Day 18: Tuesday 23rd
Got
up early, sometime before 7am, and was showered and breakfasted by about
7.15am. The wind, which had been with us since we arrived, was still
blowing although not as hard. Pat got up but spent ages in the ashroom;
Cordi came back saying Pat had been gazumped waiting for a shower by
another lady, who was complaining about how bad the ffacilities were.
Personally I thought they were great for a small park, with the only
caveat that the shower didn't have much dry space to store clothes. We got on the road agaon, going west on I-14
following the Columbia. As the river gets closer to the sea, the scrub
gives way to coniferous forest on the slopes, and the gorge widens out a
lot. We stopped in Stevenson, in the Cascade Range, for supper. I
offered to make a spaghetti bolognase, and consequently had a nervous
half hour trying to remember and then find all the ingredients. We
manaed to clear out the fodd kitty again, after yesterdays
contribution. There are only a few more days left though. The driving continued down through the Columbia gorge
past Portland, where the smells of a chemical works reminded us how
little contact we had had with industrial Ammerica, and on up the
freeway to St Helens. Much of this country is aturally thickly wooded,
nw not only with coniferous forest but with deciduous trees, alythough
it was difficult to identify species. The Blue Mountains soften their
crags into rolling hills, albeit fairly high ones, and the area is more
densely populated with people. I slept or dozed much of hte time, as did
several others in the group. Near St Helens we stopped for Dean to have
a rest at a highway rest area. Supplied bythe state, the coffee and
biscuits were free, but there was no shop at all; just two toilet blocks
and a parking area. We turned off the freeway onto the 504 road and
shortly after got to the outer of the St Helens visitor centres. The
slide show and film they showed depicted graphically what happened hen
the mountain blew iits top on May 18 1980. Sadly the rangers said that
even if we travelled the hour and a half to get to the mountain
viewpoint we still wouldn't see much more than the car park as the cloud
base was so low, so we decided to turn round and carry on to Mt
Rainier. The trip there was fairly boring, with valleys of
mixed woodland interspered with the ocasional house or business. I slept
for quite a large part of it. The valleys approaching the mountain are
thickly wooded with fir and larch trees, making it difficult to see
anything even if the mist and rain hadn't made visibility atrocious. We
drove to the Cougar Creek campground and set to the tents to reserve a
spot, which retrospectively was a good thing, as the area filled up very
quickly. The site we chose nestled in fir trees, with the new spring
growth a very pretty green on the tips of the branches. A small clearing
gave us space for the tables and fire while we placed the tents
Day 19: Wednesday 24th
I
woke up to the sound of rain today, and stayed in bed as long as I
could, but eventually the need to go to the toilet became too strong. I
got dressed and went out to the toilet block to wash etc. Some of the
others were up when I came back, and after a bit f discussion it was
decided to leave the tents as they were and go up to the Paradise Inn
lodge for breakfast, so we made the camp tidy and (after waiting for
Dean, for once, to tidy the van!) set off in the van for the lodge, 9
miles up the road and a thousand or so eet higher up the mountain. The
rain got worse as we rose, starting with a light drizzle and ending with
steady rain. The lodge itself is very nicely done, and done on a grand
scale. It is the old hotel annex which was moved to the current site
from the old hotel nearby. When the old hotel suffered from a mudslide,
the annex became the ain residence. We all had large breakfasts; I had a
"Puget Sound Special", which had salmon pieces, tomatoes, bacon and
fried potato, and went down very well. I ordered 2 pancakes with maple
syrup too which were nice although more "cakey" than I am used to. We all left the lodge stuffed, and wandered on down
to the visitor centre, which was back down the road. It was interesting,
with a good film and presentaton on the montain's volcanic history, but
my wandering wasaimless; there was nothing much new or interesting here
after seeing the St Helens exhibit. Nevertheless, we managed to spend
an hour here before returning to camp. Having packed up camp,we carried
on down the mountain on the road to Olympia. The roads we used were small and very infewquently
used, other than a short passage through a small town. There is a lot of
logging going on here, with tracts of older forest interspersed with
large patches of cut forest . The roads are well kept but bumpy here, in
contrast to the general pretty good state. We arrived in Olympia (Washinton's State Capital) in
the rain. It looks like many other towns and cities across the world,
and apart from the state building, which bears a striking resemblance to
St Pauls Cathedral in London was fairly uinteresting. We had a short
stop here about 3pm for a coffee and sandwich, then moved on. .... The road runs on through more timber forest, and for
much of this trip I slept. We did stop at a small outpost where Dean
filled up the van with petrol. It was basically just a hotel, with a
small general store attached. While we were there they were extending
the shop to include some more spacce for a coffee bar, which was
interesting because I could watch them make the tiber walls many
buildings in those parts use. They had already put up plywood walls
using large sheets, and were nailing log (aprox 1 ft) lengths of
another, coarse-grained reddish wood (perhaps Western Hemlock?) to it
overlaping in strips as if it were a roof. Round the back of the hotel,
the land dropped in a modest cliff into a bay formed by a small river.
Beynd, the bay the ocean pouned against sandbars piled high with many
driftwood trees; each tree would on average be 5 or 6 ft in diameter and
uwards of 30 ft in length, and there must have been at least a hundred
in all. It was an inspiring sight. We carried on down the road, stopping finally in
Ocean City. It is as its name suggests next to the Pacific, so close
that Dean drve straight off the main street onto a wide, flat beach. We
stopped the van a few yards fro the waves and got out to stretch our
legs. Dean fished out a frisbee which we played with for a while. After a
bit I got a hankering to feel the sand under my feet, and took off my
shoes. The sand was quite moist and sharp, and a great surface for
frisbee-ing! Pat got tire after a while, and walked off along the beach.
When we stoped playing, I decided it was necessary to paddle in the
ocean, and did so quickly; it was cold enough that I was glad I wasn't
swiming! We got back in the van, all but Pat that is, and Dean was
playful enoughto drive in a wide circle round her before stopping. The camp site proper was at Ocean State Park. The
site looked nice enough, with lots of trees and ushes affording some
privacy, firepits and half way decent washrooms, but the ground was
soggy with a lot of rain, We set up camp,but it was still quite early
and we decided to return to Ocean City for a few supplies and some fun.
We stopped at the ten pin bowling aley and played two games each in two
teams. I as usual managed 7 or 8 on each turn, twice managing a strike
and once nothing at all. Dean got lucky and on the second game managed
162, only just below his all time max of 172. Pat was the real surprise.
though. She hadn't playe before, and at first wasn't making any
progress at all, but fairly soon she was doing very well indeed, getting
a strike aalmost every turn. Although she didn't get the highest score -
Mayumi won the first game and Dean the second - she was second on the
first game and highly placed the second. We all had a lot of fun though,
and it was only the light failing and the need to make supper tat
prevented a third game. When we got back to camp having shopped briefly in
the store, we soon found out the place was already ocupied - with many,
many mossquitoes. They were huge and, luckily, fairly slow, but at times
it seemed as if they were queueing up to land on you. I took Dean's
suggestion, putting long trousers, socks and shoes on instead of shorts,
and mossie repellant on the remaining exposed skin. I also retired to
the tent fairly soon, but still they ot me about 6 times, several
through thick socks! We were I think all relieved this camp was only one night!