North by Northwest II: Home on the Cascade Range

Halfway into the second week of our cross-country road trip it was already obvious we should have drawn out our stays a little more.

Spending only a day or two at each destination didn’t allow us to stop and smell the roses, but then again, we did have a lot of territory to cover.

For the most part August presented favorable conditions for us throughout our five-week journey, but the one instance the weather stood in our way of quality adventuring was during our stay at Mt. Rainier.

Let me set this up. We had just recharged our batteries after a few days at Yellowstone; we enjoyed the trails outside Missoula and took a crack at the scenic Spokane and Seattle downtowns; and we were on a roll with two contiguous shower days.

All things considered we were ready to hit the trails again, and immediately upon our arrival at Mt. Rainier National Park we were not disappointed.

Scaling roads along the park’s north-side in my trusty Saturn Aura, it became apparent we were headed into a massive shroud of mist.

We stopped at our campsite, Cougar Rock, near Rampart Ridge, and as we stepped foot on solid ground it felt like being transported to Middle Earth.

Dense forest surrounded us, as did moss-covered rock formations. It didn’t take long for us to set up the tent and get to adventuring.

The first half of our hike was incredibly peaceful, as there’s nothing like a low-grade trek through one of the most beautiful parks in America.

Spending part of the walk together, alone with our thoughts, it was easy to get lost in the stillness of the park and, in its vastness, feel like the only people on Earth.

But in the middle of the Cascades, level paths quickly turn into steep climbs. And after reaching a certain altitude, there became a noticeable drizzle.

Taking a break and chillin’ out in a cloud.

 

We relied on a map to find access to some of the parks waterfalls, but dense fog obscured our view. For all we know, we were climbing higher and higher into an excessively large cloud — and the drizzle materialized into a harder rain, making the trails slick and muddy.

Time to turn back, we thought. Thank god for ponchos, but also fuck this. We’re not about to slip and break a leg this early into our trip.

The hike back to our site was unexpectedly long, and the rain never let up.

We wondered, is it cheating to skip out on making dinner at the campsite just because it’s a little wet?

Probably, we decided, but we did anyways. It ended with beer, burgers and free blackberry pie.

Given a second chance, I’d say we’d do it all again.

Over the River and Through the Woods to Washington We Go!

Monday morning we traveled a few hours to the neat city of Missoula, Montana. We grabbed some maps and info from their visitor’s center, then headed about 20 miles out of town to a more secluded campsite at Lee Creek. We decided to hike through the mountains a tad so we found a place to park and a trail to explore. After hiking for what seemed like forever and never really reaching the top of any of the rolling mountains, we eventually came to a sign that let us know we were on the Lewis and Clark trail. That gave us the hint that we were never going to get to the top of any of these mountains; we were walking in history’s footsteps though, and that was definitely surreal. I couldn’t imagine being one of the first people to explore these mountains, not ever knowing what was going to be on our path.

Mountain selfie. At this point, neither of us had showered since South Dakota at Steph and Tyler’s.

After our hike we needed a big, hearty meal, and we were craving pizza. After roaming a few blocks of the downtown, we ended up at MacKenzie River Pizza Co. The pizza was delicious, the service was far from excellent. Come to think of it, we were pretty great at picking restaurants with great food and sub-par service throughout the entire trip. After dinner we headed back to our campsite and, yet again, wished we would have had more time to check out the city. When we had visited the information center, the man suggested renting bicycles (for free) and check out the city that way, and if we had a couple days in the area to rent inter-tubes to float down the multiple rivers that flow through the city. We’ll definitely have to go back to Montana to check out more of Missoula, visit Bozeman, and mosey further north to check out Glacier National Park on the border of the US and Canada. I cannot express enough how beautiful of a state Montana is. More pictures and more time..next time.

Tuesday we had a very foggy trip to Spokane, Washington. I didn’t sleep well the night before, so I napped for a bit of the drive. We did listen to some very good Radiolab podcasts that day though. Radiolab is tied for first with the Stuff You Should Know Podcast I talked about a few posts ago. These are hour-long, three-part stories centered somehow around one subject or idea. They’re so great, so check them out! This was also the first time in almost a week that we gained back any cell phone service.

Mountains and trees were sprouting out of the clouds and fog!

Spokane was actually a really cool city. We spent most of our time there in the downtown area walking the trails and learning the city’s history at Riverfront Park. This was neat area full of carnival rides and activities for kids, and viewpoints of the falls and historical landmarks for people like us!

Me, my slushy, and fanny(pack) overlooking the Spokane Falls!

Spokane Falls Selfie!

Cute as hell!

Definitely shaking my booty.

After exploring the park, we ventured into a few book stores including Auntie’s Bookstore, Boo Radley’s where we bought some classic books, and Atticus Coffee Shop where there were so many cute kitchen accessories and it even had a section where you could rent books! We ate at a delicious Irish Pub called O’Doherty’s where I had my first local piece of salmon and the strongest glass of sangria I’ve ever tasted! After dinner it started to get pretty cloudy outside and decided to get to our campsite. Prior to our trip there had been a number of forest fires throughout the state of Washington. While they didn’t affect us directly, since there was a storm rolling in and there was so much dust and ash from the remnants of these fires, the sky turned a scary shade of red and black. We managed to get our tent up just in time for the heaviest downpour on the trip. Unfortunately, we found out our tent wasn’t the most waterproof, so Kevin got out in the storm to put tarps over the tent to help prevent any more water from entering.

Book I found in Atticus Coffee Shop that reminded me of our good friend Brian ❤

My babe being the absolute best and taking care of b’idness!

The first time we remembered to take a picture of our setup!

We’ll finally be reaching Seattle and Portland in our next posts, so stay tuned for those! Happy traveling!