On the Road Again and into a Rhythm

We took off last Thursday on our National Park adventure, the closest one on our list we have yet to see the whole way in North Dakota.  So it has been quite a road trip across the US.  Lots of corn fields, sunflower fields, and haybales!  We made it to North Dakota in two days, with an overnight stop at the halfway point, followed by a quick stop at the Fargo visitor center to see the original woodchipper from the film Fargo (which we both loved).

We have settled into a steady rhythm around hours of driving each day, finding places we like to stay, cooking, exercise, showering, and picking things to do in the National Parks.  The weather is much different than when we were out in the beginning of the year, and there are way more people.  We have experienced temperatures as high as 95, and as low as 50.  We have felt the beating sun, the coolness of a rainforest, and walked the glacial snow.

We informally created some rules to avoid crowds.  

1. Stay away from National Parks on the weekend unless we can go to a part of the park others usually skip.  
2. If we want to experience super popular hikes, get up and get on the trail by 8.   
3. Stay away from RV parks and campgrounds.  

We have experienced amazing sunrises and sunsets, and our days have been full.

The Solitude of Theodore Roosevelt

First, I didn’t even know Theodore Roosevelt was a national park.  It is way out there in Medora, ND.  Second, I am not sure many other people do either….the park devoid of visitors! 

The North Dakota badlands were beautiful, but the temps were in the mid 90s by the time we arrived.  The lack of people was offset by the rawness of the animals freely frolicking in the park – prairie dogs, bison, and wild horses.  It was so cool to see so many of them enjoying the land without the intervention of people. 

We go our first “knock” at this park.  We decided to spend the night in a National Park parking lot along with many other trucks and cars, only to get a knock by a park ranger early in the morning asking for our license, registration, insurance, as well as expecting us to open all the doors so he could look inside the vehicle.  He informed us that trucks are allowed to stay all night because they must stop, but no camping is allowed by others.  He considers a van in a parking space camping.  A misinterpretation on our part, and you could tell he was kind of embarrassed about having to approach us.   In the end, we spent most of the time talking about our van and the trips we had planned, as this is his retirement dream as well.  Lesson learned!  

Glacier will always be one of my favs

I love everything about Glacier.  The magnificence of the mountains, the beauty of the glaciers, the clearness of the water, and the epic hikes surrounded by all these things.  Unfortunately for me, that is what everyone else loves about Glacier as well!

The epic drive is the Going to the Sun Road (GTTS) which bisects the park.  We were planning to travel from the east to the west so had to do some research to make sure our van could make it height wise.  The other challenge is the NPS only releases 800 tickets per day to drive the road.  You literally have to go onto the recreation.gov website to request a ticket at exactly 8 am for the next day and continue to try until you get through or all the tickets are already sold (which normally sell out by 8:15).  Reminiscent of trying to get concert tickets with Ticketmaster!    We were lucky enough to get a ticket after hitting refresh and logging in and out for 15 minutes.

We spent the first day on the east side of the park, it was the weekend and we wanted to avoid the crowds. Glacier gets over 2.5 million visitors each year, and normally that is between end of July to late September.  The road less traveled areas were magnificent.  We spent time hiking in Many Glacier and Two Medicine.  It was quiet, the sky was big, and the crystal-clear glacial waters were offset by the greenest mountains.  The hairpin drives were a good practice for GTTS the next day.

Day two at Glacier involved getting up crazy early to make our way across GTTS before the crowds arrived. The drive is incredible.  The massive mountains surround you as you wind through the hairpin curves for miles and miles.  We tried to park at Logans Pass (a very popular destination) but the lot was already full by 8 am.  So we made our way to another lot and took a free park shuttle back up to our hiking destination, Hidden Lakes.  It was a beautiful day.  And we were lucky that the entire trail was open.  When I came to Glacier last time, this trail was closed due to grizzly activity.  Grizzley activity is what makes Glacier hikes some of the most dangerous in the US.  We carried our bear spray and made our way on this beautiful hike.  The elevation level and change during the hike was a challenge, but well worth it. 

We could have stayed her for days, but the massive crowds sent us on our way.  I love Glacier and if you haven’t been you should.  But try to plan a trip free of the summer craziness. 

The Less Traveled Northern Cascades

We made our way to Northern Cascades in the eastern part of Washington.  Again, not sure many people actually do….annual visitors around 20,000!  The highlight was being able to see Diablo Lake from the lookout – the most opaque blue-green water I have ever seen.  The glaciers in the high country wear down the mountains producing a fine silt called “rock flour” that gets carried into the lake.    This reacts with light creating the blue-green color.  

So few areas to park, so much road construction, that a Park Ranger advised us to to go outside the national park and do a hike by Rockport State Park up to the top of Sauk Mountain.  Incredible views all along the wildflower meadow followed by a 360 panoramic view at the top of North Cascades, Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, and Puget Sound/Olympic Mountains.  Well worth the drive.

We came back to the park to experience our first (and hopefully last) national park bully.  We legally secured a first come first serve campsite in the park that morning with the help of a park ranger.  Our name was written on the site tag, and we set up a portable small tent to keep our spot.  We came back at 7 pm to find someone had erased our name and changed it to hers, set up her tent, was inside our tent, and refused to leave.  Not a park ranger in site to help manage the situation.  I was shocked and a little saddened by the logic the lady provided for why she was not leaving….we aren’t a resident of Washington so we don’t deserve the site and people like us have ruined the park experience for people like her, she volunteers at the park so she should have it, someone did this to her in the past so that made it ok.  There was no logic that could have made her see our point of view, so after some arguing we decided to pick up our tent, move on, and just report her to the national park system.  Her journey is her journey, and we didn’t want to let her negatively impact our experience.  Funny how we found our mind space continually filled with what we should have said or should have done, but we had to let that s**t go!  And just recognize people today are so wound up, we just didn’t expect to experience them in the middle of the serene energy of the forest.

Reuniting with a Longtime Friend

When I was young, we lived in Pennsylvania and my best friend was Heather McCall.  She was my neighbor, and we were inseparable until her family moved her to Washington State and my family moved me to Oklahoma.  My parents flew me to Washington to see her….my first plane ride (solo) when I was in grade school.  A big deal for me.  This trip, we stopped by to see her, and reminisced about the time we spent together, talked about our kids and where life had taken us up to this point.

It is so amazing to me the human condition, and the fact memories of our youth can create a lifelong connection.  I haven’t spent hardly any time with her in the last 40 years, but it felt like we were little kids again, and I could have spent more time with her for sure.  That connection allows our conversation about life to be so much more vulnerable and empathetic.  I love stops like this on the road and appreciate the kindness and generosity of her and her family to open her home to us on a moment’s notice.  Thank you, dear friend, until we meet again.   

And thank you for educating me on the OHIO billboards across the US!  A fun campaign to encourage people to move to Ohio! ohioisforleaders.com Now you have to come visit, my friend!

The Diversity of Olympic has a lot to offer

We found a beautiful Department of Natural Resources (DNR) disbursed camping site overlooking Discovery Bay and set up camp while we took in the amazing views and sunset.  We met a young girl, 22 with a dog, that tried to tell us stories she was camping with a partner, but it became evident she was perhaps crafting this story to keep people at bay and protect herself from allowing others to know she was on her own.  Not sure how long she had been here, probably a couple weeks, but shared she had been on the road for over a year to avoid a toxic situation with her family.  My heart aches when I hear stories like this, wondering how her parents feel about her being gone so long, as I try to imagine how it would make me feel to be estranged from my child like that.  All we could do was offer her some warm food, which she gladly accepted.

The next morning, we left early to experience as much as we could of what Olympic has to offer.  With one road around the park, the only access in is spurs off this main road. So, if you want to travel from one part of the park to another it can easily take 2 hours.  We did as much as we could in a day – drove the scenic drive and hiked part of Hurricane Ridge, hiked the waterfalls around Sol Duc hot springs, hiked the Hall of Mosses trail at the bottom of the Hoh Rain Forest, took in the views of Crescent Lake and a sunset over the west coast beach.  It is incredible how diverse this park is.  What an amazing park to live close to.  We just scratched the surface, but felt like we got a good idea of all the park had to offer.  

Our favorite was the Hall of Mosses, with Sitka spruces up to 300 feet tall and mosses draped over every limb of every tree.  Decaying trees over the years had spawned new growth on top of them, and the root formations on top of the dead trees was mind boggling and beautiful.  Surreal and whimsical.  

The park welcomes over 3.2 million visitors per year, so we felt lucky that it didn’t seem cramped at any point on our trip.  Maybe that is because the temperament climate allows for visitors year-round, and we benefited by being there on a weekday.

The Majestic Rainier and the Pinnacle Hike

Our last park in Washington was Mount Rainier, and the must do activity is hiking the Skyline loop in Paradise, with a 1,700 ft gain up to 7,200 feet elevation.  It is so busy, we read up about the importance of not visiting Rainier on a weekend and getting to the park by 8 am.  We are glad we did both.  

We met a lot of volunteer rangers along the way making the hike.  Two of which their job for the day was to hike the mountain in order to put toiler paper at the only toiler at the top of the trail.  They were encouraging John and I to find a way to volunteer at the park in the future, to get free camping.  That got my wheels turning about some trips in our future!

The loop literally winds you all the way up to the base of Mt Rainier, with wildflower meadows and spectacular mountain vistas along the way.  Mount Rainier has over 20 glaciers, and when you get close you can see the hikers more adventurous than us making their way up to the glacial peak to ski part way down Paradise Glacier.    They are so far away they look like little ants.  The mountain up close is massive, and the glaciers range in color from silver whites to ice blue. 

It feels holy to be at the base of this mountain.  And it was absolutely fantastic for John and I do it together.  I didn’t think he would be able to do that kind of elevation gain over that many miles.  But he kicked a**!  It was so incredible, as we reflected on the fact literally one year ago from this date, he was coming home from his month-long visit at Cleveland Clinic.  What a difference a year makes, and we are certainly blessed beyond belief.

Next, we are making our way south to experience the parks we missed in Oregon, California, and Nevada. There is so much beauty in this world, and we are grateful we can take the time to go at our own pace and see what we want to see.   More to come, thanks for following!