Marblemount, Washington

Good evening, my friends. We had an easy drive today. It was gray and cloudy, but we only encountered a slight drizzle as we arrived at our final destination of Marblemount. It's a community of just about 350 people, and considered the "gateway" to North Cascades National Park. (That black line through the image below is the antenna on our truck.)

As we drove out of La Conner, we spotted one more spook. With these guys roaming around, it was probably a good time to hit the road.

It was a good day for barns. 

We're seeing lots of fall color now.

Just before arriving at our final destination, we passed by Baker River. It was a pretty shade of light glacial green.

Tomorrow we'll head about ten miles east to the visitor center for the national Park. We'll check in there to find out about hiking trails within the national park. Also, I have on our itinerary to hike the Trail of the Cedars. The trailhead is just a few miles down the road. It's a short hike. Also, we want to visit a viewpoint for Diablo Lake. It's a little farther down the road in the direction from which we came. I'd hoped to get a spot at the state park there, but it seems to be shut down as of today. We ended up in a private RV park...nothing fancy, but quiet. We we arrived, I checked into their laundry and was able to get the laundry done. 

We have four nights here and plenty to do. That's all I have to tell you about today. There's going to be plenty to see here. Rest up, my friends. We're going to do some more hiking over the next couple of days.

Stormy Weather

Good afternoon, my friends. Fortunately, we didn't have far to go to reach our latest stop because it was a horrible day of weather. We find ourselves in La Conner, Washington, this afternoon. We couldn't check in here until 1:00. We had just a little more than an hour's drive from Flowing Lake SP, and checkout time there was noon, so it all worked out. I had plenty of time to play my word games, and to make a little more progress on the flock. I love those sheep faces.

It was unfortunate the weather was so crappy because we passed by a lot of barns on today's drive. I managed to get a bad picture of this next one. It had a quilt block.

When shooting, I had to wait for a swipe of the windshield wipers, but my pictures often ended up with the wiper as the main part of the photo.

At times, it was raining so hard, that the windshield wipers could barely keep up. When that happened, my pictures began to look like the one below.

Okay, never mind. I gave up after that. However, we did pass by one barn that I wanted to tell you about. I couldn't get any pictures, but this one is noteworthy enough that I was able to find lots of pictures in the public domain. It was the Nakashima Heritage Barn. 

(Attribution: By Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90687858)

The Nakashima Heritage Barn is near the northern border of Snohomish County, Washington, near Arlington. Its site currently constitutes the northernmost trailhead of the Centennial Trail, a rail trail following the old line of the Seattle, Lake Shore, and Eastern (later Northern Pacific, then Burlington Northern). It lies just east of Washington State Route 9.

(Attribution: "Nakashima Heritage Barn - trailhead sign" by Joe Mabel is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.)

So, what makes this barn special?  You can read an article about it's history right here. It includes a “History Quilt” with photos of the land in its various uses through the years from forest to mill site to farm. 

(Attribution: "Nakashima Heritage Barn 05" by Joe Mabel is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.)

In a nutshell: Farming operations began here in the 1900s by Daniel Waldo Bass and his wife Sophie. Sophie’s grandfather was A. A. Denny, the “Father of Seattle,” who landed at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. In 1937, Bass sold the farm to Japanese-American Takeo Nakashima. The Nakashima family continued a dairy operation on the property. 

Can you guess what's coming next?

In 1942, the Nakashima family was sent to internment camps in Idaho and California and was forced to sell their farm. Over the years, the farm changed hands many times and dairying operations eventually ceased. In 1997, the Trust for Public Land purchased 89 acres of the farm including the only remaining structure, the barn, and turned it over to the county to become a park. In 2007, the barn was listed on Washington’s heritage barn register, becoming the state’s first and only one so far belonging to an Asian-American farming family.

So, it's not much, but it's all I have for you today. Except for this...I've figured out that Sadie is less interested in helping me edit my posts than she is in lying next to the laptop, where warm are exudes from the cooling fans located at the back. When I'm finished and remove the laptop from where it's sitting, it leaves a warm place. The cat wasn't born yesterday.

We're in La Conner just today and tomorrow. The weather should improve overnight, and if the forecast is to be believed, we'll have sunshine tomorrow. My plan is to visit the Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum. I swiped the image below from its Facebook page.

A friend from high school recommended we stop in La Conner on this trip. It's her home town, and she gave me this bit of history about the building. Using Kathy's words:

The quilt museum in LaConner was a mansion built by a Mr. Gashes. Then it became a hospital during WWI. It later became 6 apartments. At some point after World War II my grandfather, Arthur Herrold,  purchased the building. He ran it as an apartment house for years, and he and my grandmother lived in the house next-door. They sold that house and moved into one of the apartments. In 1973 one of the tenants left a cigarette burning and the first floor and a half were burned. My grandparents lost their home. Later, a historical committee bought the building and restored it to the present “museum.”

Thanks for that, Kathy. So I'll visit the museum tomorrow. Also, I'm planning to visit a quilt shop in nearby Mt. Vernon. Mike might take the day off from this quilty sight-seeing. I think he might relish a day to himself, but that'll be up to him.

So, that's all I have for you today. We're planning dinner out tonight. There's some good seafood to be had here. Fingers crossed for better weather tomorrow. If we all cross our fingers, it might help. Just to be clear, I'm giving you permission to uncross your fingers if you want to do some sewing. 

A Life Day

Good afternoon, my friends. We had in mind to do another hike this morning. When we looked at it, we realized it was farther away than we thought. After driving those winding roads to yesterday's trailhead, we decided to just do some walking around the park here. The original trail, as described, wasn't a whole lot different from what we could see right here. Flowing Lake is a county park, and there are paths all through the area. You can see them where the dotted lines are in the image below.

We're in site 33, which is almost smack in the middle of the image above. 

We had grocery shopping to do, and we scored another roll of quarters (for laundry) while we were at the local Fred Meyer store. It's been great traveling in a state where we can shop at our home town store.  Now here's something you don't see every day. This store had a robot named "Tally" that keeps track of inventory. It's a brave new world, my friends.

When we got back, nothing would do until we got Smitty out for a walk. I had him out a few days ago, but there were too many people and too much activity, and so our walk was only a few minutes long. Since then most everyone has left. There are a few other campers here, but it feels as if we have the park to ourselves. With it being so quiet, Smitty insisted that a walk was in his future. He was out about 15 minutes, hunting, hunting, hunting for any available grass. He found just a few tufts here and there, but it was worth it for a little nibble of that Pawshington green.

And you probably can't see her very well, but Sadie stood guard from her catio.

Don't worry, Smitty. I've got your back.

Back inside, the walk was utterly exhausting. This is how they've been spending their time since.

Matthew called while we were at the grocery store. We called him back and had a nice little chat with him. After that, we had lunch and naps, and then we decided to take one of the trails to the lake for which this park is named: Flowing Lake. Right away, we spotted this "citizen scientist" invitation, and I'm all for science. They want pictures of the lake level, and this lake is clearly below its normal level.

The area was fenced off, but we simply walked around the fence. This dock we're on is going to be replaced. It was easy enough to see why. The wood felt kind of spongy, and there were areas where the lake could be seen through holes in the boards.

These lily pads must be so pretty when they bloom.

We saw one lone duck, occasionally diving down for something delicious.

Looking out across the lake, it looks like this. We imagine this is a lovely place to spend a warm summer day.

Heading back to our site, I noticed these two trees and their bark. The one on the left is a Western Red Cedar. On the right is a Douglas Fir.

We also met up with one of the indigenous creatures. We have them in Oregon too. The duck would have enjoyed meeting up with this guy.

And that was a pretty easy-going day. We enjoyed it. 

We'll be moving on to La Conner tomorrow. There is a quilt museum there. I thought there was a quilt shop as well, but it turned out to be one of those shops that's actually someone's studio. It's only open by appointment, and I'm not really interested in that. I did find one close by, and I'll pay them a visit.

As I'm writing, I haven't done any slow-stitching today. After I publish, I believe that will be my next stop. It'll be a good way to close out the day. We're expecting a very rainy day for our drive tomorrow. Happily, it'll be a short drive of just about an hour. We're expecting better weather by Wednesday. Also, I checked the hours on the quilt museum...closed on Tuesday, but open on Wednesday. Hooray!

Okay, my friends. If I'm going to do any slow-stitching, then I need to stop here. Enjoy your evening. If I don't check in tomorrow, I'll be back on Wednesday.

Big Four Ice Caves Trail

Good afternoon, my friends. We had a beautiful day of weather for our hike. It was some distance away...not mileage wise, but time wise. It was about 36 miles from where we are, but it took nearly an hour to drive there because of all the twists and turns. Along the way we passed by this barn. (Sorry about the buggy windshield.)

And we crossed this red bridge. How do you like that color? We figure it must have been a good buy on that color of paint. Also, just beyond the bridge, we passed a sign directing visitors to the "Red Bridge Campground."

So, let's talk about what we're going to see, shall we? This bulletin board had a couple of signs of interest. I've cropped the text parts out and included them below the corresponding sign image. It explains how these caves are formed and why they are so dangerous.

The next two images are cropped from the one above.

Here's the second sign, explaining the trail and the history of the area.

And, finally, this one. And they're not kidding about this, my friends. Stay on the trail.

Okay, so this was an easy hike, immaculately maintained, and easy to follow. We were walking on a boardwalk about half the time.

Looking up, we could see a small glacier. It also looks as if there's a dusting of snow at the top.

And this is the range known as the Big Four.

The pond below was formed by beavers. If you look toward the upper left corner just to the right of where Mike is standing, you can see a beaver lodge.

Here's a closer look at it.

And here, you can see where those naughty beavers have chewed off branches to build their lodge.

We didn't see any beavers on this day, but if you've been reading for a long time, you know that we've yearned to see beavers for a long time. We were happy to finally see one in the wild when we visited Denali National Park last year. It was a fleeting glimpse, but we could check the box on our list after this.

We crossed this bridge over the South Fork of the Stillaguamish River.

Looking to the left, you can see a man fishing at the bottom of the image.

Looking to the right, it looks like this.

And, wouldn't you know it? We take our eyes off our shadow selves for a minute, and we find them in the river. We had to wait for them to get out and towel off.

Continuing on, the trail was gravel/dirt most of the way.

At particularly slippery spots, they'd added this stuff...whatever it's called...for better traction. That was very much appreciated.

It's late in the year for blooming things, but I enjoyed the droplets of water on next year's lupine.

And these tiny white flowers...my phone says they're yarrow, but I doubt that.

We've been blown away by the loveliness of the forests here in Washington.

Continuing on, we marveled at the near-vertical face of the mountains.

As we approached the ice cave, we were warned once again about the danger present here.

Beside the yellow sign was this sobering marker.

Just a few more feet, and we were there. Here's the whole of the mountainside. I left the people there for scale.

Zooming in...

This isn't actually a cave that extends into the mountainside. Instead, it is formed by the piles of snow falling from avalanches. And it's easy to see why there is so much avalanche activity here when you see the steepness of the cliff face.

In spring, other hikers have told of a beautiful waterfall here. This late in the year, it's just a trickle.

Here's another look at the face of the mountain.

Turning directly around from there 180° it looks like this:

And then we headed back to our Jeep and back to the RV for lunch and naps. 

The only other thing I did this morning was to take the first stitches on the center sheep block.

We have another shorter hike planned for tomorrow, and we'll be traveling in the opposite direction for that. I'll say more after we've done it. We'll also find a grocery store to pick up a few things. With the smallness of this rig, and limited space in our refrigerator, we're visiting the grocery store every couple of days to pick up just a few items. Hopefully, I'll have a little more time for slow-stitching as well.

Tomorrow's hike will be less strenuous, and more park-like. You can probably wear your regular walking shoes for that. Get a good night's sleep. You've worked hard today, and you'll want to be refreshed for tomorrow's walk.