Chapter 4, Washington State to Ohio

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Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/Ches.Alli/Chapter4

We ended Chapter 3 with a photo of the scary bridge over the Columbia River at Astoria, Oregon, but didn't tell you about Astoria, established in 1811 as a fur trading post. It's a narrow, gritty city with tall ornate stone buildings downtown and victorian homes on the hillsides. We timed our trip to stop at the Farmer's Market on a Sunday morning. What a disappointment it was. Not many vegetables and not a very good selection of prepared food. We had hoped for something uncommon like the tofu/noodle stand we ate at in Corvallis, OR but only saw spaghetti & meatball, cotton candy and icecream booths. I couldn't resist a stop at a stand with loaves of fresh bread and goat milk yogurt. Their bakery was just 3 blocks away and fresh baked bread was pedaled down on a super-sized trike with a platform between the back wheels. We decided to walk to the bakery where I purchased a loaf of rosemary bread. The lunch menu was right up our alley - which is to say they were serving the sandwich I'd been eating for lunch all week. Simple, fresh food but it is silly to purchase what you can easily prepare yourself, so we didn't eat there. A brew pub offering something we had not had in a while, black bean burritos, was right next door so we treated ourselves to lunch there.

Once over the bridge, we found the “Welcome to Washington Center”, a narrow gallery of brochures with an attendant who had no sense of humor or customer service. Calling out over people's heads to anyone fingering more than one brochure not to handle too many or take more than one and then complaining about the predictable conversation starter - “this is a tight squeeze”, he put a bad taste about Washingtonians in your mouth first thing. I guess he was having a bad day and trying to pass it on.

Faced with the decision of driving north to forest service land to camp or go to Seattle, I called Cynthia who told us we were about 1.5 hours from her house. The decision was made. Why drive up the coast to camp in cloudy, unpredictable weather under huge trees that block the sun, as we had been doing for the last two weeks, when we could be in a house, prepare a meal in a real kitchen and take decent showers? What we did not expect were the traffic delays. Bad decision to head into a major city on a Sunday evening when everyone is going home. Still, it was nice to go into Cynthia and Jim's home where a welcome note awaited and we could finally unwind.

Cynthia and Jim were in Wisconsin and would not be home until the next night, so there we were with our kitty in their beautiful home. So much space after living out of the van, it was a bit discombobulating. We remained organized though, getting Rain into our bedroom with her litter box and food so she could stretch her legs. She did not want to be there long. She came out to explore her new digs as soon as the door was left open a crack. In another day, she would find her perch in the sun on the back of the sofa overlooking Cynthia and Jim's lush garden and out to Seattle's skyline. That night, we collapsed into bed early exhausted from the stress of dealing with more traffic then we were used to. Most of our time had been spent on two lane roads and in small towns, not interstate highways and large cities.

We spent a lot of our time in Seattle writing in our travel log, catching up on email, taking bike rides, and reading the New York Times (explaining the mortgage market meltdown in great detail as well as all the other world news we had been isolated from since we left Santa Fe). It worked out well for us since Cynthia and Jim were at work several of the days we were there. With Cynthia's help, I was also able to find a zipper for our van sliding door screen and sew it in. We can now access the back of the van more easily. It was great not to be rushed and to complete several projects.

When Cynthia got home from her travels on Monday evening, we had dinner ready. Ches and I broiled tofu for Cynthia and Val, her neighbor who is like another sister to Cyn and therefore to us. Val is someone you immediately like - kind, relaxed, interesting. I was sorry that Ches could not meet her husband, Simon who is a film maker and was working in another country, or their girls, who were away at camp and school.
Although the dinner we prepared was very different from their regular diet, and Cynthia or Jim prepared all the other meals at home, Ches maintained our morning routine and made oatmeal for Cynthia and I the next morning and every morning we were there. We walked to Simon's Coffee Bar (a different Simon) for our morning fix and experienced the absolute best coffee/latte/cappuccino ever. If you are in Seattle and Simon's is still there (after 14 years he's thinking of closing) you must get your fix there. Every latte has a leaf or a heart etched in the foam. A pleasure to view and tasty too.

When Jim had an afternoon off, we biked along the many Seattle trails to the Locks, to a brew pub and back home, a 14 mile round trip. The ride started with excitement as Ches's rear tire had a blowout by the bottom of the first steep hill. . Thankfully the blowout did not cause him to wreck even though the tire was off the rim and slime had exploded everywhere. Jim rode back home to get his truck and another bicycle while Ches and I walked the bike 8 blocks to the bike shop. The extra bicycle was a good fit for me and we started our ride again from the bike shop. The trails are wide and smooth and drivers are use to bicyclists on the roads, so biking was exhilarating. That night we ate expensive “authentic” Italian pizza at Cafe Lago, a loud restaurant famed for its pasta & pizza and we debated the merits of pizza crust and whether the crust was better at Via Tribunali, the restaurant where Cynthia treated us to dinner two days before.

We started the next day with “family coffee” at Fremont Coffee Company, where anyone from Adrianne, Jim's goddaughter, and her husband, Nick to neighbors or friends join for their weekly hour of coffee and chitchat. We are always picking up tips and thinking about what we will do when we next settle down and later on Nick gave Ches his text book from a class he took last year on commercial real estate - something we have been discussing investing in for a while. Cynthia and I shopped at the farmer's market and then we all took the ferry over to Vashon Island to visit Pacific Crest Farm. The Farm was purchased by a woman who is associated with a Waldorf school. Several of Cynthia and Jim's friends' children attend the school and they often contribute to their yearly fund raising auction either by donating a dinner prepared in their own wood-fired pizza oven or by making a purchase. The students come out to the island to work on the farm to learn about land stewardship, organic farming and math. The farm has a honor system stand (with no attendant) where you weigh your produce and pay whatever you owe. We purchased some cucumbers and tomatoes to supplement our picnic lunch with the owner, Jackie. Walking up to her custom-built two room house, Jim and Ches broke away and I was able to spend precious time with Cynthia.

We made slow progress because we lingered along the trail stuffing ourselves with blackberries and talking. So many, so delicious and so satisfying after I had been longing to gobble some up ever since spying them along the roadsides in Oregon. After lunch we unloaded our bikes and toured around the island's narrow road. Before we left the island, we had to purchase more succulent cukes and tomatoes and of course stuff more blackberries in. We said goodbye full of food and good about what Jackie is doing with the property. That night, we were invited to a birthday party for one of Cynthia's friends where we met more interesting people and had paella for the first time. We got several suggestions on where we should land next. Places in Oregon and central Washington State were on the short list of many of the guests and as I enjoyed fiddling with the agates Star had collected from Oregon's Agate Beach, I found myself wishing the winters were not so harsh, the woods so dense and dark, and the ocean breeze so bone chilling there and in Washington. Oh well, they are great places to visit. On another night, Jim showed us his culinary skills by preparing a delicious chick pea soup. Before we left Seattle we stocked up on provisions at the food coop. Seattle has it all: coffee, beer, street markets, art, gardens, co-ops, bike paths and most importantly, my sister - everything we associate with the privilege of good living.

On Monday, August 13th we left Seattle to visit our friends Ross and Eileen who live out in the country near Bellingham, Washington. They have a wonderful owner-built home in a clearing on top of a hill. Although it is a finished home it is one of those continuing projects and we helped them by wheel-barrowing a couple yards of gravel to a new patio they were working on. Ross and Ches have many good traits in common - one of them being “proper pile management” - so Ches' hard work moving rock and keeping the area organized was much appreciated. It was good for us to get some much needed exercise. We met their neighbor Peter, and traipsed across the road to see the beautiful art filled home he built with his wife. After two nights visiting with Ross and Eileen, we drove to Birch Bay which is just shy of the Canadian border and where it just happened that Bill and Barbara and kids Ben and Marissa were taking their summer vacation. We spent a nice day and evening with them and grilled salmon that we purchased at the Bellingham Co-op for dinner. Next time you hear me exclaim “Girl Power!” you'll know I picked it up playing putt-putt with Marissa. It was a good time before we turned around, changed focus, left Puget Sound and headed east.
It was a little sad to think that this phase of the trip was over. The great American west is one of the most special places on earth. The next morning, August 16th, we stopped again in Bellingham at the coop to pick up a few things (including a six pack of Hales IPA) got on SR20 and drove through the very northern part of Washington. The drive over the Cascades was one of the most spectacular drives I have ever seen. Huge steep mountains, hydro-dams blocking narrow valleys, and a road that seemed perched on the edge of nothing. We had been over the Cascades before on US2 and in Oregon on US20 but this road was something else again. And as we topped Washington Pass everything changed. The mountains were no longer as steep, the air got drier, and the vegetation became more sparse. That afternoon we made it to Camp Growden in the Coleville National Forest. It was another old CCC camp and although it was not a campground it made a wonderful place to spend the night. We have found that in the National Forests some of the smaller more out of the way picnic areas, boat ramps, or other assorted pull overs can make great camping spots despite what the signs say. A good camp spot will have privacy, a picnic table, a clear stream, pond or lake, and a pit toilet (hopefully clean). Thats it. In a pinch we may have none of those things. The next day we planned on driving to the area around White Fish, Montana and Glacier Park. As we approached White Fish, the air became more and more smoky. There were huge forest fires all over western Montana. Less then a mile from town, we decided to continue driving to try and escape the smoke. We passed an encampment of firefighter tents and at a rest stop on top of Marias Pass just outside of Glacier Park, we spoke with some of the fire crew supervisors who had stopped to rendezvous. The fire was just beyond the tree line and a huge fire near Missoula was still burning ... it looked like we were not going to escape eye watering, throat burning smoke for a while and Rain was very upset, circling the cabin of the van so often we had to put her in her carrier. We drove on and on that evening. We skirted Glacier National Park and I felt dizzy from climbing up and suddenly viewing the steep roadside drops into valleys when we crested a final pass we were suddenly in flatland, and 300 miles as far as you could see north and south and east of fields of wheat and hay and occasionally, sunflowers, their big heads nodding towards the ground, but so tightly packed together that they all stood erect. When we felt we were out of the smoke, we had a terrible time finding a campground and ended up stopping to sleep on a dark side road surrounded by mowed wheat fields. Not one car passed us in the night. In Havre, Montana we stopped to fuel up, car wash the windshield which had been obscured by a blotted screen of dead bugs, do laundry, and found a small, Mennonite farmers market. Unlike the fancy markets in Santa Fe or Oregon or Seattle this was down to earth and prices so cheap it was like giving food away. When I asked about pesticides, they didn't even recognize what I was talking about. What a treat. Our only regret was that we could not take as much as our eyes wanted. As we left town continuing east the wind started, a hot, east wind hitting us head-on that lasted for two days and got up to 40MPH at times. Forest fires, unrelenting wind, no campgrounds; there are definite down sides to traveling this way. But we persevered onward finally getting out of Montana and into North Dakota. They must not expect many visitors along this route because we could not find a visitor center anywhere. All we can say is the roads were pretty good and there was not much traffic. Allison was able to drive for more than an hour without getting sleepy. The landscape slowly changed from flat and dry to flat and wetter. And then there was a tree, and then there were two trees. And by golly, a whole grove of trees.

By the time we got to Minnesota it was even civilized. We camped one night at a boat ramp/picnic area on the shores of Lake Winnibigoshi which is near the headwaters of the Mississippi River under tall Birch and Oak and Pines, a beautiful spot (where Ches took a lake bath). It was a large shallow lake and surprisingly clear when you think of the parts of the Mississippi we are more familiar with that are more synonymous with sewer. Duluth, as Allison remembered from her travels over 25 years ago, turned out to be a really nice city - even in the rain. A large port with a brew pub and co-op (important to us as you can tell by now) but also with an art and a lake walk, and a mix of college age, old, yuppie and street people. We got an overview of the gritty part of town next to the tourist attractions. We would highly recommend it to all.

Crossing into Wisconsin, we followed the water. Wisconsin is so much more then dairy farms. The area around Lake Superior is superior! Knowing we were too far north to even think about relocating, we wanted to make time crossing to the east coast and seeing more family. We couldn't always end our day in National Forests, so we spent a night in Washburn, Wisconsin at Memorial Park Campground, a town owned campground on Lake Superior.

Some unusual things to take into consideration when camping at many State Parks: the camping fee is one thing, but then you have to pay a car permit fee and you often will be surprised to step naked into a shower that requires quarters to operate, so always have quarters on hand. It really spoils a late evening to think you are going to get cleaned up but can't because you don't have change. I was blessed to get change from a woman in the bath house to supplement the one I scrounged from the van. She also knew to run hot water through the sink faucets before getting into the shower so you didn't pay 25 cents for a 3 minute cold shower. Having given me the only quarter we had, Ches used Lake Superior. This campground had undergone electrical improvements in May that left most of the roads a muddy mess, but it still cost $15/night no matter if you were in a tent or an RV. Places like this remind us how frustrating it is to feel you are subsidizing big honkin' RVers. It also made us wonder why the city had not followed through and completed the job by fixing the roads and camp sites that had been torn up by the construction. It might be fun to spend more time in Wisconsin with our new knowledge, but we got up the next morning and moved on into Michigan.

Again, the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan and Lake Superior in general is a wonderful area to explore. If you live on the east coast, think about it. Lake Superior is beautiful. The landscape is treed, yet open and the water is clear. The beaches are both sandy and rocky. At National Forest campground, Furnace Bay, near Munsing Michigan, the campsites are large and private, a few hundred yards from the shore. On our evening stroll, among all the rounded polished beach stones, I picked up a rock and I told Ches that it looked like pig iron. Lo, and behold, around the next bend stood the remains of an old iron furnace with a self guided, informative tour. Duh! Furnace Bay. You could walk 50 yards out from the shore and still only be knee deep in the water. We lingered longer at this campground, taking another walk and “swim” the next morning before hitting the road for Cleveland and my sister, Margaret's home. (Please refer to some of our photos: http//picasaweb.google.com/Ches.Alli/Chapter4?authkey=0EoaO1osGcM

Once in Cleveland, Margaret had taken off a few days and had a tasty project for us. She wanted a stone patio for her back yard. Our first morning there we headed out to a local quarry to pick out stone where we were soon joined by Margaret's fiance, David. We picked out Pennsylvania blue stone in a random pattern of different size squares and rectangles, loaded it up and after several days of digging, hauling, tamping, wheelbarrowing, etc., etc.,we had a patio. It is the 3rd patio we have helped with since we left Santa Fe. These projects have been fun and provide us with much needed exersise. Well, we are now planning out our east coast phase of the trip as we prepare to hit the road again.

We are rested up, stocked up, and the road calls.
Here's the link to our photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/Ches.Alli/Chapter4
You'll have to copy the address above and paste it into your browser because the linking function on this site does not seem to work.
It feels like we haven't seen very many inspiring photo opportunities, but it has all been interesting. Many times we are past a photo opp before we can get the camera out, or we just don't want to stop or turn around. Still, we think you will get a feel for the places we've been by checking the photos out.

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Photos

Bridge from Astoria
Astoria Oregon to Washington State