Road Trip 10 - The Pacific Northwest
Page 3
The Trip from Portland to Seattle
Leaving Portland we headed east along the Oregon side of the Columbia River
We took the byway which sort of parallels the river and I-84 and provides some great views!
First stop was Chanticleer Point
It makes you wonder how much different it looked 200+ years ago when Lewis and Clark were paddling up and down the Columbia
Check the "Vista House" on the right. That will be our next stop.
Next was a hike to Bridal Veil Falls. (Hey, don't we have one of those in CA?)
Well, back on the road...
We inched along in Labor Day traffic for a half-hour
Eventually we found a great place to spend the night. Looks peaceful, doesn't it?
Well we knew it was close to the freeway but we were a little surprised to find that we were about 30 yards from a railroad track.
About 10 freight trains passed during the night and they all had to sound their horns for the nearby crossing.
Tuesday, Sept 3
The next morning, this is what the crossing looked like.
This is where the trains went.
But a short distance past the tracks was the river.
OK, time to move on.
We crossed the river into Washington and the Columbia Valley AVA. Our lucky first stop was Badger Mountain where we learned a lot about the area and got some good advice about wineries to visit.
Badger Mountain is into screw tops and boxes - nothing wrong with that!
Time for lunch!
Next up was Bernard Griffin
And then it was off to find a place to camp.
It was a little warm in Eastern Washington. This is the temperature gauge inside the van.
The best we could find was this RV "Resort"
It was OK though, we had a good dinner and some nice wine
Not very scenic or rustic but at least there were no 100-car long freight trains passing in the middle of the night.
Wednesday, Sept 4
Continuing the wine tour... Leaving the "Tri-cities" area we stopped here.
Fidelitas has a reputation for good cabernets. They were not open when we stopped by but they let me in and I had a taste and bought a couple.
We made our way to a town called Prosser and found the wine district, a place near an industrial park where several wineries have built tasting rooms.
Cabernet Court is just off Merlot Drive
Gamache has the same winemaker as Fidelitas
From Gamache we went to Coyote Canyon
And this lady was very helpful as far as where to go and what to see.
We had lunch across the street at Wine O'clock and it was very good!
Wood-fired pizza anyone? Yup.
Oh yeah, Prosser is home to Chukar Cherries and we stopped there to do some tasting - cherry and chocolate tasting, that is.
Leaving Prosser and pressing on through Yakima we took route 410 toward Mount Reiner.
That night we found the best camping spot of the trip.
It was a few yards from the American River and almost totally deserted.
Our living room for the evening
Life is good...
Thursday, Sept 5
Heading up to Mt. Rainier
We stopped a few times along the way
The clouds were below us and above us
Unfortunately Mt Rainier was socked in.
For a brief moment the clouds departed and I was able to get this shot of the mighty volcano. Just kidding. This is a photo of the cover of a book in the gift shop.
This is the gift shop
We were thinking about having lunch at the Snorting Elk but it didn't seem like a great spot
Although their Adirondack chairs were colorful
If you look closely, you can see a snorting elk
We drove down the other side of the pass from Mount Rainier continuing west all the way through Tacoma to Bainbridge Island which lies across the Puget Sound from Seattle.
We stopped in the little town of Poulsbo, originally settled by Norwegian fish-smokers, or something like that.
I bought some smokes salmon there
The little town was quite picturesque.
There was a British pub and a phone booth straight from London by way of Norway, I guess.
The first settlers arrived by Viking long boats under the command of Sven Svenson. I just made that up.
We camped in a State Park at the north end of the island
The weather was not that great so we prepared dinner in the van.
Sauteed shrimp with some veggies over pasta. We probably had some wine too!
And the next day we took the ferry to Seattle
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