not-as-giant circle around WA - trip II

This little adventure sprung up at the last minute last Thursday.
The shop needed a few motors from a place in Ballard and a trailer in Marysville. Cory volunteered us to do the driving, and said that we could go up to Bellingham too!

I "documented" the whole trip...
{which I don't think he found as amusing as I did}

7:10 - on the road


stopped for doughnuts & this:


then gas
{someday we are going to look at these prices and think it was cheap!}


I had towed a boat to Oroville the day before
{135 miles each way, almost to Canada...yeah, lots of driving for me}
...so the windshield needed to be de-bugged.


"we need a picture!"
"are you kidding me!!?"


stretch, & changing-of-the-driver


10 minutes later, he was asleep


destination: Jacobsen's Marine, Ballard - for 3 motors


destination: Bellingham

the real destination: Treasury - to visit some TOM Girls & get some new, fun goodies. Which we did, and it was great, but I didn't get any photos on my camera :( {Miss Alissa & Julie...I need some!}

destination: King Trailers, Marysville - for...a trailer!


In all my trips to visit Cory, I had never stopped at Deception Falls along Highway 2...so we did.
{8 attempts, and this was our best picture}


here is a picture of Cory:

taking this picture:


these two trees were growing together, and they were enormous!
one was burned out from a fire...so I climbed inside


dinner-time had passed, and we were approaching the "59er Diner"


so we stopped {neat little place, and they have amazing curly fries!}


After we dropped off the goods we had gathered along our journey at the shop, this is the time we rolled in the driveway:

...opposite of the time we had left in the morning, strange!

Then there was this whole Badger Mountain fire thing...

We were watching the glow from behind a hill off in the distance out the kitchen window before bed. When we had come home earlier, we had an awesome view of the fire from the road we were on. We talked about going out to see if we could take any pictures.
No, we are tired...
Yes, this is actually pretty neat.

So back in the truck we get, with a camera & tripod around 10:45.
We didn't really know exactly where the best vantage point would be...we were just driving in the general direction. Then Cory says, "how adventurous are you feeling?" I say, "if you know where you are going, I don't care."

Before I know it, we are driving up a roller-coaster-of-a-road, to the head of an off-roading trail up Birch Mountain. We get on the trail, and I am wondering to myself, "what are we thinking?" This trail wasn't just a gravel road winding itself to the top of the hill or anything...it was a bumpy, rocky, potholey, dusty, narrow in most parts, un-maintained, dirt trail that seemed to go straight up the side of that mountain.

It was actually pretty neat. It was just that it had been such a long day, and here we are 4x4-ing up this mountain at 11:00pm! ...all for some not-so-fantastic pictures, but an amazing view of the valley.

{here are the rest}

It took us 32 minutes to get down the 4 miles of that bumpy trail
{I timed it}...oh what fun!