Grounded

Aug 19, 2009 by Naomi.

Should it be so difficult to get into a routine? Camping out has its appeal. I drove about five hours to the Money Creek campground on Thursday, spent three nights in my lightweight sleeping bag in Tim’s tent, and drove the five hours back on Monday. I happen to enjoy driving, any time, any distance.

Did I have a minute after getting home to relax? Maybe a minute. I went to work on the photos I took to reduce the images to sizes for the web. I had 84 photos and combined some in panoramas and selected general ones for my camping article.

At camp,Tim heated water for coffee and oatmeal on his propane stove first thing when he got up. Then for more substantial meals he cooked pork chops, sauer kraut, and hamburger helper. We snacked on chips, carrots and nuts along with beer in the late afternoon while enjoying the fresh mountain air.

Two attractions of note along US-2 were Deception Falls and The Iron Goat Trail. The falls were close by the highway so we looked at that on Saturday. The forest floor is covered with fallen trees some with enormous diameters. They were sawn off in lengths and had lain since the first logging crews came through in the 1888s, well rotted and moss covered. We hiked there on wooden walkways with overlooks where we could view the Tye river. Up and down and back and forth in switchbacks, we watched the gurgling waters.

The Iron Goat Trail was something else. Where trains once thundered, volunteers have constructed an historic recreational trail through lovely forests of ferns, alders and evergreens. The trail measured 2.8 miles on the lower part and 3.2 miles on the upper part. The lower trail, besides the fact that it was shorter, was an easy walk on paved or wooden paths most of which were passable by wheelchair. The upper part was more challenging — over rocky areas. Side attractions brought us to the old Cascade tunnel and roadbeds in the state of collapse. Snowsheds prevent disasters from avalanches and some of that can be seen. After a disaster at Wellington in 1910 where nearly 100 lives were lost improvements were made and finally the new Cascade tunnel was completed in 1929. This eight mile tunnel is still in use today by the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railroad and Amtrak. That made the old grade obsolete and it was abandoned. The abandoned stretch comprises the Iron Goat Trail.

You can look up the history on google search and look at my camping documentary on sherer.org website.

Campfires are a must when I go camping. However the wood we bought from the camp host was not flame friendly. It made dandy smoke and finally on Sunday night we did get a real honest to goodness fire. Tim talked about his new home and suggested I look at my hot water heater as well as other things electrical. Too bad I looked at my kitchen.

My stove needed to be moved to meet city code so that is what I did today. No small undertaking. Now it is at the opposite end of the kitchen. Not all that impressive when stated in a short sentence but it took a bit of doing and tired me all over again. And it did succeed in getting me properly grounded.

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