Day 1 – 13 Nov

Not really a full day. We had worked ourselves silly the last few days to get the house and property and dog plants and fishies ready for us to be gone for almost forty days. So we left pretty late on Sunday the 13^th and made it to the Hill’s house in Twin. Went in and crashed. It had been a rough few days.

Day 2 – 14 Nov

Got going about half an hour late. Drove through some really pretty country. The stretch in Oregon from Ironside to Unity to Prairie City was fantastic.  I think it has made it onto the list for possible future living sites. After passing through the city of John Day, crossing the John Day River nine times and passing through the city of Dayville, we finally got to John Day fossil beds National historic Park. All of these are named for a trapper who, it turns out, is most famous for getting robbed with a friend (whose last name was Crooks) down to his skin. They got found by French trappers and made it to Astoria. I guess that’s enough to get an entire region named after you.

 

As you approach John Day Park from the East you enter Picture gorge. A slot cut into the hill that looks to be wide enough for a road or a river but not both. Surprise. Both go in and wind around each other for a few miles until you come to The Visitor’s center.  Great center.  A gallery with some great murals. A Jr. Ranger Room that was a Working lab (it was closed when we got there but it looked a fair bit bigger than what

we saw in Fossil Butte. The Kids earned their Junior Rangers and dragged April into getting a Senior Ranger with them and then we left for a hike.

A couple of miles down the road is Blue Basin trail head. We stopped there and spent a little over an hour on the Trail Through Time. Beautiful trail. Only 1.3 miles and an easy hike. The green dirt, that if it had been in Southern Utah would have been mined for Uranium, gets into the water during rainstorms and colors everything you see. It looked

like the back wall of Goblin Valley had gotten Seasick. It was eerie. We came back to the trail head and cooked on of our specialties. Macaroni & cheese with peas and sausage. Toss a little applesauce on anything and the kids will eat it.

Then we hit the road. We had to make it to Walla Walla tonight. Nez Perce was on the chopping block simply because it was so far out of the way. We got gas and a couple of guys tried to help us find our way but it became clear pretty quickly that they were firmly cut off from most of the rest of the world. So we took our chances. Made an early wrong turn and wandered off in the rainy dark to find somewhere to sleep.

Day 3 – 15 Nov

We sold out and found a cheap hotel in Walla Walla. It had breakfast and a swimming pool. We loaded up on both, turned over a hobbit leaf and had second breakfast. Then we took off for the parks.

Whitman Mission was pretty somber. Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa had tried to prepare the Cayuse Tribe for the innundation of settlers that they knew were coming so they taught them agriculture and irrigation, among other things. Their homestead became a waypoint on the Oregon Trail and was a very busy place for a few years. But with the settlers came new bad behaviors like drinking and diseases like small pox and measles. Measles hit the Cayuse hard and the medicine the Europeans use didn’t seem to work for the Cayuse. A man named Joe began to agitate the Cayuse and in November they attacked and killed the couple and a bunch of other people. The result was a firming of the movement to bring the Oregon area into the U.S. and take it from the Natives.  Tragedy, all the way around.

We made our way to the Hanford site of the Manhattan Project. It is North West of Richland and in some ways is very similar to the Los Alamos site. Desert, secluded, consistent source of water. At Hanford they began producing the Uranium and other

materials they would need to create the bomb. Enrico Fermi spent a fair bit of time here. The most shocking thing about the whole process is that they took the whole project from nothing built to the Trinity test in less than three years. Difficult to imagine.

Then we boogeyed for Rainier. We stopped in Yakima to get some groceries and then found our way into the park in the rain. All the campsites we saw were closed and so we found a sweet bunkhouse/hotel thing. It was an old house that certain rooms had been turned into a hotel. We stayed upstairs and it was awesome.

Day 4 – 16 Nov

Asher, Pickle and I went for a run this morning. There was a little trail behind the hotel that ran in a .9 mile loop. It went past a playground and through some really pretty trees. We came back and ate all of the oatmeal that the caretaker left for us and then we went for a walk so we could get freezing before we got in the hot tub we found. We didn’t make it very far before we met Garry Olson. The head of the Ashford Fire Dept. We talked with him for about an hour and then we went and played in the hot tub for a little while.

I have never seen anything like Rainier. The surrounding landscape is indescribable and the mountain itself is utterly dominating. I loved every moment of my time there and can’t wait to go back. We feel all the time the pain of our decision to complete this goal. We don’t spend very long in any one place. There are a lot of places we have been this year that I would have liked to spend more time in. Likely I won’t go back to most of them because there are still so many places I haven’t been to yet. Rainier is not on that list. I will go back to Rainier and spend some serious time on the mountain.

We had one more stop today before we landed at April’s friend’s house. There is a historic site on Bainbridge Island. It was the deportation point for the internees that were gathered up in the area. 120,000 people of Japanese descent were herded onto ships and sent to the desert so they could be watched.

I can definitely see both sides of this. At the time we had no idea of how far the Japanese could go. We knew they were vicious fighters and we had made up our minds that they and the Germans could not be allowed to win the war. If there is a legitimate seed to the intolerable Executive order 9066 that sent all these good people away , many never to return, this is it. But the truth is that the decision to round them up like criminals was based almost completely on fear. Not reason, compassion, understanding or courage. Just plain fear, maybe tinged with greed. Nidoto nai yoni. Let it not happen again. Never has this sentiment been more important than now in 2016. Make your voice heard, speak for love and kindness. Take care of your neighbor and resist tyranny in all of it’s forms.

The kids loved the ferry.

Day 5 – 17 Nov Count: 54

Ate a good breakfast and played with the cat at Angel’s and then took off with her to Snoqualmie falls. It’s not on The List but it was hard to resist. It was running well and the mist coming off of it was fantastic.

It took a little bit to find the Klondike National Historic Site. It is some prime real estate. It’s nice to see a space like that being used for something a little altruistic. I had no idea how many people went north to look for gold and how few actually found any. It’s a little funny really what the call of gold will do to people.

 

Then we headed down to Pike’s Place to get something to eat and then by the Space Needle on our way to UW. The day had cleared up and we needed to get that view of Rainier that had been eluding us. We got it. The Rainier vista did not disapoint. Then back to Angel’s and to crash. We’re tired.

Day 6 – 18 Nov Count: 56

Finally getting the hang of Renton. Ran hard yesterday and the ankle was hurting pretty bad. So I took today off and we left for the ferry as early as we could. The kids are doing great. They get up fairly well when we need them to and they don’t complain much when we eat peanut butter sandwiches for every lunch. It helps that we have been driving through some of the most beautiful country on the planet.

We took the Ferry to Whidbey Island and drove a cross it to Ebey’s Landing. There are some really cool old sites on the Island. The Box houses are really cool. We wandered around Coupesville for a bit and then moved on towards San Juan. The bridge over Deception pass was really cool. Then we got to the Ferry. We had to wait a bit for this one but it was worth it. The trip from Anacortes over to Friday Harbor was brilliant. I have seen a lot of coastlines and I have never seen coasts like these. Islands from less than an acre to several square miles. All of them covered with thick trees and rugged coastlines.

Friday Harbor is gorgeous. It looks like they have planned almost the entire place to be attractive to the eye. Unfortunately, as with all of our trips, we didn’t spend much time there. We made our way across the island to English Camp. It is nestled down in a little hollow with trees surrounding it and a beautiful channel running in front of it. In 1859 after two pretty epic wars for freedom we almost got in another war over a dead pig. An American settler shot a pig belonging to an Irish Settler and offered him $10 for it. The Irish settler, Charles Griffin, said that he wanted $100, to which Lyman Cutlar (the American) probably replied

“You ought to find an unpleasant whole into which to place your head.”

We know that he said that the pig was trespassing, eating his potatoes and that he didn’t owe Charles anything. It is rumored that the Irishman said,

“It’s up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig.” Not sure what to say about that but it’s funny.

We spent an hour or two talking to a couple we met there in the park. It is a remarkable thing that we can travel all over the country and if we are in a park we have friends. We just haven’t met them all yet.

Then we headed to our campsite. As with nearly everywhere on this trip we shared the entire place with only one other group. A beautiful spot overlooking the ocean. We fixed fajitas and had a wonderful evening.