Snoqualmie pass was so much better then I thought it would be. We left Tri-Cities at 10am, kind of late, but with no problems that would give us plenty of time to get to Bellingham and the Ferry by the 3pm check in. The pass was great we even got sun at the top which stayed with us until we got on the ferry.
The frost was very heavy starting at the Yakima Firing range, you can sure tell which way the weather comes from.
Top of the pass, sunshine!
Missed the I-5 exit, I was thinking we would be taking 405 all the way to Bellingham, so when the I-5 came up we couldn’t get through the traffic and onto the exit. (Not a pretty sight, both of us yelling, and at who?) And of course it wasn’t a simple turn around, no taking an exit, go over the overpass and back on, NO, we took the exit, ran into a mall, had to figure out how to find our way back to the freeway, hit road construction then finally found our way back to the right direction. We checked in at the ferry office at 3:30pm and the lady was like, “you’re late, we could give away your tickets when your late” I was ready to reach across the counter and strangle her. At home we get to the ferry at 5 minutes till it leaves and they never have anything but nice things to say to us, and this one didn’t leave until 6pm!!! I thought we were doing darn good. Then she says, you’d better hurry and get in line, don’t go and do anything else. So of course like idiots we went and got in line. Sat there until almost 5:30pm. They really could use some bathrooms and maybe a concession stand in that line. What was that rush about? The ferry was full, of vehicles anyway, they had us move our car more then once, and almost everyone else had to come back down to the car deck to move their cars closer together too. When we moved ours there were at least 4 cars on the ramp trying to get on, I don’t know where they found the room for them. We went to where we had slept on the way down, but the firewatch guy made us move this time up to the top level. OH boy, a mom with 3 kids all by herself is up there too. The kids aren’t bad it’s her yelling at them that is annoying. I’m voting her off of the ship, so tomorrow at Ketchikan she has to get off………oh, I guess that is her stop anyway. And since when did they stop giving free refills on coffee on the ferry? The sign is always there that says no refills, but when did they start enforcing that? This is a totally different crew this trip, I don’t like them. Where’s the guys we know and love? There’s also a lot of “strange” guys on board this trip, and I’m not talking about the military ones………I think these guys must be going to work in the processors, either that or they are running from the law in some state, I’m not impressed, and they are sharing our dorm with us! Don’t they know the showers are FREE! I keep wondering if this is a miserable trip because I’m really not ready to head north yet. One good thing, this is a shorter trip, no stop in Sitka and only 1 hour in Ketchikan, so we’ll be in Juneau on Monday morning.
It sure was a beautiful drive over the pass.
Dog at work, in line at the ferry in Bellingham. He sure worked the cars fast and didn't find anything! Arrived in Juneau this am, 29 degrees and snowing...............
This eagle didn't seem to mind the ferry docking right next to him. They wouldn't let us out on the deck to get a better picture since it was so icy.
This is the view outside our kitchen window this am. Notice the patch of blue, it's gone now, replaced with snow clouds. Currently it's snowing lightly.
You can't even recognize our van! Looks like we got some snow last night. It doesn't seem so bad since we really haven't had any winter weather in our travels.
The frost was very heavy starting at the Yakima Firing range, you can sure tell which way the weather comes from.
Top of the pass, sunshine!
Dog at work, in line at the ferry in Bellingham. He sure worked the cars fast and didn't find anything! Arrived in Juneau this am, 29 degrees and snowing...............
Our grandpup, Autumns doggie Sierra.
Autumn with Kyler (JC's son). At least I got to spend the last day here with the kids. I'm already looking forward to seeing them again in April.
Frank and Coach with the ducks, and Max's dog Betsy. Frank really enjoyed working with Betsy, I know he would love to have another lab.
Coach in the goose blind out in the middle of a winter wheat field.
Looks like they got a great shot of some geese, but these are just the decoys.
These were some BIG geese. This was a "pay to play" field, with about 8 guys on a "guided" hunt. Frank didn't shoot but just went as an observer.
This is one of the Lewis and Clark camps on their way back to St. Louis, this picture is probably too small to be able to read on the blog, but that basically sums it up.
I really like how the metal cutouts look so real from a distance. This is kind of an out of the way place to find. It's really not on the way to any town, we just happened to be out driving when we came on it.
This is Coach and Sally's back yard, you can see the Yakima river thru the trees. It didn't come up much farther then this.
This is the Touchet river that runs through Dayton, Washington. We spent the week-end at Svens house, this river runs behind his house too, he said it's the highest he's ever seen it since they lived there. Very muddy.
With the nice weather, all the wild animals were out like it was spring. Frank loves seeing all of the turkeys. He enjoyed seeing all of the deer until he almost hit some driving home! He said he saw at least 40 deer along the roadway waiting to jump into traffic! At one time he went between 2 deer, one in the center of the road and one on the shoulder.
We took a drive up Pattit Creek Rd out of Dayton, it was so beautiful. Then got to the top of the bluffs and.......................here is a whole herd of windmills! They're everywhere!!!!
Multnomah Falls was roaring as we went past.
There were a lot of water falls that are normally dry.
A renewable resource........pulp tree farms for paper products. These have really grown since we've been gone. There are miles of these trees just outside of Umatilla. I think most of these have been harvested at least once already.
We are heading back up the Gorge, snow is mostly melted so we have a nice window for traveling, we've been very lucky on this trip with being able to drive where and when we want. Last week the Gorge was closed due to snow and ice. We will be back in cell and internet service, YIPPY! Don't realize how much you miss it until it's gone.
