Eastbound – Day 1 /Crossing the Cascade Mountains

November 10, 2013
Leavenworth, WA
132,004.1 (yes we’ve put 2000 miles on Sandy already)

We camped last night in a little nothing much campground which was perfect as we were arriving after dark and not sticking around for sightseeing so it was convenient (right off the ferry) and cheep and quite friendly. I even met a gentlemen there who was from Vermont and use to own a 1974 Bus.

We started out around our usual time, but I decided to put in a new Primary Battery as it kept going dead. When I saw that it was 2 years old and I was having starting issues, I decided its better to start there after some advice from my friend Jules back east. While I still think something is draining the battery when we are parked, it will take some troubleshooting that I’d rather do when its not raining. If the new battery is discharged significantly tomorrow morning, our next step will be to unplug the new Aux Battery and see if that has anything to do with it. So after the better part of an hour in town removing and installing a new battery that was too big so out it when and another new one back in, we were on the road.

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I was expecting a long boring day, but I should learn to not expect anything to be boring in Sandy. We got onto 2 East and will eventually hook up with 12 East clear back to the East Coast. So there we are…Eastbound and Down and then there they were. The Cascade Mountain Range dead ahead! I’m neither running the GPS now or using a map, but rather just exercising my mind a bit and trying to follow what I look up before we go. Should be fairly easy but they do like to change the names of roads as you go from one region to the next. That did cause us to get a little sidetracked today. You can see it on our Interactive Map.

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Next thing I know, we are headed up the Cascades following the Skykomish River and bound for Stevens Pass. The further up we climbed, the more clearly I could see the snow at the top when suddenly I did not need to look UP to see the snow, but now down…down on the road! The pavement was clear of snow, but it was snowing and the sides were covered in snow and the further up we went the more snow that was on the side. Just before we got to Stevens Pass, I pulled over in a dirt lot for some off road snow pics of Sandy in the snow….Nope, there aren’t any pictures of that because, well, I kind of got stuck. The snow was deep and the dirt parking lot rough. Rather than get out, I worked Sandy through the snow and got out of there. Then just up the road I saw Stevens Pass and I pulled off there for a photo op.

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There we were. Lexie, Sandy and I at Stevens Pass. 4061 Feet Above Sea Level. Just a day before we were AT Sea! Yes indeed, this trip is full of surprises. After getting back on the road we began a long decent…a long and dark decent and now it was well past Lexie’s dinner time, it was snowing and there was nothing around. I began to get a little worried as even the GPS was not showing a town near by. I promised Lexie I would stop at the first place we could to feed her and let her out. About a half hour later we stumbled upon The Apls Candy Store.I was surprised to learn that it had burnt down in 2011, but has been rebuilt. I is actually a neat store and I picked up some provisions while there. The woman at the counter told me that we will find open campgrounds down in Leavenworth about 5 miles south

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What she didn’t tell me was that Leavenworth is wonderful! And by wonderful I mean spectacular!  Leavenworth, WA needs to be on everyone’s MUST SEE list. (Please click on that link to see just how spectacular it is) See, Leavenworth has made itself out to be a Bavarian Village in the Cascade Mountains. And I will say, they have done a perfect job! I now have Sandy’s Christmas Card picture thanks to Leavenworth WA. I loved it so much that I have decided to move here…just kidding, you all know I love the beach! No, rather I will make sure to walk around town tomorrow and get some more pictures and maybe even a sticker for Sandy!

Some interesting facts on the Cascades.
I wanted to know if the were named after all the cascading waterfalls I saw today, but they are not. The Cascade Mountains are named after a single Cascading Waterfall that no longer exists because they dammed up the river and its now underwater. Its interesting because I see that there is a movement to damn up more rivers here in these mountains.
Well each day sure has been bringing us surprises. Tomorrow we are Montana Bound. I don’t know if we will make the border or not, leaning more not than will if I do spend the early part of the day here. I’m also going to start posting the mileage for the day and current miles on Sandy with each post. Didn’t have todays starting mileage, but we did hit 2000 miles on our trip today

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