Days 18-21: Bellevue to Pendleton.

Due to unforeseen circumstances (I was out of range of cell contact), this post is a little late getting up and another will follow almost instantly. Okay, I'll wait till tomorrow morning.

A week before I started my trek, D and T sent me an email saying they would be in Bellevue at Vasa Park on the 29th and 30th and hoped I'd be there. So I swung back to Bellevue on the 27th and booked in at Vasa Park.

It's a nice space and First Exit is happy there, even though I can't stay the 30th and have to park on the street at the homestead. I had a nice barbecue for folks on Thursday night, including K, Q, M, S, D, and T. We kind of ate in shifts at the little table because it was raining like crazy outside. That proved to be a continuing theme this week.

Isn't it amazing that I can serve seven at this table? I had to see the dentist again and take the truck in for service while I was back. I've since discovered all kinds of things I want to add to the truck, but they will go forward one at a time as I can afford it. I'd never have thought of the use for bumper guards!

Nonetheless, on Friday, D & T & I did some of the typical tourist things on the east side. First we headed for Snoqualmie Falls. The falls were kindly running--perhaps not as fast and furious as at times in the winter, but still putting on quite a show. We had a great meal in the Attic at Salish Lodge and then headed out for Mount Si to hike for an hour. Well, it was an hour up and forty minutes back.

Saturday morning we broke camp and began our caravan down to the Wild Horse Resort and RV Park near Pendleton, OR. We'd heard dire warnings about attempting Snoqualmie Pass until mid afternoon, so we elected to head south to U.S. Hwy 12 at Morton. A detour was marked on WA 7, but we found out it was lifted for the holiday weekend, so cruised down that way anyway. We were treated to some great sights.

For a while I thought this was the only view of Rainier that we'd have. It was far away.

 

When we headed east on Hwy 12, we were surprised by the several miles of traffic backup through Packwood, WA, a town that hadn't even shown up on my map. It's just a couple miles from the entrance to the national park and about ten miles from White Pass. Hundreds and hundreds of people were there for an enormous flea market that was at least a mile long. I was seriously thinking we had made a bad decision regarding our  route. That's when we got the first view of Mount Adams.

That was pretty cool. There's no big viewpoint marked. We saw it and pulled both trailers to the side of the road to go find the picture. Beautiful. As we approached White Pass, though, we were in for another surprise as we pulled into the Mount Rainier viewpoint. I'd never seen the southeast side of Mount Rainier. My gosh! It's incredible, rugged, and close!

We finally got to Wild Horse after discovering that it was still 200 miles away from White Pass. The total drive for the day was 368 miles and 11 hours. We were all pretty exhausted and barely got dinner before the buffet closed at 9:00. I did, however, play my ritual $3 on Keno and won $40! I said goodbye to D&T and we headed our separate ways. They'd be gone before I broke camp in the morning.