Trip to Washington, Aug 6- 13, 2008

In August, we had a wedding of one of Rasila's friends in Washington to attend. We decided to make it a road trip since we had the Interagency Pass.

We left at 6:15 AM, after a quick stop at Starbucks, and promptly remembered why we wanted to leave 45 minutes earlier. We encountered slow and go traffic at LAX when we arrived about 7 AM. Luckily, it cleared up in the Westwood area, and from there we cruised at 75 MPH all the way up I-5 to Red Bluff, CA, in a short 8 hours. From there, we took CA-36 to CA-89 into the south entrance of Lassen Volcanic National Park. Lassen Peak blew its top in 1915 and erupted for the next 3 years. It is the southern most volcano in the Cascade Range. We drove through the park and took pictures and arrived at our campground at Manzanita Lake at about 6:45 PM, 12.5 hours after we started. We had time to set up camp and cook and start a fire before it got dark, so it was good timing. We'd like to go back when can stay longer as there is a fairly short and steep trail to the top of Lassen Peak from the highway and some other volcanic related mudpots and such.

The next morning, we got up, made breakfast and headed up CA-89, known as the Volcanic Heritage Highway. You can see all the cones on both sides of the highway and it is a spectacular drive, albeit pretty trafficked in logging trucks. We tried to find a forest service road to cut off past Mt. Shasta, but ended up going all the way back to I-5 and up US 97 into Oregon. Once past Mt. Shasta, the evidence of all the wildfires was clear, giving a very smoky view. We stopped just south of Klamath Falls for lunch, where we got to watch the Oregon State Police completely dismantle some poor guy's car. From there we drove into the south entrance of Crater Lake. Since it was smoky, we didn't have as clear of view, but it was still spectacular to come upon the vistor's center and view the lake. We drove around the west rim and then out the north entrace and to our campground for the night at Diamond Lake. It was a lot more buggy than Lassen, but they were gnats, not mosquitos. We had plenty of time to read, set up camp, cook dinner, and go for short walks.

The next day, we drove up US-97 to Newberry Volcanic National Monument, where we had lunch at the lava tubes. We then drove into Bend, where Rodney had to stop at the Deschutes Brewery for a beer, from there, Rasila drove us US-97 to US-26, and up past Mt. Hood. Because of the smoke, we never had a view of Mt. Bachelor, or the Three Sisters. US-26 took us into Portland, where we joined I-84 in rush hour traffic to crawl to I-205 past the Portland Airport. From there it was smooth up to the merge with I-5 in Vancouver, Washington, and we cruised into Rasila's Mom's and sister Cyrena's place in Chehalis, WA at about 6:00 PM. Rasila's brother Belden had driven down from Seattle to spend the weekend. They had plans for us to to go the Centralia city park for an outdoor concert. Rodney wasn't too sure, but we went and had fun eating a picnic lunch and listening to a Blues Brothers tribute band.

The next morning, we had a leisurely breakfast and started driving to White Pass Ski Resort for the wedding. We were staying at a "rustic" place 8 miles east called the Silver Beach Resort, mainly because they were dog friendly. The wedding was her friend Kiki and her fiance, Matt (also known as Budros?). It was a very fun affair, but we bowed out early (10:30 PM) because we were exhausted.

The next morning, we had breakfast at White Pass with the wedding party, then drove back to Chehalis, where we spent another night with Rasila's Mom, sister, and brother. We took in the 3rd Mummy pic, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which was a fun, mindless movie, and had a wonderful curry dinner.

The next day, we got up early as we had a fairly ling drive ahead, and drove down I-5 to Grant's Pass, OR, where we then took US-199 to US-101, which is known as the Redwood Highway. It was 96 F/36 C in Grant's Pass and 56 F/13 C in Crescent City, CA, when we arrived at the 101. After a quick stop for blueberries, we took in Lady Bird Johnson's Grove and drove the 101 to CA-299 to our campground just west of Willow Creek, CA.

From there, we had ambitious plans to make it to central California. We drove back down CA-299 to US-101, stopped briefly in Eureka, then drove to the Avenue of the Giants. We took the auto tour and stopped at the vistor's center for Humboldt Redwoods State Park for lunch, then headed down US-101. There was construction that we didn't anticipate, and we ended up not making to to CA-20, just north of Ukiah, until almost 3 PM. By then, I knew it would be tight to make our campground by dark. Well, CA-20 is a beautiful drive, but there was at least 4 stretches of construction on that highway, and we rejoined the I-5 at about 5 PM. Rasila took over driving, and Rodney searched his Thomas Guide of California for campgrounds. We knew there were some outside Placerville, but were unsure if we could make it. At 6, we were in Sacramento, and Rodney identified a campground at Folsom Lake, in Folsom, famous for Johnny Cash's album at the state prison there. It was a nice campground, unused on Tuesday nights, and we kept off the skunks and slept with no rain cover on top of the sleeping bags because of the heat.

The next morning, we headed back south on I-5 and took the route to the camp spot we had originally planned. We took CA-152 to CA-156 to Hollister, CA, where we took CA-25 south. This was a spectacular drive down farm country in the valley covered by oak trees. Our campsite was at Pinnacles National Monument. It took us about 4 hours to get there from Folsom, so we had no chance of ever really making it that far. We had lunch there and then drove down CA-25 to CA-198 back to I-5 south, which took us back home.