Barry and Straw Boss
On October 2nd, the day after the sixth annual Friday Harbor Fall Farm Parade, I left the island for a two week adventure. My friend Nancy W and I were going on a road trip. One that had been months in the planning; we were intent on visiting both Crater Lake and Yosemite National Parks. The first one I had seen when I was maybe nine years old. The latter I had never seen. I also wanted to visit Sisters, Bend, and Ashland, Oregon. Our trip was planned to take the backroads rather than the interstate. We saw a lot of eastern Oregon and Northeastern California.
Denim house in Sisters, Oregon
Nancy lives in Covington so it was easy to start off toward Crystal Mountain and Chinook Pass. The leaves were beginning to turn but nothing like the aspens we saw later in our journey. Bend the first night and Crater Lake the second. Crater Lake had four inches of snow on the ground when we arrived–at 2pm (but still in time for lunch in their beautiful lodge). There was no lake to be seen, it was all shrouded in mist. Unbeknownst to me, Nancy made arrangements for us to stay in the lodge that night. There was a chance the weather would lift and we would be able to see the lake. The veil did lift for about fifteen minutes, enough for us to get a few pics of the lake from our room. But then it started snowing again and did not let up for the rest of our visit.
should have been able to see the lake from here
The Subaru has all-wheel drive and I wasn’t worried. They do plow the road at least to the lodge every day by check-out time. We next went to Ashland and then via Klamath Falls to Susanville. Susanville has two prisons and a few murals. But we were most impressed with the tame deer calmly eating in the front yards right off of main street. After Susanville came Truckee. And a visit to the Gatekeeper’s Museum and Steinbach Indian Basket collection in North Lake Tahoe. A highlight for me.
Susanville’s pet deer
Going down the west side of Lake Tahoe, we stopped for views along the way at Emerald Bay, Monitor Pass, and Lake Mono before arriving at Mammoth Lake at a fancy ski resort. No snow, thankfully, as we planned to tackle Tioga Pass at 9,945 feet the next morning. This was a beautiful, albeit long drive through the Park to our cabin in Wawona. Nancy’s brother-in-law was generous enough to let us stay there for three days while we explored the Park.
Wow. I think I will let the pictures tell the story. Click on picture below for all my travel pictures:
Not wanting to repeat ourselves, we left the Park by a Southern exit and traveled up the westside toward Folsom and then across Highway 4. Now this was a backroad. Ebbets Pass, elevation 8,732 feet–no guard rails. Yikes, it was scary–but amazingly beautiful. We made it to Carson City that night. Then a very long day to Madras, Oregon and finally back to Nancy’s via Hwy 26 near Mt Hood and across the Warm Springs Indian Reservation–another new road for me.
Lots of buzz about a big typhoon heading our way chased us home a little earlier than we might have been using I-5. The rain and wind outside of Centralia was worse than anything the typhoon dished out. But we didn’t know that then. I left Nancy’s at 5:40AM and made the 8:30 ferry with time to spare.
We laughed and called it the Crones’ Journey (both of us in our sixties). Quite an adventure, really.
Nancy and Me at the Majestic nee Ahwahnee Lodge
Thornbush Report 