Dale & Debbie Part 35 - Washington

5th May 2023

Washington

Washington is known for Boeing, the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world. It’s also the home of Starbucks, Amazon, Nordstrom, Microsoft, Costco, and Alaska Airlines. And it’s definitely known for many other things, one being its natural beauty. Although this note doesn’t start out that way, it immediately gets better. ;)

We passed this wildfire on our way to Yakima.

This little fall is along a bike trail outside of Yakima. It looks like they could have used some of this water to help put out the above wildfire!

Mount Adams is the second highest mountain in Washington. It can be seen from several areas in and around Yakima.

Many crops are grown in Yakima County including all kinds of vegetables, fruits, berries and even nuts. It’s the leading county in the nation for the production of hops!

The skies were not clear when we arrived in Marblemount, which was our home base for exploring North Cascades NP and other nearby areas.
Unfortunately, we expected as much as there were numerous wildfires surrounding the park.
We visited this part of the state once before and were fortunate to see it with no smoke (we have some great photos).
This time, Brian, Dana & Lisa joined us, and we were hoping they could clearly see all the splendor of this region.

The smokey sky constantly changed as you will notice in the photos. Sometimes it was better in one direction than another.

A lone tree is growing at the entrance of a cave.

It’s hard to believe this is the same hike as above; the smoke really cleared out as we climbed higher and higher.

Washington Pass Overlook

Diablo Lake is a beautiful shade of teal ~ you have to use your imagination in this photo!

Artist Point ~ you can barely see Mount Baker in the background.

Another day it was hard to believe this was the same hike as above.

Dale and Lisa went on a catch and release fishing trip on the Skagit River after Brian & Dana left. They caught all kinds of fish.

One day, Lisa, Dale and I hiked two different lakes. It rained on and off ~ a day without smoke, but it was cloudy half of the time. When we got back to the jeep, it was only 39 degrees. No wonder my hands were so cold.

I will share a story about a snack I was eating at this lake…I had taken a couple of bites of a Sweet & Salty Bar with the wrapper pulled back.
As I put it up to my mouth for another bite, a bird came from behind me and knocked the bar out of my hand where he swooped it up from the ground and flew away.
It weirded me out because I felt the bird touch my cheek, but it was still funny! Dale & Lisa saw it happen and all of us were laughing!

This Roadside America attraction sits across the road from the campground we stayed at.

Our final stop in WA was Shelton where we stayed for 2 nights. That gave us a day to drive into Olympia to tour the capitol building and explore the city.

Looking down on Capitol Lake from the Capitol Campus. The lake is technically a shallow reservoir created by damming the Deschutes River. It sits at the mouth
of the river where it enters Budd Inlet, which is the southernmost point of Puget Sound. We walked the trail around the lake for another view of the Capitol.