My Journey

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

Since the skies were ugly on Saturday and, of course, since we're in no hurry to go anywhere or somewhere, we just stayed in Aberdeen another night. In the afternoon I rented one of the worst movies ever from Red Box (I'm beginning to think that all of their movies suck), and we took some long walks along the river, and of course plenty of reading. I think I'm finally at the point where television no longer enters my mind. I rarely miss it anymore. In the evening a bunch of cops showed up and arrested a guy right outside my camper door. Poor guy.......who knows what was up with that. We took our last walk of the day just before nightfall and were treated to (3) otters feeding in the river. We (the dogs and I) were all mesmerized by their activities. I know we followed them for at least half an hour while they fed on fish (??). They totally captured the attention of both the dogs. And that was it for our Saturday. I guess you'd call it a rest day.

Poor Guy..............



Highest Diesel Price Yet...I Filled Up a Few Blocks Down the Road for $3.95 at Arco......Go Figure

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

So the weather was looking awesome for Sunday so we dropped by the wonderful Abeerden YMCA and to take one last hot shower. As I undressed I could hear (not see) some guy in the showers grunting and groaning. Yes I was apprehensive to go in alone, but I went in anyhow naked as a jay bird. As I walked in, there was this guy that must have weighed 400 pounds. Yikes. He was struggling to shower himself. Ugh........not a beautiful sight and enough said about that. We left town feeling good and drove west to our planned destination, Olympia. What a beautiful city Olympia is ! I loved walking through the city, strolling along the walkways along the water, checking out the boats, and visiting many of the shops in the old district. Lots of the people here were like the people I saw in Portland, but in my opinion, a little more laid back. I don't know, I just liked Olympia.

Last night we drove south on Interstate 5 and camped at the Chelialis Wal Mart. I was awakened at 2:00 a.m. by loud music right outside my window. I looked outside and it was Marilyn Manson in his 1995 Pontiac. After about half an hour I couldn't take it anymore and I went outside to tell Marilyn to hit the road. Well, it turned out not to be Marilyn Manson but some want a be crazy kid with nothing to do but hang out at Wal Mart. I scared him to death (seriously) and he left shortly thereafter. Thirty minutes later, just as I was dosing off, three car loads of teenagers pulled up and were acting like three car loads of teenagers. Ugh.........that lasted for another (30) minutes or so. I finally got back to sleep and then at 5:37 a.m. (PST) my most wonderful most beautiful most awesome niece texted me from Boston (3) times. Ugh......not a good night's sleep. And that's it for now. We plan to leave today and head west into the Cascades, and more specifically Goat Rocks area to do some hiking. Take care.............

Olympia



One More Olympia



Dog Water Fountain in Olympia......How Cool is That ?

 

[memetotes]

Haha, whoops! You'd think after living in the MST time zone for the past year, I'd remember the time change and wait to send a text or call until later. My bad! Apologies to Montana and Yukon as well. Continuing to love reading up on your adventures and checking out all of these amazing pictures! Safe travels (Lauren via Mom's account

 

[Mudder11]

.......and then texted you around 8am and woke you up!....wow, such punks those teenagers were! those pictures are amaaazing! oh look, there's Tanner! I like the pictures of the big tires on the beach, and that open/closed sign! HA! dogs are cute as always! enjoy and stay safe!

 

[memetotes]

Hey there little bro....I'm just checking back in again and catching up on your adventures. Amazing, amazing photos....though you do need to ask someone to take a shot of you from time to time Must admit I envy your travels...reminds me of my days traveling with the Fritz family all across the beautiful USA. Glad you seem so relaxed and enjoying this trip so much. I'm going to look for that book "Fatal North". Safe travels and a pat to the pups! Love ya, Glo

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

Quick update.....met some good folks at the Walmart.....they invited me to their cabin in unalaska.....spent (2) days with them. Now I'm in the cascade mountains south of mount Rainier.....will be hiking / climbing in the goat rocks area.

 

[Don the donut guy]

Jerry,
You must have forgotten to post about our amazing hike today (er, Friday 8/24). Well maybe you are busy. I will fill in your fans, and tell it from my perspective.

My name is Don, and my son (Preston) invited me to go hiking with him in the Goat Rocks area of the Cascade Mountains. He also invited four of his friends. Three of his friends cancelled. So Preston, Andrew, and I left our place to hike in the Goat Rocks area (about an hour's drive).
Preston has been in the area before, so he is driving. He turns left at this unmarked "Y" in the road, and right at that one. (Does he see a mark on a tree? Are we on the right road?) Eventually we are on this crude, one-lane logging road. We are still climbing, but a pickup with camper is on the road, but stopped. As we slowly try to drive around him, he flags us to stop. Preston talks to this camper dude and discovers that we all want to go to the same trailhead, but camper dude couldn't find it. Ahh, that's because he took the wrong turn at the next unmarked "Y" that we have yet to see. So Preston leads in our front-wheel drive minivan and camper dude follows. I am watching the gas guage. Yes, we did leave town with a "half-tank" but the gas guage was in a real hurry to hit the "quarter-tank" mark. When we find a wide spot in the road, I ask Preston to pull off. We should be about a mile from the trailhead, but we could walk it.
Camper dude stops and parks at the same wide spot. He's been watching his fuel guage, too!! Camper dude introduces himself (Jerry) and his passengers, Yukon, Montana, Louise and Mathias. Then Jerry says these two (Louise and Mathias) are hitchhikers that he picked up. And Camper dude holds up the sign that they were holding beside the road: FRENCH STUDENTS. They are slowly making their way from Los Angeles to Vancouver BC, where they will be students (University of British Columbia) for the coming school year. The best part: They speak much better English than I speak French!
We had a GREAT day for hiking! Blue sky, great company, nice trail, and a good mountain. We hiked to the top, relaxed, ate lunch, took pictures and came down. Preston enjoyed sliding down a snow field in his sport shoes (skiing, sort of). Yukon and Montana enjoyed the hike, too. On the way back to the vehicles, the canines took a diversion (through the woods) to chase some deer. I never saw the deer, but we heard running that sounded more like deer than dogs, and the dogs were very reluctant to respond to Jerry's beckoning whistle. I honestly expected to wait 30-40 minutes for Jerry to reclaim the dogs, but it only took about half that long.

Oh, and donuts. I brought a box of donuts because I expected that Preston's friends would like them. Since there were only three of us in our van, I offered donuts to Jerry, Louise & Mathias. They were delighted.

We had a great day. And Jerry, I expect to see you where I work someday. Maybe this year or maybe next year...
Enjoy your adventures!

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

Hello Don.........yep, have still been busy with the French students but I dropped them off on Route 12 this morning and they are were off for Aberdeen and then north. They texted me within (15) minutes of dropping them off and already had a lift at least to Aberdeen.

So, I guess it's time to catch up on my travels. I don't recall the exact days but here's what I've been up to. When I awoke at the Wal Mart I noticed a guy having problems getting his old Volvo started. I decided to offer a hand and we messed around with it and I decided it was his battery. A couple pulled up in their Jeep and offered a jump start. Perfect, it started and the Volvo went down the road. The couple stayed to talk with me about my trip, one topic led to another, and once the guy and I figured out that we both enjoyed antler hunting, he invited me to stay at their cabin near Unalaska (this town was on the way to Goat Rocks...more perfect). Once I got my rig set up in his front yard, he and I were off to do some elk antler hunting. After (3) hours and (6) miles of hiking through creeks, forests, and logging operations, we came up empty handed. But my new friend didn't leave me disappointed as he gave me a nice set of moose antlers that he had found in eastern Washington. They are piled up in the camper with (3) sets of Mule deer antlers and (1) Elk antler. So, that evening I treated them to dinner at a Chinese restaurant which was tons of fun. We finished the evening watching a movie and it was so nice to kick back on a couch.........yep, sort of miss those days (only occasionally).

My New Moose Antlers



Nice Lake Along Route 12

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

The next day we hung out around the cabin and didn't do much of anything. I should mention that I snagged several great hot showers while I lounged at their place. Love my showers ! Since he had to work the following day I decided that I should move on and late that afternoon I packed up and hit the road for Goat Rocks. I found a nice clean rest area along Route 12 and we pulled in and decided to stay there for the night.

The next day I drove to White's Pass where I planned to hike into Hogback Mountain (6,789') to summit another peak. It was a (7.5) mile hike one way so we had a long day planned. The trail to Hogback Mountain is also the Pacific Crest Trail. It was a beautiful hike and once we reached the summit we had some fantastic views of Mount Rainier to the northwest and some nice views of the Shoe Lake valley to the southeast. Shoe Lake was about (2) miles further and since we were all (me and the dogs) hot and tired, we hiked down to the lake where I further enjoyed my day skinny dipping in the beautiful lake (nobody was around I assure you!....totally remote). Anyhow, we made it back to the camper that evening after a (23.5) mile day of hiking. What a fantastic day for sure !!

Ginnette Lake (along the Pacific Coast Trail)



Views from Hogback Mountain



(8) Mountain Goats Along the Trail

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

Well, the next morning when we got up we could barely move. And I mean WE. The dogs and I were hobbling around and it was definitely going to be a rest day. So after one of our typical slow starts, we drove to Mount Rainier National Park. Just as I tuned off of Route 12 onto Route 410 (which leads into the park), I spotted (2) young hitch hikers with backpacks and a cardboard sign which simply said "French Students". Poor guys.........I pulled over and snatched them right up. Little did they know that I don't get many opportunities to have a conversation anymore, and I didn't even care if they spoke English as they could just sit there and nod their heads. Turns out they spoke perfect English and so a friendship was in the works. And we really were a perfect match. My plan for the day was to ride around the park and really to just hang out....no walking. They wanted to hike in the park so I took them to a trail head near Paradise and off they went as I stayed at the camper with all of their gear locked in my camper. They were so happy to have a safe place for their heavy packs while they hiked. They decided that they wanted to stay the night with me so we returned to my campsite at Whites Pass. We made big bowls of soup and they made us salads and then we watched "Into The Wild". That's a great movie to inspire the traveler. And our first day together came to an end.

I'll continue to update as time permits.............

Louise and Mathias



And One More

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

The next morning we awoke to beautiful blue skies, so after our morning coffee and Pop Tarts, we headed into Goat Rocks with the summit of Bear Creek Mountain (7,337') as our goal. Initially we did well with the directions but as usual I got us lost. We took one wrong turn and the road ended after a few miles at a fairly massive cliff. We messed around looking for a trail head but to no avail. We did find a pretty cool cave but I felt it unwise to explore it without ropes.....it went nearly straight down. So, we turned around and as we were leaving we ran into Don, his son, and his son's friend. You can read Don's detailed report (above) on our day as we all hiked together and had a great day together. These guys were awesome and absolutely made the day for us. Without them we would not have found the trail nor would we have eaten the best doughnuts around. For those who follow this blog, you know that I like doughnuts. Anyhow, I hope top see Don again when I travel through Yakima, his home town.

After the good byes, we returned to Whites Pass where we had left the Jeep, got it hooked up, and we headed back to the Chehalis Wal Mart where I had planned to stay for the night. Louisa and Mathias had hoped to hitch hike north that evening but we were so late that they accepted my invitation to stay another night. I treated them to dinner at Wendy's and we spent the remainder of the night sitting in the camper talking.

That's Me (For My Sister)



Views From Bear Creek Mountain



The French Connection on the Summit



They Were Visiting From Oregon

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

And finally the last day to finish my catching up.........today Louisa and Mathis were up early and they were excited to continue their trip north. I had agreed to drive them up Interstate 5 to Route 12 (Centralia) so they could resume their trip north without having to hitch hike on the Interstate. I was really, really sad to see them go. They were two extremely nice kids and I can honestly say that they inspired me in many different ways. It's such a neat thing to see young people with the adventure bug and these two definitely have it. They are two very special kids. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to meet them in Vancouver or maybe even France..........who knows. Anyhow, I dropped them off on the side of the road and headed back to the camper. They sent me a text message maybe (15) minutes later saying that they had a ride. So nice of them to let me know. I wish them the best.............

So the remainder of this day has been spent at the dreaded laundromat (you know it's time when you buy new underwear rather than go there), taking the truck to Jiffy Lube, then taking the Jeep to Jiffy Lube, cleaning the camper, and of course, updating my blog (this is really time consuming but enjoyable as well).

Tomorrow I plan to return to Goat Rocks...........a most awesome place to hang out. Take care all...........

Posing for the Camera



And Still Posing for the Camera

 

[Don the donut guy]

Jerry, you post some amazing photos! Do you use Photo Shop to make them so great??!!

I am still recalling the delightful day that we had together. My wife, Julie, will get to hear snatches of our encounter now and then for a week, I am sure.

Today Preston is bicycling with a co-worker from the ShopKo pharmacy. He never stops moving!
Don

 

[Mudder11]

AMAAZING MOOSE antlers, id steal those in a heart beat!

 

[memetotes]

Thanks for the photo

That's so cool that you met those young French students....they are adorable and inspiring! I sure hope we (the good 'ole USA) extends them great hospitality on their travels...it sure sounds like you did....Mom would have been so proud! (For those reading Jerry's posts who don't know, our mother was born and raised in LeHarve, France coming to the US after WWII.)

Fun to read the posts from Don, the donut guy! You certainly have run into some very nice people and that makes me happy....

Love, Glo

PS Where are you going to put all those antlers?!!!