Day 5 - Washington

Waking up to 43 degrees was a good reminder that it is now September. Before leaving Lewis and Clark National Forest and the Marias Pass Continental Divide in Montana, I checked out the memorials there.

One is a Washington Monument replica honoring Theodore Roosevelt. Another one honors an old landowner there. And one honored John Stevens, a civil engineer who had the tough task of finding a railroad route through the mountains for the Great Northern Railroad, a railroad with some Minnesota ties (in more ways than one). I know a great civil engineer too.

It’s mostly all downhill from here to the Pacific. Now would be a good time to revise the route if necessary. But I thought I could still do the planned route and still get to Reno, Nevada by Friday night. So I continued on highway 2 through several more miles of Montana, a bit of northern Idaho and into the state of Washington. The Check Engine light stayed off almost the entire day. It came back on leaving a rest area in the evening.

The mountain scenery was pleasant. There were some nice little lakes too. Unlike around here, some of the lakes did not have a house or cabin every 100 feet.

The wide open grain fields of Montana and eastern Washington were nice too.

In central Washington near Wenatchee I passed near several orchards with Washington apples and other fruits. One advantage of a packed car is that a person isn’t tempted to stop and buy things. So I kept moving west.

As I was driving through Leavenworth, Washington, I was impressed with the old European architecture. It looked like an interesting place to revisit someday. I will write more about Leavenworth separately.

An interesting miles-long rock face

Moon rising in the Cascade Mountains

The day ended in the Snoqualmie National Forest with a quiet campsite within the sound of the Beckler River.