Not the best night of sleep in my life, but I’m not complaining. I’m in the middle of nowhere Washington, with the people I love the most and we can go and do “just about” anything we want today. I know, lets go play in the snow!
Our compass is pointed towards Seattle, Not for any particular reason, it’s just the right direction for us to be heading at this point in our journey (we’re roughly going around the country counter clockwise) and after taking a look at iOverlander we found a good possible site and set off along the 90. I guess google maps wanted to make sure I knew which road I was on:
We already had a stocked fridge, full water/ fuel tanks, and an empty trash can, so our only stop after being on the road for a couple hours was at Mountain View Park in Ellensburg Washington to run out some energy and make some lunch.
After swinging and teeter-tottering (love how playgrounds are getting dangerous again!) and eating lunch we hit the road for our last little bit of the drive for the day (about 30 minutes).
It was really neat as we got close to our site, we were flanking a wildlife refuge and saw a big heard of elk (~100) and a couple dear. Didn’t stop for photos as the kids were actually asleep in their carseats and evening was approaching which meant if this site didn’t work out, we’d need to quickly find and get to a backup. Fortunately no backup was needed as we made the sharp left down into an awesome flat next to Taneum Creek which clearly doesn’t receive much sun exposure as most of the hills around it were bare, but it still had ~8″ of snow covering it. There was one truck down there when we pulled in, but they were chaining up to drive out and after we backed into our level spot for the night, one of the guys came walking down the hill to ask if we were “all right”? 🙂 I said, yeah, we’re good, we’re staying here for the night. He gave me a quizzical look and said alright. After watching them need chains to get up the hill to the main road, I figured we’d need to do the same, but I wasn’t worried as we’d purchased two sets of chains and had already test fit them in the driveway to ensure we were prepare for just such a situation.
We all got out and played in the snow while the sun set and then settled back in the van for dinner, a few games of “Left, Right, Center” (aka: Washington), and bedtime stories.
