We left Binghamton, NY, at six in the morning on April 15,
2014, for Seattle. Traveling through
Detroit on Delta Airlines, we spent eight hours on airplanes, just under two of
those hours simply sitting and going nowhere.
We arrived in Seattle in the late morning and drove around
on US 101 to Port Angeles where we had a great view of ocean-going ships coming
into the harbor. The next day we went
into Olympia National Park up to Hurricane Ridge and Elk River. We encountered snow as we went up the
mountain, which I suspect could be expected since there were several feet of
snow on the ground from the winter.
Susan took a picture of me standing next to a section that had been
plowed out and the snow was well above my head.
On the way down the mountain we stopped a few times just to
take pictures and take in the view. The
first time we stopped we heard a low-pitched “who” like sound. It definitely was not an owl. We checked at the visitor center at the park
and we learned that what we heard was a grouse.
We continued on down the coast on 101 and stopped at the
first opportunity to look at the ocean.
What a view. There were large
volcanic outcroppings into the ocean, the waves were breaking high against the
rocks, and it was foggy. It was
beautiful.
We spent our second night at Long Beach, Washington, and had
dinner at a nice little restaurant. We
continued our journey on April 17 crossing the bay into Oregon and following
the Lewis and Clark scenic route. We
tried to see Mount Hood, but it was just too rainy and cloudy. It rained the entire day. We spent the night in Bend, Oregon.
On the 18th we went to Crater Lake (where there
was also snow) and spent the night at North Bend, which is located by Coos
Bay. The lake was beautiful and the snow
was deep.
We found a restaurant at North Bend that had to be “the”
place to eat. As soon as we walked in I
knew we had found a gold mine. Many of
the men had white beards, and were wearing plaid shirts and suspenders, and had
seaman caps. Seems that we chose well. I even had a cup of clam chowder!
From Coos Bay/North Bend we traveled up the Oregon coast and
viewed four different lighthouses. I
have pictures of these on Facebook.
Susan was literally buzzed by a golden eagle at one of the lighthouses!
We then headed up to Tillamook, Oregon, where we toured a
visitor center of the Tillamook Cheese Factory.
They even handed out free cheese samples.
From Tillamook, we headed to Longview and Kelso, Washington,
where we spent the night and went to church.
After church we went to Mt. St. Helens and headed down to see Mt.
Hood. This time we were able to see it.
We had planned to spend the night in Mitchell, Oregon on
Sunday night. It is located right next
to the John Day Fossil Beds Painted Hills, but when we got to Mitchell we saw
that the motel was a hotel and looked to be of the Bates Motel variety. We turned around and drove back to Prineville
and made our way back to the Painted Hills Monday.
We spent Monday evening and the next morning with Roger and
Gail Wickers in Umatilla, Oregon. They
showed us the McNary Dam and the visitor center there, which was
interesting. Actually, it was just good
to be with friends.
Tuesday we headed toward Seattle, but stopped at Mt.
Rainier. We were led by our GPS to an entrance
of the park that was closed. Luckily, we
had been following park employees to the locked gate. When we got to the gate I got out to ask for
directions to the visitor center.
Instead of turning us around, they unlocked the gate and let us follow
them to the park headquarters. What a
blessing that was.
We then made our way to Seattle and our final night on our
trip and at least six more hours on a flight back home. Flying time was shorter going west to east
than it was east to west and we didn’t spend nearly as much time on planes
boarding, deplaning, and waiting. We
also had a couple of hours of free time in Detroit, which was nice on our
sit-downs.
We got home around 11:30 at night, dead tired, but gratified
for the great trip that we experienced.
