On Top of the World

Tuesday morning we woke up and started over the Northern Cascade mountains to make our way to the coast so we could take the Washington State Ferry to our first destination - Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands. 

We started up out of the Columbia River Gorge at the Grand Coulee Dam and soon were up in a very desolate desert looking region - the Spokane Indian Reservation. No wonder they were mad when the Dam was built and they couldn't live along the river and fish for salmon any more! 
Further along the way the landscape started to look better and we saw miles and miles of cherry and apple orchards and also vineyards with wine tasting rooms.  Many of the cherry trees were completely covered by frames with netting 4 or 5 acres at a time to protect them from the birds. No wonder the cherries were $2.49 per pound at the fruit stand - but we bought some anyway and they sure are delicious.
Then we came to the part on the map that said "closed in the winter". We just kept climbing and climbing and the mountains were sticking up with rocks and snow.

As we got higher and higher we saw many waterfalls just pouring down the mountain from the melting snow. It was amazing and beautiful. It seemed like we were truly on top of the world.

At the one of the top passes we saw spots of pink snow which dad claimed the owner of Hyde Drift boats had told him you could scoop up and eat and it would taste like watermelon snow cones.  We stopped and tried to reach some but it was always too dirty. Dad claimed it was some kind of algae which I assumed was just a plant or moss. I was sure glad we didn't get to try it when we got to the visitor's center and saw the display on "watermelon snow" that said it was caused by some of kind of worms that are in the snow at a certain temperature and altitude level!! YUK!! 
We finally made it to Anacortes and stopped at a very nice trailer park. After unhooking the truck and going to check out the Ferry Terminal for tomorrows launch we traveled down to the south end of the Island to go across the Deception Pass Bridge that we had travelled under in the Bare Neccessities when we sailed it home from Seattle to Sitka.  This is a very narrow and hidden opening into Puget Sound from the main channel that was discovered by Captain Vancouver's men in 1792 making it a much shorter route than it would have otherwise been to travel from the mainland shore up to Vancouver Island and Alaska.  The currents and tides weore just swirling around looking so powerful from up on the bridge

I could not believe we were brave enough to take that little 26 foot boat out through there. Dad said he planned the whole trip to leave from Bellingham so we could pass through there at slack tide.  Good thing he is so prepared or all of you except Jeff & Wayne might have been in another family!! And Wayne would have been an orphan raised in Southern California with Aunt Karen's family. (He was staying with Grandma Guymon in California while Grandpa Guymon, Dad, Jeff & I sailed to Alaska)  Sure glad it worked out the way it did!
It sure is BEAUTIFUL and green up here. Moss growing everywhere - on houses and trees. And FABULOUS FLOWERS, bushes and ferns everywhere you look. I am still not entirely sure why we chose sagebrush & the desert.  On second thought though it is all worth it because of the fabulous in-laws we have because of where all our children grew up and went to school. It was meant to be!