Category: Cross Country During COVID 2020
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Olympic Unplugged
While in Pacific Beach, we discovered that our full-hookup Navy MWR facility had strong, fast WIFI. We made use of Roxie’s built-in high gain router to put all of our devices online. We were so immersed that in no time we were signing up for Showtime free trials and binging Homeland. Back at full-hookup Joint…
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We Get Around, Tacoma
Sometimes you gotta get out of the rainforest, off the beach, down from the mountain and get some urban livin’. Nine miles southwest of Joint Base is downtown Tacoma, home of world renown glass artist Dale Chihuly and launching pad for a get around day trip. Chihuly in the City Although the Museum of Glass…
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Hi Hoh, Hi Hoh, It’s off to Forks we go
We never read the books and we didn’t see the movies but our daughters were Twilight teens an when we heard the setting of Forks was a dozen miles from the second most visited site in Olympic National Park, we decided to go vampire and werewolf with a tenting trip in the Hoh rainforest. Following…
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Olympic Alone
Pacific Beach, Washington is sometimes wistful, sometimes dreamy, always pure peace and solitude. There are no crowds or colorful umbrellas; no spread out towels or portable radios. The smell is salt spray instead of SPF and the view is somewhere through the mist. It is a dream world lost in time to the hustle and…
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All Cheer Mt Rainier
Carlsbad has its under-otherworldly caverns, Bryce has its spooky hoodoos, Arches has its, well, arches but Rainier doesn’t Have, Rainier IS. Rainier is omnipresent. Whether its lurking in the clouds, looming behind the fog or lighting up the city, Rainier is compass rose in Tacoma Washington. Sunrise Camping The Sunrise Visitor Center is two hours…
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All the way to Tacoma …
“I went from Phoenix, Arizona All the way to Tacoma, Philadelphia, Atlanta, LA …. Steve Miller Band (1976) The world is not all sunshine and waterfalls. Or is that rainbows? The point is, vertical hikes can be mean and nasty and as tough as we are it could beat us to our knees and keep…
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Flirtin with Disaster
Mt Rainier could blow its top any day now or it could wait a little while, which in geologic terms could be like 10,000 years. At 14,410 feet, Rainier is the tallest volcano in the Cascades and the most glaciated peak in the lower 48. We took our chances on America’s largest active volcano, flirtin…
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Escape to Mt. Baker
When summer temperatures in Seattle soar into the 70’s, there is nothing else to do to escape the insufferable heat but flee 90 minutes north to Mt. Baker mountain in search of snow. Hopping on that bandwagon, we threw our tenting gear into Boss and left Roxie stowed in her gated Jim Creek Naval Radio…
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Three Amigos: Ross, Diablo and Jim Creek
After a day of head-in-the-clouds exploring the insurmountable Cascade Pass and Hidden Lakes trails of Marblemount, we backtracked to the National Park treasures of Ross and Diablo Lakes for some grand views from easier to reach places. It’s a 30 mile stretch between Ross Lake and Marble Creek, snaking along the Skagit River, passing the…
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North Cascades – The American Alps
North Cascades National Park is one of the least visited National Parks in the lower 48. Judging from the license plates in campgrounds and at trailheads, eight out of 10 visitors are Washingtonians, one is from California and the other is a pick your plate state. Two hundred miles from Seattle to the west or…