Washington Pass on Washington State’s Highway 20. Nice road for a road trip!

It’s road trip time! Did someone say Road Trip!! Wahoo! OK, so let me catch you up a bit. We have been back in the states for about 3 weeks now after our most awesome trip to the Netherlands and we’ve been getting the itch to go somewhere again (because that was so much fun). And Shannon has been wanting to visit some family so we are off. And our first stop is - You guessed it, Uncle Bernie’s! Although I really must tell you I came up with that great title for this post a few days ago and have only now realized that the weekend will be over before we get there. (But I don’t care - it’s a free country and that’s what I’m calling it).

So - more on Uncle Bernie later, but for now we’re taking a couple of days to road trip our way there, and maybe take in a hike or two along the way. One of our favorite things to do is use our mobile app, iOverlander, to find places to overnight along the way and we did exactly that last night. We had originally planned to sleep at the trailhead for the hike we did today, but before we got there we checked out a backup we had seen on iOverlander and we had the place all to ourselves. So we stayed there instead thinking “a bird in hand…” well you know. We didn’t want to backtrack 15 miles if there turned out to be no overnight parking at the trailhead.

So that was it. Basically a big sand pit off the side of the highway that the road department uses to sand the road in winter. And it was deserted. And we parked with the huge mountain of sand between us and the road and it blocked nearly all the road noise throughout the night. So - free overnight; all to ourselves; and nice and quiet. A win-win (win).

Then this morning after testing and proving that our new magic barista coffee maker would work just fine even off-grid and unplugged, we made our way to the trail head to check out a 4 mile out-and-back hike to a beautiful mountain lake that we had heard was “worth a look”.

And it definitely was worth a look. One of the better hikes we’ve done in a while, but soon it was over and we continued on the highway looking for a cell signal so we could figure out where to stay tonight. And as it happened, we drove right past it as we were heading to a place we’d found (again) on iOverlander. But this place, a boat launch fishing access point right on the river, just looked enticing. So we turned around and came back to check it out, and here we are.

It’s not much more than a big gravel parking lot beside the highway (and the river), with a boat launch and a vault toilet, but we have the place to ourselves. And the weather is perfect for grillin’. As tomorrow is Father’s Day, I had picked up a Rib Eye Steak to celebrate and that’s what was for dinner. I rarely eat beef, and even more rarely eat steak, but once in a while I like a good rib eye for a special occasion. And that’s what this is - we just hit the road again for a week. Things can’t get much more special than that!

(and this photo doesn’t do it justice but wow that steak was good!)

There wasn’t much left of my steak when I thought to get a picture of it. I guess I’ll just have to do this again for a better photo!

Tune in tomorrow when you’ll hear Shannon say: “It’s my turn to write a blog post!”

Weekend at Bernies

Returning Home

Baja!