3 October 2015, Saturday It was a clear and mostly quiet night last night. The wind rattled thefly of the tent until about 9:00. Then all was calm. I woke around 6this morning with a bright light shining in the door of the tent. Ithought it was the moon until I looked out and saw that it was Venus. We get out our pies for breakfast soon after the sun is
2 October, 2015, Friday We have our two day old pie and two more of our pears for breakfastafter walking across the road to get some coffee. Everything tastes good.It’s especially nice not to feel overstuffed. After breakfast wepack up and head for Goblin Valley State Park. The scenery as weapproach is stunning. We stop at the visitor center and it becomesclear we could easily spend a few days here exploring.
1 October, Thursday We wake at 6:30 am so we can get an early start unpacking Jazz. We arewaiting at the door of the dealership when the service managerarrives. She, too, is friendly and sympathetic. Paperwork is filledout and Jazz is taken back for a tire check. It turns out that the tire can be fixed, but the tread on the tires isreally wearing, and we have many more miles to
30 September 2015, Wednesday We eat our remaining pastries for breakfast, along with two of ourEllensburg pears. Our stay at Rugged Country Lodge was quitepleasant. The room was clean and nice with many more amenities thanMotel 6, at the same or a lower price. The proprietor is also verypleasant. He suggests we stop at Pendleton Woolen Mills before weleave. We had not realized we were in that Pendleton.Unfortunately, they don’t open
29 September, 2015, Tuesday We eat some of our pastries for breakfast today and save some fortomorrow. After breakfast S & K help us reload the car. Evenafter two weeks, we remember how to fit everything in. We are on theroad by 11:30 am. Soon we are on I-90 driving over the CascadeMountains. Only a few days ago we could see these jagged peaks as adistant shadow against the sky from
28 September 2015, Monday Today is a Grand Canyon organizational day. First, we go off to buypastries for our final breakfast with S &K. We also getingredients for tonight’s home-cooked beef stew. Back at the apartment I select five dehydrated breakfasts and five suppersfor our trip. Then we begin packing snacks for the trail and for lunch.O & I figure we need about 7.7 kg of food total for the GrandCanyon
27 September 2015, Sunday We are ready to depart Mt. Walker Inn by 8 am. The socks smell amazinglyacceptable! We stop at the Cup and Muffin for our first cups ofcoffee and then get in line for the ferry. The morning is cool, butbright and sunny. O & I are convinced this is typical northwestweather. While we wait for the ferry, O goes off to another coffeeshop for a latte and
26 September 2015, Saturday Last night, as we were sitting under the tarp after dinner, we spied 2headlights coming down the trail into camp. It was dark and near 8pm. Ryan, the young man, exclaimed as he arrived, “Oh, thankgoodness! There really is a Ten Mile camp. We were beginning tothink it didn’t exist and we were all gonna die out here!” He andhis companion, Clarissa, were very grateful for the
25 September 2015, Friday There’s been a patter of rain on the tent fly all night. Well, sometimes rainand sometimes just dripping from the trees. O is out of the tent early while Ipack up inside. He goes down to check the water levelin the Duckabush. It’s up, but quite passable for today’s ford. I emerge from the tent. Everything is green-gray this morning. Mistshrouds the mountains. Our hot drinks taste
24 September 2015, Thursday We all slept very well and stayed surprisingly warm on the mountaintop.Breakfast is spinach mushroom frittata. We had considered hiking upto O’Neil pass before leaving the higher elevation, but rain is inthe forecast so we all decide to head back to Upper Duckabush Campand make sure we have a rain-worthy set up. As we head downhill, I catch a glimpse of something large moving amongstthe bushes and trees.