June 2nd, 2011
Had a nice sleep. Got up around 10ish and had some toast and tea. Took my sweet time getting ready and getting to the portraits. Then at around noon I found out that we were leaving for Utah TONIGHT! Dad had told me Friday. Egads! I had errands to run. So I hopped in the Prius and drove to town. First swung by the bank and deposited a check for mom and my Odd Owl moneys. Then I went to Game Stop and picked up a copy of Pokémon Black, because I felt like reveling in some nostalgia. Then I swung by Artist’s Edge to get another stack of watercolor postcards. Art stores out of Portland get so expensive, boo. It was raining furiously and then tepidly and then not at all and then ferociously. I was hopefully dressed in cut offs, but reasonably wore a sweater.
Once home I got to packing. Dug some shirts out of my storage tubs as well as a couple books. I powered out about 10 more portraits all while ma and pa were nagging me. Then WOOSH I got it all done and online and set to autopost. So long as we return by the 19th, all will be well.
I loaded my stuff into the camper, grabbed a hat for the sun, and off for Rainbow Falls we departed! About a two hour journey. I played my game as the sun went down. We are the only ones in the campground tonight. Dad made ravioli and theres some buttered bread for dipping. I think we shall watch some Doctor Who. Tomorrow there will be exploring by bike and then on the road. I promised Karen to draw her a picture from the Arches.
Today’s Portrait is: Bruce Willis
June 3rd
Woke up a couple times before I actually hauled myself out of bed. Had some cocoa with a slice of toast slathered with Nutella. It was a nice day, and the weather maintained.
We three rode our bikes down to look at the VERY underwhelming Rainbow Falls. It was barely a 10 foot high fall. Hardly worth naming a camp ground for. Satisfied with our early day excursion, we hopped on the road and headed for Mt. Rainier and the Ohanapecosh camp ground. It was a pretty quick journey, no longer than a couple hours. We arrived at another mostly empty campground at around 3:15ish. We paid up and had a lovely lunch of green beans, chili, hot dogs (that were chicken dogs)and some soda. I worked on a postcard and fought the mosquitos away. Fully sated, we road to the trail head by bike, locked them up, and set off for Silver Falls. Well, first we did the 30 minute loop, and then we decided to additionally hike the 1.2 miles to check out the second batch of falls. It was mostly uphill but worth it. The falls were massive. Legitimate falls. Not dinky, no way jose. The loop was also mostly uphill on the way back, and was 1.3 miles. After half an hour of huffing and puffing, we made it. Thankfully it was a nice day with no rain. Just sun and mild warmth. Dinner was not needed, so we roasted marshmallows on the fire and then watched an episode of Tales Of/From the City. Ohhh some of the actors are so young! Tomorrow we leave Washington for Oregon, camp there and do some stuff. We are also crossing the rockies. Dry land, here we come! And the day after that, we shoot for Utah. Whoo!
Today’s Portrait is: Jean-Claude Van Damme
June 4th
It’s weird how sleeping in doesn’t really happen when camping. All though mom and dad beg to differ that 9:30am is not early. Had some bacon and tea for breakfast. After we vacated our spot we swung by the Ranger Station Placey Thingy. I picked up a WPA postcard featuring the National Park we were in and mom got one of those National Park passport things. National Parks all have little stamps that you use in these passport thingies, I stamped my notebook. It had the date and said Ohanapecosh. How neat. It’ll be fun when we get more stamps over time. Anyway, we moved on to Oregon from there. The Rockies were effortlessly passed and soon the landscape flattened into the dull tan-ish green with shallow hills and hills that only thrive because of irrigation. That went on for a while. Amazing that people don’t go crazy from the repetition.
We stopped by a Safeway and picked up food. In the parking lot we had a lunch of bread, turkey, and a cornucopia of cheese. Brie. Feta. Goat cheese. So much cheese. From there we moved on, and didn’t go quit as far as planned.
At five thirtyish we arrived and Emigrant Springs. This campground had cabins you could rent and was about half full of people. Early June continues to be the best time to camp. I remember when I was younger and how much I would sit in the truck as we toured around trying to find a campground with an open site.
The Ranger lady had a cougar pelt on display and really nicely taxidermied bob cat. She lamented the decreased budget for preserving critters. I remarked “due to these harsh economic times, funding for taxidermy has gone way down” or something along those lines. Such a shame. Taxidermy is so cool.
Dinner was hamburgers, corn, potatoes au gratin, and asparagus (for the parents). After that we ventured to this scenic spot the park ranger mentioned. The spot was an overlook of this vast valley. Two rangers and a bunch of other campers showed up (because the ranger mentioned the place to us) and under the guidance of the rangers, we looked for bears on the side of the mountain. It was tricky because they were so far away, but with the aid of mother’s zoom lens Dad found a cinnamon colored on. Mom failed to locate it in the view finder, but I did. We wandered off from the group for a while and came back to listen to the ranger talk about bears (she had a taxidermied bear on hand, a smallish one).
Back at the camp site we stoked a fire, had some beverages, and watched the second episode of Tales From the City. Tomorrow it is destination Utah! Hopefully.
Today’s Portrait is: Errol Flynn
June 5th
Pancakes for breakfast! Yaay! They were delicious.
We took a little bike ride to check out the rest of Emigrant Springs. We found this historical marker that Ezra Meeker placed there to mark the original Oregon Trail. Pretty nifty. At 11ish or so we left the camp ground and headed east once again for Idaho, and ultimately Utah. Today was a long driving day.
Though we did have a stop in Baker City. I posted two postcards and we checked out this museum. It was a bit of a glorified knick knack museum and some of the exhibit displays left a lot to be desired. Still, there were some impressive rocks. Some cool old timey materials. Some old guns. And a lot of trust on the museums part to not have the attendees mess with stuff. There was an old letterpress and type catalog. Such a shame that perfectly good lead type is just gathering dust in this way out in the middle of nowhere museum.
Lunch was served in transit. Mother made crème cheese on rice cracker snacks with turkey breast. We listened to Lord of the Rings, but it was more a theatrical rendition than a full on audio book. We crossed over into mountain time. The tan green landscape just extended out forever. So endless. And far far away.
We made it to Three Islands State Park in Idaho at around 6ish. The motorhome was having some troubles but it was probably just very tired. We set up camp and have a gorgeous view of this wide open plain area thingy. Mom and dad took a bike ride and I worked on some post cards. Dinner was salad and stew. Healthy.
There is limited wifi at this campground, so I’m taking the time to get stuff up.
Today’s Portrait is: Dolph Lundgren
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