Tag: nomads

2025 Spring Road Trip – On to Oregon

June 2, 2025

On Saturday, May 24 we woke up to another beautiful day.  We had stayed overnight at the Lewis and Clark rest area located on the banks of the Columbia River.  It was such a nice way to start our day.  There was a trail for us to walk and a geocache to locate.  This was our last Washington find in nice peaceful setting.

Immediately after leaving the rest area it was time to cross the Columbia river and enter Oregon.  First stop was the Lewis and Clark National Historic Park in Astoria.  We arrived before the park opened so it was a great time to get our steps in another beautiful, wooded forest.  The park includes sites along the Columbia River and the Pacific Coast in Washington and Oregon but we were visiting the headquarters in Oregon.  The park includes a replica of Fort Clatsop, which gives you a real sense of what the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery experienced more than 200 years ago. There is also a nice museum to visit and of course some movies. Since we are more outdoors people, we spent most of our time in the Fort and then some of the hiking trails.  We are so blessed in this country to have our educational national parks across the land.

From the park, we resumed our drive down Highway 101 arriving in Tillamook, Oregon early afternoon.  The drive was beautiful and included numerous stops to enjoy the Pacific shoreline.  The spring flowers were in full bloom, along with all the pollen. So pretty.  It’s fun as we travel to sometimes experience multiple springs.  We stopped to view the various sea stacks and seaside communities.  The 363 mile Oregon coastline is not to be missed.  It’s nothing like our beloved Alabama/Florida Gulf coast with its beautiful sugar sand beaches but still not to be missed. In Tillamook we stayed at the Blue Heron French Cheese Company.  It is a Harvest Host location whose RV parking lot can handle over 40 RVs.  The restaurant is very good, serving breakfast and lunch and some oh so good Tillamook ice cream. 

We also visited the Tillamook Creamery which was horribly busy on Memorial Day weekend.  However, we did find our first geocache in our 50th state there. It seems fitting that it was at an ice cream place since so many of our geocaching adventures across the country ended with ice cream.

2025 Spring Road Trip – Olympic National Park

Wednesday, May 28, 22025

Yesterday afternoon we drove up to Port Angeles, WA, in the far northern area of Washington.  We have had wonderful weather since coming out west and our time in Olympic National Park was no different.  Really nice.  Olympic NP is actually three separate areas of Washington, all in the northern part of the state.  We visited the Hurricane Ridge portion of the park on Wednesday morning May 22.  We first visited the visitors center (of course).  We got our maps and stamps before heading up the Ridge. The drive up the mountain was beautiful.  It was short-sleeved weather at the bottom but at the top of Hurricane Ridge it was cold and quite windy.  There was still snow on the ground and we were asked to walk only on asphalt or snow but, not to walk in the meadows where the snow had melted.  That would cause damage to the fragile plants trying to peek their heads out for the summer.  Beautiful scenery.  Beautiful mountain view.  Unfortunately, there were no hikes open unless you had the recommended snowshoes, which of course we did not.  We wandered around on top for a while walking in the snow and then headed back down.

From Hurricane Ridge we headed to Rialto Beach (also part of Olympic NP) on the recommendation of a volunteer at the visitor center.  It is a pebble and rock beach, with a coastal forest and lots of driftwood.  Rialto Beach is known for its sea stacks, rock formations and pounding waves.  No swimming though. The rocks make for some difficult walking.

The next day, May 23, we visited the third section of Olympic, the Hoh Rain Forest.  Nice for us, it was not raining in the rainforest the day we visited but there was a lot of moisture.  The yearly average rainfall in the Hoh is 140 inches.  This results in lush green canopy of various trees.  Ferns and mosses are everywhere.  It is just an enchanting place.  We were told that the Hoh Rain Forest is one of the finest remaining examples of temperate rainforest in the USA and is one of Olympic’s most popular destinations.  It was definitely our favorite part of the park.  We were able to hike two wonderful trails, enjoy all the lush greenery and the peaceful setting and see some large elk along the way.  Great park.  Would highly recommend.  After our morning in the park, we turned BB to the south and drove through some additional beautiful areas of Washington.

2025 Spring Road Trip – Mount Rainier National Park

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

On Wednesday, May 21st we left the Fred Meyer parking lot at 6:20am looking forward to exploring Mount Rainier National Park.  The drive out of town into the mountains was beautiful.  There were many mountain streams and beautiful trees. The roads became steeper and curvier as we drove.  We drove through White Pass at 4,500 feet.  Very pretty.  The day before, Google said that the shortest way into Mount Rainier was closed.  However, when we checked this morning it said that the shortest way was open.  How great was that!  We thought this was going to save us an hour’s drive.  But – it didn’t.

After turning around and driving back out and around for another hour, we finally reached the Visitor’s Center.  We of course got our National Park Passport stamped and talked to the ranger about some hikes.  We began with a short hike near the visitor’s center to get our first view of the mountain.  It was clouded in, but we could see a little of it.  Then we hiked the Carter Falls trail.  This was a more challenging hour and forty-five-minute hike.  The falls were worth the hike.  Great payoff.

There were many more hikes available, but it was time for us to be moving on and we headed to Olympic National Park in Port Angeles, Washington (far north).  We stopped at Gig Harbor in route to have our Wednesday night Bible Study.  Since we were in Washington our normal 7:00pm Bible study was at 5:00pm.  This is a real adjustment for us especially when it doesn’t get dark until 9:00pm.  After the Bible study, we proceeded to Port Angeles.

2025 Spring Road Trip – MT to ID to WA

Monday, May 26, 2025

We were pretty exhausted when we arrived in Big Timber Sunday night.  It was not yet dark, but it was after 8:30pm, so about a twelve-hour day.  On Monday, May 19th we awoke from a great night’s sleep, to a beautiful sunny day even though it required our furnace to warm up BB.  It wasn’t until we opened the blinds and drove a few blocks to the Big Timber Bakery that we realized just how beautiful the day really was.  It had snowed on the mountain tops overnight and it was a post card morning.  Stunning.

Someone online had recommended the Big Timber Bakery, and we are so glad we decided to follow their suggestion.  It was a locally owned bakery, the kind where the men in in town gather every morning to solve the problems of the world.  We had their classic breakfast and left with a few pastries as well. Everything was cooked just the way we liked it.  Highly recommend.  Everyone we met in Big Timber was so nice.  Our drive through downtown gave us a great impression of the town – so clean and nice murals on many of the walls.  It was obvious there had been a lot of effort put into the downtown area.

We departed Big Timber wishing we could spend more time there.  It might be someplace where we could spend some summers.  However, we had other targets for this trip.  It’s a road trip, not a settle down trip so on we went.  We continued to drive I-90 across the wide open western states.  From Big Timber, Montana to our first “new” state, Idaho  We enjoyed this drive but we only stopped to feed BB some gas and rest areas to get our steps, and a stop in St Regis, MT for huckleberry milk shakes.  Best we have ever had.  We spent the night in the Post Falls Cabela’s parking lot – with permission, of course. Thanks, Cabela’s.

On May 20th we left Cabela’s, first stopping at Camping World in Spokane to refill our propane tank (we are having some mornings down in the upper 30’s) and empty our black and gray tanks. Unfortunately, CW did not have a fresh water fill.  We drove on to Yakima, Washington (2nd new state) and stopped at the rest area outside of town, to fill our fresh tank.  We thank the state of Washington for having nice, clean, facilities at their rest areas for RVers to use.  In Yakima we stopped at Fred Myers. We first learned of Fred Myers on our first Alaska trip.  Great store that we wish would come to the SE.  We resupplied because our next stop was Mount Ranier and other more remote locations for a few days.  After the shopping we settled down in Fred Myers parking lot for the night.  Yes, it’s permitted there.  We love that we can just stop anywhere in our nimble BB.