Marley Makes 3

7.15.26 Riverbend RV Park, Twisp, Washington

There was a pathway to the river. Al said the water was really cold!

7.16.26 For Al’s birthday we drove to Winthrop to walk through the “old west” town of Winthrop. Fun! Wooden boardwalks and lots of shops in old buildings. We stopped for a warm cinnamon roll and iced coffees. We walked up and down the street and then on to Twisp to mail post cards and the postmaster recommended that we eat burgers at Burger Bros. Awesome! They gave All a deal for his birthday. The cheese curds were garlic parmesan and very good!

We were so full we just ate chocolate ice cream for supper.

The cinnamon rolls were warm, soft and so good!

Happy Birthday, AL!!!

Welcome to Sheri's, the diet ends here!

Vicki told Al, "No dieting on birthdays!" He adhered to that advice all day!

The was roasted on-site and it was soooo good!

7.17.26 Laundry and rest! We walked down to the river.

7.18.26 Travel Day! On to Winchester RV Park in Republic, Washington. More mountain driving. Went into Republic and browsed an old little craft store, stopped at the local brewery and tried their brew. Ate burgers at Esther’s.

On our way to Republic, we saw miles and miles of apple orchards!

The was a great site and so quiet! Loved our stay here.

What is the in the sky??? We didn't notice it until Vicki pointed it out, No clue what this UFO is!

The craft store...A little less than I'm used to.

7.19.26 Al went for a hike and played catch up. He saw a covey of doves, prairie dogs, chipmunk, horses, elk tracks, ducks, wild huckleberries and a huge pine cone!

7.20.26 Just like that… Our Washington time is over.

There is never enough time but we hit the hot spots!

Let’s summarize a few Washington facts:

Mount Rainier is the tallest peak in Washington and is the headwater of 5 major rivers. Mount Adams is the states 2^nd highest peak at over 12,000 feet.

Washington has both a rainforest and a desert. The Hoh Rainforest gets 12-14 feet of rain per year and just over the mountain, Sequim gets only 16” per year. Washington landscape goes from heavy moss and forest on one side of the mountains to cactus and sage on the other.

Lake Chelan is 50 miles long in the eastern Cascades and is the 3^rd deepest in the United States at 1486 feet deep. The top of the canyon to the bottom of the lake is deeper than the Grand Canyon!

Lava is two miles thick along eastern Washington. Eruption after eruption flowed on top of each other and built up. The “stacked” look along the Columbia River shows the layers.

Mount Baker… In 1998-1999 Mount Baker got 1140 inches of snow. It’s the most snow measured in one location anywhere on Earth in one season. The snow was 9 stories high! It snowed that much because Mount Baker sits right where the Pacific meets the Cascades, the perfect storm.

America’s biggest block of concrete: The Coulee Dam on the Columbia River. It is the single largest concrete structure ever built in the United States. It used 12 million cubic yards of concrete, enough to pour a sidewalk 4 feet wide that would wrap around the Earth’s equator twice.

The Columbia River goes through the Cascades, creating the Columbia River Gorge.

Washington has 5 active volcanoes: Rainier, St. Helens, Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Adams. All active, all monitored.

Washington has the longest lava tube in America on the south side of Mt. Saint Helen called “Ape Cave.” It’s 2.5 miles long underground.

Snoqualmie Falls is 268 feet tall, that is 100 feet taller than Niagara Falls.

The Olympic mountains used to be at the bottom of the ocean.

Washington is the only state named for a President.

Mount Rainier is the most dangerous in America. The threat is the ice! If the volcano moves, the glacier will start melting and mix with rock into “Lahar”- a fast-moving river of mud, and bury entire towns.

Washington grows 6 out of 10 apples in America, most in a desert irrigated by the Columbia River.

The North Cascades has over 300 glaciers, which is more than any other national park in the contiguous United States—containing about a third of all glaciers in the Lower 48 and more than the combined totals of Glacier and Yosemite National Parks.

Next up...we move on to Libby, Montana

7.11.26 Travel Day! Thousand Trails/Grandy Creek KOA, Concrete, WA

On our way we stopped at the Smokey Point Rest Area and look what we found! I know you want all the details! LOL

The Big Stump

68 feet in circumference and 23 feet diameter

When it was found by settlers in 1891 it was a living Western Red Cedar tree, the biggest in the county, with a trunk 23 feet wide. The tree had stood for over a thousand years when in 1893 a fire started in its hollow base which caused it to die. Rot-resistant redcedar wood was used for fence posts and old-fashioned roof shingles and when the tree was cut down, that was its fate. However, the lowest 20 feet, too knobby for a sawmill, was left standing as a stump.

This stump was so huge that a hole big enough for a car was tunneled through it in 1916. The stump quickly became a subject for postcard photographers, and Arlington realized that it had something more than just a big dead tree.

In 1922 the stump became an official attraction when a group named the Snohomish County Pioneers had it cut from its roots and dragged by a team of horses to a concrete slab next to the new two-lane Pacific Highway. A sign erected above the hole called the stump, "Relic of a Vanquished Forest," and claimed that it was 1,250 years old.

In the 1930s the stump, cut apart and reassembled like a 3-D jigsaw puzzle, was moved onto the shoulder of an even bigger road, US Highway 99, the main north-south thoroughfare through Washington State. The Big Stump was now the world's most visible and convenient drive-thru tree -- and briefly the most famous, after Crown Prince Olav of Norway and Crown Princess Martha of Sweden drove through it on May 27, 1939. Picture postcards continued to document the stump during these years, always with the latest model car carefully posed emerging from the hole.

In 1971, when the I-5 Smokey Point rest area (with real bathrooms) was built the stump was placed in a parklike grove of trees beneath a protective roof. It remains there today. The Big Stump is now walk-thru rather than drive-thru, and it still has a lot of visitors; the Smokey Point rest area is the busiest in the entire state.

The marker placed next to the stump reads; "This famous stump remains as evidence of the giant trees which once forested this area. Over 23 feet in diameter and 200 feet tall, the huge 'Western Red Cedar' is believed to have been more than 1,000 years old. Discovered by early American settlers of the area."

1918

1922

1947

1958

https://www.pacific-hwy.net/stump.htm

2026

Well, that was a tense drive over the mountains!!! Steep grades and hairpin turns with Mona in tow!

We went to the visitor center...

Saw a Stellers Jay bird at the visitor center just chillaxin on the rail. His cray sounds like “SHACK! SHAACK!” But it can also mimic other birds including hawks and warblers. It weighs 4-5 ounces and is 13 inches from tip to tail.

and walked down a little path...

Cascades and Water Color

Some lakes have a color so spectacular and it seems Photoshopped. Lakes like Diablo Lake appear a milky turquoise color that can shift more blue or green depending on the lighting. The color in those lakes is caused by something called glacial flour. The lakes are fed by water that runs off of glaciers, and that water carries with it fine particles of rock and minerals that have been ground up by the massive weight of the glaciers. (Think of a glacier acting like sandpaper over the underlying rocks.)

When that flour ends up in the water, it’s so fine it stays suspended. This glacial flour affects how the sunlight is absorbed — mostly absorbing the purple/blue colors of the spectrum. And because the water is absorbing the reds, oranges and yellows, what you end up seeing is mostly green with some blue — hence the spectacular colors.

Some lakes are so clear you can see the bottom. The clearness can mostly be attributed to what’s not in the water. In this case, not a lot of silt or biological material. These clear lakes are often at higher elevations or in very cold areas. These lakes have fewer nutrients and a shorter growing season, so they don’t get as much algae or other biological material growing in them. That means that the water tends to be clearer.

It doesn't look like Colleen is too worried about that bear behind her! LOL

The trip here with a big camper was a little sketchy but it was well worth it, it's beautiful here!

We found a pull out next to the Skagit river, the color is so spectacular!

Al went for a short hike...

This trail went from the Cascade Visitor Center down to the Skagit River.

In our travels we have encountered several trees like this that were struck by lightening and burned on the inside.

...and we wandered on down the road.

We stopped at Annie's Pizza...it was worth the hour wait!

7.12.26 North Cascades Loop, Ross Lake, Ladder Falls

We wandered down Trail of the Cedars in Newhalem, WA

Photos don't show how tall these trees are!

The arrangement above shows the stumps of three trees called

The Children's Cave.

Sunday afternoon May 28, 1967, children playing with candles set the hollow area in the middle of this grouping of cedars on fire. The arrangement of the three trees formed a natural chimney and the fire roared upward. The trees, too tall for the fire hoses to be effective, had to be felled in order to extinguish the fire.

It's hard to imagine how old some of these trees are!

I have so many pictures of the color of this water. I just couldn't get enough. I think it's so beautiful!

Marley was our tough little body guard and he barked at all the dogs...and some people. We can't figure out how he chooses which people to bark at.

Al went for a short hike down the Falls and Garden Trail. I stayed back with Marley because there were many steep steps!

I'm not sure who constructed these bridges across the river but they are very safe!

Photos can never depict how awesome these waterfalls really are!

This was an overlook of the Skagit River above the Gorge Powerhouse Dam in Newhalem.

Just gorgeous. This water is real.

Diablo Lake

While driving the loop, we came across Sauk City, Washington! Here is a little summary...

Sauk City is a former unincorporated community in central Skagit County, Washington, on the south bank of the Skagit River just below its confluence with the glacier-fed Sauk River. The town was established in the late 1880s as a landing point for riverboats transporting supplies to remote mining areas, before declining in the early 20th century and becoming abandoned.

The name "Sauk City" derives from the Sah-kee-me-hue, a local Native American band associated with the area along the Sauk River, which originates in the Glacier Peak Wilderness to the south and carries heavy silt loads from its mountainous headwaters. Early settlement efforts included post office proposals dating to 1885, with an initial population estimate of around 100 residents by that year, growing to approximately 220 by 1888 as prospectors and laborers arrived.

By the turn of the century, Sauk City's post office, established there in 1886 was relocated to the nearby town of Rockport in 1901 and the town was eventually abandoned. The nearby Sauk Mountain shares the name.

According to AI:

The Sauk Indians are a Native American tribe originally from Wisconsin, while the Washington Sauk refers to a different group, the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, which is located in Washington State. Although they share a similar name, they are distinct tribes with different histories and cultures.

7.13.26

Al hiked Blue Lake Trail in the Mount Baker Recreational Area. 4.4 miles round trip/1050 foot elevation gain. Al's note: (The road up for the last 10 miles was a one lane dirt road that was not maintained, it had many potholes and the shrubbery along the trail scraped against the side of the truck. I was committed to doing the hike even though I knew Colleen would be very unhappy about the scratches in the truck!) He filled up Max with diesel at $4.99 per gallon. I made chili for supper and Al bought 2 pints of Hagen Das ice cream for $7.79 each! (He thought they were 2.99) We enjoyed it anyway!