Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Amanda's Senior Adventure (Drive to Seattle)

07/08/2008 We are back in Denver now after 17 days of traveling on a wonderful adventure. We left Denver late in the afternoon of June 18th and needed to be in Seattle the morning of June 20th.

06/18/2008 We made it to Evanston, WY the first night. The major event for that part of the trip was stopping at a Flying J truck stop for dinner. I typically avoid Flying J’s as I am not impressed by the food there. The waitresses weren’t much better either. We then camped our first night out at a KOA campground that was located about a mile off of the highway. We set up the tent, played a few games and started out with a good night sleep.

06/19/2008 Next morning we took our time not thinking we had a worry about time. We traveled through Utah and stopped for lunch in Twin Falls, ID. Twin Falls is home to the Snake River Canyon that Evil Knievel attempted to jump. We walked around the beautiful arch bridge and then went on a journey looking for the Shashone Falls. They are advertised as being larger than the Niagara Falls. We ended up driving in a large loop, but finally found the falls with the help of a gas station attendant that must be asked all day on how to find the falls as they had type written instructions. The falls are not as impressive as they were once were due to damming of the river. The river was high though and still a cool falls. After that slight detour we started to calculate where we needed to be that night to make it into Seattle on time and found out we should have been more diligent with the schedule. This was after I was happy the day before feeling relaxed in not needing to be anywhere fast. We drove until 11:00PM PT and spent the night in a public campground in Plymouth, WA on the Oregon/Washington border along the Columbia River. We sent the tent up in the dark, broke camp at sunrise and did not get much sleep as an automatic sprinkler system turned on at 3:00AM. Strange for a campground.

06/20/2008 We needed to be in SeaTac airport by 11:30 to catch a 12:00 shuttle bus to Bellingham, WA to catch the ferry. We rose before the sun, took showers, took down the tent and back on the road by 6:00AM. The drive through eastern Washington was interesting with the farming. I don’t believe there would not be anything there is it wasn’t for the irrigation of the land. It appears to be very dry with the man made irrigation. The farms and orchards were enormous. The three main crops appeared to be apples, grapes and hops. We made a stop for breakfast. I am typically a fan of the truck stop for meals (except for the Flying J as stated above), and saw a sign for the 10-4 café. I figured it was a truck stop, but was pleasantly surprised with a farmer’s café. Farmer’s cafes are definitely better than trucker’s cafes. We were both impressed with the food, but mainly by the waitress/owner of the restaurant. She was pleasant, welcoming and respectful of everyone in the restaurant. we drove through to Seattle from there, found a park and ride to leave the truck and just made our shuttle to Bellingham. The shuttle dropped us off at the Ferry terminal and we boarded the ferry on time.