Way Up North

More and more and more of God’s beautiful world.





















We left the Chelan area and drove north and then west following what is called the Cascade Loop Scenic Highway. We left the apple grove valleys and made our first stop at (old west) Winthrop for lunch. It is in the Methow Valley and is entirely done in western frontier era, complete with wooden sidewalks.




We then headed to the section called North Cascades Highway and discovered that it wasn’t until 1972 that the modern road Hwy 20 traversed the North Cascades. We stopped at many places for pictures and I will include some below. The color of Lake Diablo was just astounding.


We finally got to our destination close to Glacier, Washington. And it was true; there is no cell reception or TV. The mountains are too tall. We stayed at a timeshare right off of the highway that goes up to the Mt. Baker ski area. There is only one road up that direction. We journeyed up there one day and saw all of the different mountains and the snow.
We didn’t do much hiking because my ankle is really acting up. We did walk on the trails early each morning. The Nooksack River was right out our patio door and we could not only view it but hear it running at all times.

We did hike for a couple of hours one afternoon on a trail by the Nooksack River.
Coleen’s cousins grew up in Deming, Washington which is only 24 miles from where we stayed. We took a drive through there down to Bellingham, then north to Lynden, by Sumas and back to the resort. We were only 2 miles from Canada. Coleen had been to Deming when she was 12 but did not remember that it is basically all farming areas specifically dairy. They also have berries.

One morning we got up early (4am) to drive to Anacortes and take the car ferry to Friday Harbor.




It is one of the San Juan Islands and has a National Park on it. It really was a fun day. The ferry trip took just over an hour and we spent the day driving around the island (a total of 50 miles). We got our park stamp and also got to see two lighthouses. We had delicious clam chowder at a little restaurant for lunch. We ate dinner at Charlie’s which was immediately after we disembarked at Anacortes before we drove back to the resort. We saw the fog come in and thought we would be driving for 2 hours in the fog. It was actually just a large fog over part of the water not on the land or on the entire harbor.

We played some games, read books and enjoyed the fireplace. We didn’t even get to the pool. I did go to a quilt store in Lynden. We went through the shops in Friday Harbor but didn’t find anything that we really needed. Not hearing the news we will play some catch-up this weekend, especially the outcome of Ike. We have family and friends in the Houston area and are keeping them in our thoughts and prayers.

Lake Chelan, Washington

I am wondering. Do we develop more appreciation with age of all that we are seeing or are we taking more time to observe or have we just not seen what we are seeing now? I have been pondering that question this week.

We had a beautiful drive from Idaho to Lake Chelan, Washington on Friday, September 5.
First we drove through acres and acres of golden wheat fields.


Then we stopped at the Grand Coulee Dam along the way. What a difference from Hoover Dam. It is so much wider (almost a mile). It dams up Lake Roosevelt which is over 150 miles long with 600 miles of shoreline. There were 11 towns flooded when the dam was built.

These are from the Lake side of the dam.














This is the huge Grand Coulee Dam.


We also saw two other dams and learned that there are actually 29 dams on the Columbia River system. We had no idea it was such a sophisticated system.

After the second dam we then drove into “apple country”. The trees are loaded and almost ready for picking. At some of the orchards there were large boxes all stacked up and waiting to be filled. At some others the boxes had already been distributed throughout the orchard.





It was delightful to drive through the country and see field after field, row after row and tree after tree laden with fruit. We were able to see some workers picking, boxes of apples being moved from the orchards and then trucks on the road hauling the apples “to market”. It was fascinating. We also saw vineyards, cherry trees (already picked), peaches and nectarines. We bought a box of peaches for $12 that probably had 70 – 75 peaches. We have been eating them all week. We also bought some pluots. They are a cross between a plum and an apricot. After seeing all this fruit it sure would be something to be here when the trees are in blossom.

The dams on the rivers are the way that the land and trees are irrigated. It is very dry unless watered so everything is irrigated. We stayed in a timeshare on Lake Chelan for the week. This lake is 55 miles long and ranges from ½ mile to 2 miles wide. We rode “The Lady of the Lake II” (a 280 passenger boat) from Chelan to Stehekin, literally from the south end to the north end and back. It is about 4 hours each way and we had about 2 hours in Stehekin. We learned that there are about 80 permanent residents in Stehekin. There are quite a few more during the summer when the North Cascades National Park adds to their staff. This is one of the glaciers in the park and the only one that can be seen from the lake.

We spent a day in Leavenworth which is the closest fully Bavarian town we have seen in the United States. We had a great German lunch, browsed through the shops and took some pictures. This was an unusual formation that we saw beside the river.

Another day Bob was blessed (I say that lovingly) to take the van in again (3rd time) to see if they could find the leak in the floor of the passenger side. Praise the Lord they were able to find something and did a patch. They recommended that we take it to a body shop to have it fixed better. We just have to deal with Chrysler to find out where to take it.

It has been an interesting week with my sciatic pain. My ankle started hurting again and we can’t figure out why. We are now assuming that it is because of the steps in our unit. Instead of regular stairs we have a spiral staircase between the kitchen, living/dining room (up) and our bedroom (down). It is also unique because there is actually a door to the outside from both the upstairs and the down. So what I started doing the last couple of days was going outside and walking up the regular stairs and coming back into our unit that way. It is the only thing that is really different and my ankle is swelling again so we have been icing it. We still manage to walk in the mornings. The nights have been in the mid 50’s but it is in the mid 80’s during the day. It is just ideal weather for us.

We went to a great farmer’s market and got some fresh fruit and vegetables. One day we saw all these sailboats on the lake. We don’t know what they were doing but we enjoyed watching them.

I will stop with a note to let folks know that we do not have phone or internet access next week. We will be in the mountains near Glacier, Washington on the back side of Mt. Baker.

Idaho

Well, we haven’t fallen off the face of the earth; we have just had no cell reception for the last two weeks. We were located in a pocket with no reception no matter what service you had. We were able to check email a few times but only did what was absolutely necessary.

We had a beautiful drive from Montana to this area in the way north panhandle of Idaho. There are many lakes and the area is sparsely populated. I still had a little residual of what I would call dizziness for part of last week. Now I just have the sciatica paid to deal with. The resort is located in a valley on a gold course. We did not play but did play miniature golf one time.

We did some sight seeing a few days. We drove most of the way around Lake Pend Oreille to find another timeshare. We found a special restaurant in Sandpoint recommended by our good friends Ryan & Michelle, Panhandler Pies.

We checked out the shops in Sandpoint but found we liked the Ben Franklin best. The area has been celebrating their 100th anniversary of a couple of the towns. We walked over two miles almost every morning. Coleen read a book, started a new cross-stitch and worked on inputting recipes into her computer program. Bob worked on cross-stitch bookmarks to send to Sri Lanka.

We played lots of Tic and even went to the pool and hot tub. It has been in the 70’s each day but down to 50 at night which has been wonderful weather. Bob went out to cook our steak on the grill one evening, had trouble lighting the grill and it was raining a bit. He looked up and saw the rainbows.

We were not as pleased with the resort accommodations and won’t recommend it to others. The unit is extremely small, even for 2 people. It reminded us of a motel room. We went to a film here at the resort one night called Sacred Journey of the Nez Perce which we really enjoyed and learned a lot about the settling of the area. They also had ice cream sundaes one evening.

It was a good two weeks and we look forward to next week in Washington. We hope to do another 10K walk. We will see how I feel.

Columbia Falls, Montana

We have spent much of our time viewing the beauty of God’s creation and soaking in the awesome sights. This week has been very different. Coleen started her morning routine of stretch exercises on Sunday when all of a sudden she became extremely dizzy. Now many of you probably think I am always dizzy but this was very different. Never have I felt anything like this but I diagnosed that it was vertigo.

After calls to our health insurance and hospital we spent about 4 hours in the emergency room. They work from the worst scenario first so I had a CT scan of my head and blood work. They put a motion sickness patch behind my ear and hooked me up to an IV. That in itself was a challenge because they can’t find my veins.

Well, everything was perfect – no stroke or diabetes. I have positional vertigo. What a bummer. But the doctor did refer me to a physical therapist. Monday and Tuesday I was able to function as long as I didn’t move my head or lay down. My appointment was on Wednesday morning at 7:45. We spent about 1 ½ hours with the therapist after which I had no more vertigo.

WOW!!! AWESOME!!! As I write this I think of all of God’s creation we have been admiring. Now I also think of us who are created in God’s image and of the knowledge that He gives to each of us. I am extremely thankful for a physical therapist who was able to cure the vertigo in one session. (Bob watched and has the instructions in case it happens again).

So our week has been spent catching up on email, blogs and bills. (We had no cell phone or internet connection while we were in Yellowstone). Yet, God is faithful and has taken care of our needs and we thank Him daily.

More Yellowstone

When we left Deb at the airport we headed back to Yellowstone. On the way we stopped to watch a bear either playing or taking a bath in a pond. When finished the bear promptly left and walked away. I got a good picture but we are still up in the air as to whether it is a grizzly or black bear because he is soaking wet. His ears are down which makes me think it is a grizzly.

Boy, I can tell that I am getting older. I think we slept for 11 hours that night. We did recover enough to visit some other areas of Yellowstone. We went to the Roosevelt area. It is more rustic and there are stagecoach and trail rides from there. Again we saw a deep canyon cut by the Yellowstone River.

I have been to a number of parks where moose are supposed to be but I have not been able to see one. It has turned into a big joke. So we bought a little stuffed moose at the General Store in Roosevelt. I guess that will have to do for a while.

The area of Mammoth Hot Springs was also very interesting. I could not believe the beauty of the springs. They are very white and tiered like shelves or steps.

We watched three elk graze on the lawn near the visitor center while we ate our picnic lunch.

Then there was this cute little creature that kept coming out from under the porch. We asked and found out that it was a Uinta ground squirrel. He was even joined by a second one.

We drove through the Upper, Middle and Lower Geyser sections north of Old Faithful.

There was even a swimming area on the Firehole River. As we returned home we saw a female elk and two of her young crossing the road.

It began to get colder each night and we finally gave in and turned on the heater the last two nights. We enjoyed playing some cards each evening. We also had dinner on Friday night with our special friends from Indiana – Lanie & Rhonda and Chris & Donna.

Oh, and the other special animal was a squirrel. He came to visit us each evening around 8:30. Except we never saw him, just heard him. He was up in the ceiling of our cabin. We figured he was busy storing up nuts for the winter. Here is Bob’s picture of the squirrel. (You just have to be able to see through the tree trunk).

It was 44 degrees when we left Yellowstone Park on Saturday. We had a long, long drive to Glacier National Park in Montana, over 470 miles. It was a good day and we even stopped at another national park in Deer Lodge. It was a working ranch of 1600 acres where we spent about 1 ½ hours. We could have looked for another couple of hours but we needed to get on the road again. We reached our destination at 9:30 p.m. and the temperature was over 90. Not quite what we were expecting.