Pacific Northwest Backroad Adventures

Who would have thought that a Friday trip to the Whiskey Dick Road Management Area near Ellensburg, Washington would bring out more participants than most weekend trips.

Well Jerry (aka SoggyMountain) picked a wonderful day for a Backroad Drivers Northwest tour of the Whiskey Dick. Hands down, this was the warmest day of 2008 to date.

The meeting place that morning was the Bar 14 restaurant in Ellensburg. In attendance for the days trip was of course Jerry from Yakima driving his full size Jeep SJ Wagoneer; (and if I get the names wrong, please forgive and let me know to correct them) Phil and his son Travis from Newcastle, driving the white Ford Explorer; Paul from Tacoma driving the other Ford Explorer; Jim (stucky) driving the white Chevy Pickup (I forgot to ask where Jim was from); Trish and Tammy from Bothel driving a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon; John and Cindy from Monroe driving a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon; Sid from Renton driving his Jeep Wrangler, Peter and Don (I forgot to ask where they were from or if I did, I didn’t write it down) driving the Sportsmobile van; myself in my 80-series Toyota Land Cruiser; and Bill from Ellensburg who joined us for breakfast but had to supervise a fencing property today so he couldn’t join us.

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After a nice peaceful night in a hotel in Ellensburg, Washington, we loaded up the Land Cruiser and headed out for a day trip to the Quilomene Wildlife Area. After topping off the fuel tank, we met up with the Northwest Backroads Drivers group for breakfast. Today, in addition to the participants from the previous days trip to the Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area (see Whiskey Dick Overland Tour), we were joined for breakfast by Bill and Ed, both of Ellensburg.

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This is a collection of outdoor photographs taken during the month of March 2007. Locations include the Puget Sound lowland forests, the upper White River, Crystal Mountain, Cle Elum Lake, Colockum, and the Columbia River near Vantage, Washington.

You can view them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/locked4low/

This past Saturday was a typical spring day in Western Washington - “Rain Turning to Showers”. Of course, if you never lived in Washington, you may be puzzled by such a forecast. I wanted to get out of the house and do something outside so I checked the statewide forecast for Washington. The coast was supposed to clear up that afternoon and Eastern Washington was going to mostly cloudy but only a 20 percent chance of rain. Sweet, over the Cascades we go.

With no real destination in mind, my son Steven and I loaded up the dog, camera gear and some basic emergency supplies (sleeping bag, tools, water, food, etc. in case the unexpected happens) in the Land Cruiser and left our home in Edgewood, Washington and headed east on I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass.

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