the unincorporated city of Newhalem, Washington. Don’t pass this visit up, this small village was created as a workers site in the building of 3 dams, the Gorge, Ross, and Diablo River hydroelectric dams which are used and maintained by the City of Seattle Power & Light company. Within this small village you will also find the Trail of Cedars, not to be confused with the Trail of Cedars in Glacier National Park. Sorry….. And for the ladies in the crowd, there is shopping. Didn’t spend time in that area but it seemed to draw a large crowd.

Big Timbers!

Anyone who knows me knows I love big timbers, I’ve been building slab tables and chairs for most of my adult life. I’ve worked with some big, and heavy wood in my life but these would present a new challenge I would have to master. The image above with my arms outstretched shows how large some of these trees are in this forest. My reach is about 6’, that tree base is greater than 6-feet. I can imagine what that dining table would look like, good thing I don’t have a means to bring one home.

Back to the Park

Words cannot express what I feel about this park. There are no water slides, or $1,000 per night lodges, or high end restaurants, just natural beauty at its best. Don’t bring your oversized camper to this place cause there are no 50-amp connections or water connections. I drove roads with a 21-foot max rating, it’s just you and nature, come prepared.

If you have interest in hiking, this is your place. I put in two long hikes, one over 10-miles. If I had the means for transportation back to my starting point I would learn to do a through-hike. On my hikes the trails were easy walking in most areas but rough in others. Overall, it was quiet. I had the pleasure to meet a couple of through-hikers who stopped while I was taking a break, or just taking in the beauty. That was all, no crowds, no people, just me and nature. These two were on the Pacific Crest Trail and coming into my camp zone for a few days down. I envy their will to take on such a task. Maybe someday…

Gotta Keep Moving East

Leaving the camp I was in and driving east was breathtaking, awe inspiring, maybe part of a dream. The road was incredibly quiet. There isn’t much as far as cities, or attractions that would pull a traveler in this direction, just lots of invites to more hiking and many, many views of mountains.

As you continue east you’ll have the opportunity to cross the Columbia River. The views in this area are beautiful as expected.

And finally, you’ll hit the plains area of eastern Washington, the land of sand. Many years ago I rode a motorcycle from the west coast of the US back into the Milwaukee area. Driving through southern Washington we ran into a sand storm, it shocked me at that time and I still find all the sand in eastern Washington hard to believe. But somewhere within this region you find fertile soil, which is where the apple and pear orchards are. I was driving hard trying to make time so I didn’t stop to photograph this area. Looking at that decision now makes me sad. I guess when I first saw these orchards I wasn’t sure what I was seeing, but as I continued I could not believe what I was seeing. Driving for miles along side these farms, or orchards, and they were all covered in a screen like material to keep insects out. When I reached the far eastern edge of the orchard area I came on the warehouse’s used to transport the fruits to markets. Enormous would be a slighted word for the size of these facilities. Incredible to see. I have a new viewpoint on where these fruits come from.

One More National Treasure To Visit.

Glacier National Park

I came into the Glacier National Park area in the West Glacier area. Meet the circus family. Huge water slides, lodges, expensive restaurants, expensive cars driving about, way too much for me. Traveling as I do it’s hard to make plans to visit places. In researching Glacier National Park the first challenge was finding a camp to stay in. I just had to screen-shot this camp as my financial manager quickly messaged me when I was happy to find a place for less than this one.

There is no way to get a campsite anywhere in the Glacier park unless you go up to near the Canadien border and hike in. I have to say, this park is the essence of insane. Everywhere you go it has this circus like atmosphere where you pay to do anything and everything, and crowds of people are everywhere. I had a plan to stay two nights and then scram, I didn’t even make that before I hit the road. Now, I have to say this, Glacier National Park, in itself is amazing, but there are just too many people here and money rules the game.

I drove hard so that I would get into Glacier earlier in the day, around noon. I had a more than 500-mile drive over two days with mountain driving through most of it, so I thought I would lay low in the afternoon and hit the park the next day. From research I knew I would not be hiking, and I wasn’t even sure I would be able to do the Going-to-the-sun drive through the park. I’m still baffled how the ticketing process works to drive the road. When I came into town and met the circus family I knew this wasn’t going to work for me.

Through some heavy research I figured out to drive west-to-east you had to reserve a ticket up to 6-months in advance. Not an option. Option two was to go online at 8:00 am, or, 8:00 pm and hit the button to order at that moment with a chance of winning the lottery to pay for a ticket. Now, it’s not 8 am, or 8 pm, I don’t know which it is cause on the website in one sentence it says one thing and a sentence down it says another. But, if you read to the bottom it says you don’t need a ticket to drive east-to-west….yes, you only pay to go one direction, not both. And it’s not a one-way rode so who cares which way you drive it. So, high-tail it to the east side where I meet a ranger at check point that says my truck is too tall, wink, wink….Yes, there are restrictions even though the park service runs buses larger than mine. With his wink and smile he said I won’t be running after you, have a nice drive. Now, the rock walls do extend out onto the roadway so drive with caution. But maybe that’s the problem, someone comes in with a rental camper with no idea where the top is or where the corners are and crashes into everything on the way through. All good…

The drive…

I find the mountains in Glacier National Park to be so interesting. You don’t seem to have these long mountain ranges, just big, tall mountains that are defined in size around but really tall. Really beautiful to look at. Yes, I’m back in the smoke but that didn’t take away from what I saw as some pretty spectacular views of these mountains.

No regrets even though I was pretty grumpy going into this visit. It’s really unfortunate when corporate America comes to our National Parks to make money. I can’t do anything about it so I’ll just move on.

This trip is coming to an end

I said I didn’t make the two nights at Glacier even though I struggled to find a campsite at an overpriced rate. Guess I was just unhappy about the surroundings, so I didn’t hang around. I was looking at a 1,300-mile drive in front of me so I checked out early and moved on…

There’s always something crazy going on.

I’ll save my final push home for my final post on this adventure, and of course there is adventure.

Thanks for following to this point. There is a long drive with a lot of thinking time so I’ll share both next time.

All my best to everyone and till next time…Peace.