Lori's Travels

Stephanie and I began our Alaska cruise vacation this morning at her house, where we got a Lyft ride through light traffic to the airport. The airport was busy, of course, as expected on a holiday weekend, but we sped through a TSA Precheck line in record time and emerged on the other side of security harried and hurried but with all our clothes still on and our gear intact.

Our flight left roughly on time and it was a short one hour and 45 minutes in the air. But I made a mistake of opening my water bottle spout without thinking and was treated to a fountain of water under higher pressure in the bottle than outside of it, spilling all over my shirt and pants. It made the flight a little uncomfortable but I was happy to see that by the time the plane landed, it had nearly all dried thanks to the dry warm air inside the plane.

We deboarded via a roll-up ramp, walking into cloudy Sitka. Inside the small airport, we were met by an Alaskan Dream Cruises representative. She took Stephanie and I and 4 other people to our various hotels in a company van.

At our hotel, the Eagle Bay Inn, nobody was home so the cruise employee called the hotel owner/manager while we waited. We were soon let in by a young man and another employee joined him to check us in.

There another employee from the cruise company who met us to take us to The Fortress of the Bears, a place that has 6 brown bears. They provide a home to orphaned bears, since Alaska has no law or assistance providing rehabilitation of bear cubs. We learned from our driver that at least two brown bear mothers with cubs have been seen repeatedly in town this year. That gave us pause about our plans to walk through a wooded park tomorrow morning on the way into town.

After spending some time watching the bears being fed, our driver gave us a ride back into town, where we walked around, saw many ravens and bald eagles, visited an old Russian cemetery, and then ate dinner.

We ate dinner at a restaurant downtown called Mean Queen, where I enjoyed a great veggie burger and salad. Then we walked about 30 minutes through town to our hotel. The weather had been off and on showery, and it continued that way during our walk to the hotel.

On Friday morning, it dawned clear and sunny again in Goldendale. After breakfast at the Quality Inn, we checked out and startle the final leg of this state park trip. The first stop was Brooks Memorial park that was about 20 minutes north on Hwy 97. It’s located on the Little Klickitat River and was a nicely wooded camping and picnicking park. We only stayed a few minutes because it was quite cool outside.

On to our next park of the day: Fort Simcoe. This park is located on the Yakama Reservation and is fairly remote. There aren’t any highway signs guiding a driver to the location. It’s the site of an Army fort from the 1850s and there are several rebuilt buildings representing the originals.

When we arrived, we were surprised to see cattle grazing on the mowed grass of the park while an employee worked nearby on the sprinkler system. We were the only visitors. As we walked around, we frightened some of the cows, which trotted off. There were many Lewis Woodpeckers in the oak trees, which was interesting to see, since they don’t show up in the western part of Washington. But we were disappointed that there weren’t more interpretive signs telling about who the fort was named for, nor the history of the area.

After leaving Fort Simcoe, we drove to the final park of this trip, the Yakima Sportsman park. It had been developed by a Yakima Valley Sportsman Association in the 1940s and given to the state. We parked near a small lake to relax and look for birds. Nothing unusual showed up, so we moved on. Our breakfast hadn’t really stuck with us, so we found an Olive Garden restaurant in downtown Yakima and ate an early lunch. Then we headed west for the 2+ hour drive back to Issaquah. It was the end of another enjoyable state park trip.

Another sunny day greeted us Thursday morning in Vancouver. After enjoying the free breakfast at the hotel, we started out toward our first state park of the day, Spring Creek Hatchery, located along the Columbia River in Skamania County. We parked on the grounds and walked toward the visitor center, appreciating the view of Mt. Hood across the river.

At the visitor center, an employee was just unlocking the door and we walked in with him. It was a small visitor center with displays about the salmon cycle and a viewing platform to watch spawning salmon, but nothing was happening this time of year.

Next was the Klickitat State Park Trailhead in the small town of Lyle. The trail runs along the Klickitat River and about 50 miles up into the dry hills of the Goldendale Plateau. We just stood near the trailhead parking lot to see the river and a few birds that were flying around.

The third park of the day was Doug’s Beach, a very small park that offered a couple picnic tables and undeveloped shoreline along the Columbia River, which we reached by walking over railroad tracks that paralleled the highway. It was a quiet little park, but I imagine the shoreline access is a big draw on summer weekends.

We ate lunch at the next park on my list, the Columbia Hills Historical at Horsethief Lake. The lake is one that was created by a railroad track berm that cut off a little inlet of the Columbia River. The park itself was large and grassy and provided a nice view of the river. We found a dry picnic table between running sprinklers, laid out a tablecloth and enjoyed a lunch of hummus leftover from last night’s dinner plus pita bread we had bought along the way. We saw some Brewer’s blackbirds in the trees around us, plus a Western kingbird and Yellow-rumpled warbler. Quite a pleasant place to eat lunch.

The fifth park of the day was Maryhill State Park, another beautiful grassy and treed park on the river. We walked out onto a small jetty that bordered a swimming area to look back at the park and out on the river. While we were there, we saw a small, dark brown weasel looking back at us. It was very small and cute, and disappeared quickly into the large rocks that made up the jetty.

Our final park of the day was the Goldendale Observatory, where we had a 9pm reservation for their observatory show. First we drove there in the daylight to scope it out. Then we returned to the town of Goldendale to make sure the hotel had room for us that night, rested for a bit, then had salads for dinner at the Simcoe Cafe in town.

The night show at the observatory started at 9 p.m. but they wanted participants with reservations to arrive before 8:30, so we did. We took a few photos of and from the observatory grounds while we waited. The sun was setting and it was a mostly clear sky.

About 40 arrived for the show, and the one and only park ranger who is currently assigned to the observatory was Troy, who was an amazing astronomy expert, very interesting to listen to, and had worked there for 13 years. The other three employees who had previously worked at the observatory had lost their jobs or been reassigned due to state budget cuts, so Troy was giving all the shows: two a day Thursday through Sundays.

We first looked at Jupiter and its moons through the large 24-inch telescope. We also looked at a binary star named Mizar with a 10-inch telescope on the patio of the building. Then we looked at the moon with their 14-inch telescope. Troy was narrating, operating the telescopes, and answering questions through all of this. He also pointed out the International Space Station when it passed overhead, while we looked at it with our bare eyes, and a few other stars and planets. There was a cool wind blowing after sunset, so we were happy to go inside the dome and then, finally, in the classroom on-site.

In the classroom, Troy used a great 3-screen TV system to show and talk about several astronomical topics. It was very interesting. We were there until nearly midnight. It was good to finally return to the hotel to sleep, but the show was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

Today started out a bit rocky when, after breakfast in the hotel, Dave discovered that one of his tires was flat. Too flat to drive anywhere. Fortunately, he’s a pro at changing tires on Toyota trucks because this was his second truck of that kind, so he was able to put on the spare in the hotel parking lot. Then we drove a block or so to a Les Schwab Tire store and they found a screw in the tire, removed it and fixed the tire, all in about 45 minutes, for free. So what started out bad ended up quite well at about 10 a.m.

We decided that we wanted to visit the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge that was a short distance away from Battle Ground. We drove to the refuge area that has an “auto tour” route and birded from the car as we drove on the gravel road. It was great birding! The day was mostly sunny and the refuge consisted of many marshy areas, meadows, and deciduous forests. The road wasn’t crowded and had places to pull over, so we could get out, or just sit and look while stopped. We saw or heard about 32 species.

The rain held off for the day, although it was overcast and only in the high 60s. We finished about 2:30 and then used Google to find a Best Western hotel in Vancouver. After resting a while, we went to find a Mediterranean restaurant again for dinner, since we liked last night’s food so much.

Today I started on another trip to visit Washington State parks, this time in the south central part of the state. My friend Dave picked me up early from home and we first went in search of a restaurant open early for breakfast. We found one in Auburn, the Rainbow Cafe, arriving there at 7 a.m. just as they opened. I splurged on a huge blueberry pancake while Dave had a hearty omelette.

Once breakfast was out of the way, we continued our drive south, hitting I-5 and heading to the first park of the trip, Rainbow Falls State Park, west of Chehalis. The falls were small, but the south fork of the Chehalis River was nice. We had the park almost to ourselves and it was a lovely warm morning. And we did a little birdwatching. There was a trailhead in the park to the Willapa Hills State Park Trail, which was the second “park” of the trip. We walked on the trail for a few feet to say we had been on it too.

Next was a tiny little park called Jackson House Historical Park, the site of a log house built in the 1850s by the first European settlers north of the Columbia River. It was a 30 minute drive away in Chehalis. We were the only visitors at the time, but a park employee was doing lawn maintenance. We couldn’t go inside, but we looked through the windows to see an old spinning wheel and other tools of the day. Then we were on to the third park.

Ike Kinsey State Park, named after a Cowlitz Tribe member who owned the land, was the next on our list and our favorite of the day. It’s located on Mayfield Lake, with a swimming beach and nice fishing pier. There were paddle boarders, kayakers, and fisher people on the glassy lake. It was quite warm by noon. We looked at fish in the lake from the fishing pier and enjoyed the sunshine.

From there, we continued south to Lewis and Clark State Park, then Seaquest. Both were beautifully wooded parks, and we watched a mother Robin feed her chicks in a nest in a bush while sitting at a picnic table at Lewis and Clark. Seaquest is the location of the state’s Mt. St. Helens visitor center, but it was closed for remodeling. But we did get a glimpse of the volcano through the trees.

The last two parks of the day were a little disappointing. Paradise Point is right next to and under the I-5 freeway. We didn’t even get out of the car, although a river ran through the park and it was woodsy. Battle Ground Lake State Park was crowded with people wanting to swim in the little lake after work on this sunny and warm spring day, so we didn’t linger there either. And we were tired from all the driving.

We used Google Maps to find a nearby Best Western Hotel in Battle Ground for the night. After checking in, the manager recommended a restaurant called Pita House nearby for a Middle Eastern dinner. It was very good food, especially since we hadn’t eaten lunch. A good first day of the trip!