There's No Smoke Without Fire

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Up with the lark this morning ready to start our road trip. A quick breakfast and we were on the road. Our destination is Wenatchee east of the Cascade mountains.

We headed back onto the I-5 and headed north for about 50 miles to Mount Vernon. Here, we left the Interstate and headed east on the Route 20. For some miles, the road ran through mainly flat farmland before it started climbing. We'd noticed whilst driving north that it looked a bit hazy, but we're also aware that there are extensive wild fires burning in the NW of the State. As we started to climb into the Cascades, we realised that it was smoke not haze.

We had a brief stop in the inspiringly named town of Concrete, despite the mental image, it was the neatest, cleanest place imaginable. Not far from here, we had to stop suddenly as a family of deer careered across the road.

The road was beautiful, but sadly, because of the smoke, we didn't get the views of the snow capped mountains we had hope for. Instead, the higher we got and the further east we drove, the smoke got thicker. Finally, as we arrived at the Cascades National Park information centre at Newhalem, we watched as several trees caught fire and exploded just off the roadside. We had a brief stop at the information centre, but rapidly moved on before the fire jumped across the road. Had it done so, the Cascades Highway we were driving on would have closed and we would have had a huge detour.

As we continued East the smoke cleared a little, but sadly we didn't see anything of Diablo Lake and Ross Dam.

Finally, as we climbed up to Rainy Pass (4855ft), the smoke cleared and we had a view again. We stopped for lunch in a lay you, or 'pull-out' as it is called here. We had some salad and fruit we'd brought with us. After lunch, we continued up to the Washington Pass overlook. There is a short trail to the overlook. The view is spectacular, one way looking down the valley at the Route 20 hundreds of feet below and in the other up at jagged mountain tops. I took quite a few photos. I was also asked to take a photo by a man in cycling gear. He had cycled up to the pass and had wheeled the bike along the path to look at the view. He was Australian!

Leaving the car park, the road rapidly crossed the Washington Pass (5477ft) and from here it is all downhill, literally. I imagine the Australian cyclist must have coasted downhill for close to 20 miles. We passed through Mazama, but there wasn't much there and continued to Winthrop, a rather lively small town. A lot of the town appeared to be original wooden buildings fronted by boardwalks. We didn't have time to explore, but did stop for homemade ice cream at Sheri's Sweetshop! It was in an old wooden building and had a lovely shaded deck to sit on. We were able to watch people playing on the rustic, homemade, crazy golf course next door!

I haven't mentioned the temperature. When we left Seattle it was in the low 70s and as we drove through the Cascades had risen to the low 80s. Now down from the mountains it was in the low 90s.

From Winthrop, the road continued to the delightfully named town of Twisp. Here, we turned of the Route 20 onto the 153. This road wound down the Methow valley, through the town of the same name to Pateros.

We joined a bigger road here going south, Route 97. This road, with the railway alongside, follows the Columbia river, a river we've followed before in both Oregan, where it flows into the Pacific, and in Idaho in the Devils Canyon. As we got closer to the town and lake of Chelan, we ran into more smoke from wildfires. Some of the hillsides above the road were stil smouldering.

The Columbia valley is renown for fruit growing, including grapes, peaches, nectarines, apples, pears, plums and cherries.

Finally, we arrived at Wenatchee, the Apple capital of the world, or so it says on the edge of town. This is quite a large town on the Columbia river. We wil stay here for two nights.

By now, the temperature had risen to 99F and was quite breezy. We checked in to the Comfort Inn. We have a first floor (second floor for American readers) overlooking the road. This might sound bad, but it could have been worse and looked out the back, which overlooks the railway line. You know what I said about American train horns!

The hotel also has a small indoor pool and hot tub. I'm glad it was indoors as it would have been to warm to use outdoors!

We ate this evening at Bob's Classic Brasserie and Brew. I think we were both slightly underwhelmed! It was trying to be Applebys/Ruby Tuesdays/TGI Fridays but not quite trying hard enough. Crinkle-cut French fries sums it up.

It was still 98F as we came back to the hotel at 2030 - phew!

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