Katrina's Travels

The spot where I took this set of photos had a very dull name. It is simply called the Milepost 100 Rest Area. Unsurprisingly, it is at mile marker 100 on State Route 20. Boring name or not, it was a nice place to take a break and do some photography before continuing my drive.

The Skagit River




There was still a lot of mist here and there.




A Western Red-cedar tree




Song Sparrow on a fence post




( More photos )

After having had our fill of looking for swans we decided to head south to Fir Island. We needed to buy a state lands pass to go there and there's no way to get one there, so we went via another state park that had an honor box for buying passes and bought one. (This was a problem for me for pretty much the whole trip. I would have bought an annual pass if I'd been able to find a place to buy one but November is not a good time to find a way to do that. Most of the places I wanted to go didn't even offer a way to buy a day pass. Next time I make a trip to Washington it will hopefully be planned enough in advance to buy a pass in advance and have it sent to me.)

The route we took involved driving south on Chuckanut Drive, which offers spectacular views, or at least it would have offered them if there had been less fog and rain.

(Clicking on any photo will take you to a larger version)






A foggy view of Bellingham Bay




And an even foggier view




Here's a great rarity - a photo of me, taken by my cousin who has at times been a professional photographer. Notice all the rain spots on my jacket.



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Eventually we got back on the interstate highway for a while and found our way to Fir Island. It was very rainy and windy by then. People had been seeing a Gyrfalcon at Fir Island and I wanted to look for it since I've never seen one, but the weather was utterly terrible by the time we got there and we didn't have much time because it was getting dark. We walked around in the cold, windy rain a little bit but I didn't take any photos. I did go back the next morning, which I'll get to in my next post.

Continuing west on towards White Pass....

The closer I got to the pass the greener and wetter things got. This is definitely a big change from where I was a few hours earlier. It wasn't raining yet, but it sure looked like it wanted to.




There was a tunnel, which led to forested hills.




Soon I came to Rimrock Lake where I could pull off the road to take photos in a few places.




( More photos of Rimrock Lake and the surrounding area. )

After passing the lake, the highway was surrounded by forest.




( More photos from along the highway )

Sunrise seen from my hotel in Spokane Valley




On November 11th I left Spokane to head west across Washington. In theory, the drive from Spokane to Lacey, where my relatives live, is 316 miles and should take about 5 hours. In practice, it took me two days and I don't know how many miles. I'm not very good at travelling in straight lines or on interstate highways. I went a short way on I-90 before getting off onto US-2. I had some ideas about where I might stop along the way, but no fixed plans. When I saw a sign pointing to Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area I decided to turn north and check it out.

( Some scenery photos )

The first significant stop I made was at Fort Spokane.



Visiting an old military installation seemed like an appropriate choice for Veterans Day. The fort was built in 1880 and used by the military until 1898. After that it was used as an Indian boarding school and a tuberculosis hospital. Like pretty much everywhere else I went on this trip, the visitor center/museum was closed for the winter. November is not the right time to do touristy things in parks in Washington.


This is the closed visitor center and museum, which was originally the guardhouse.




( More photos of historical stuff at Fort Spokane )


Besides the historical remains, I enjoyed seeing a few birds and photographing trees and scenery.



( More photos )