Can I say that I have the BEST mother-in-law in the world? She told Tony she was planning on coming to Tacoma so he asked if she'd be willing to baby-sit while we went camping for his birthday and she did! As much as I adore my children, there is nothing like a 22 hour period alone with the love of your life knowing that your kids are in great hands! We left Friday after Tony got off of work and drove about 2 1/2 hours away. It was dark by the time we saw the sign that said that Staircase (our campground was closed). We were still half an hour away at this point but Tony kept going thinking that we would find somewhere nearby to camp (we were just going to sleep in the car anyways). Here is the amazing thing: the campground was closed but there was a glorified port-o-potty outside of the gate where the road was closed. There was even a spot we could pull off and park/camp. So we had our cook stove and lantern as our only heat sources but we had layered up so we were fine. The sky was beautiful, we were right on Lake Cushman, Tony is a great camper and I only thought of bears maybe 15 times (thank you NW trek).
Not the best nights sleep but definitely not the worst. We'd do it again!
Tony getting ready to cook breakfast (sausage and 1 egg instead of sausage and pancakes. Yep, Tony misheard me. The egg was to go in the pancake mix. We got a good laugh out of our 1/2 an egg each!)
I guess we'll save that firewood for next time.
Is that a raccoon with Tony? Yep, no bathrooms.
Our beautiful view
At the entrance to the closed off park.
Now we see why the road to it was closed. And this wasn't all.
A giant felled cedar
Only Tony would point out a gnarly growth on a beautiful tree...
The mountain was leaking everywhere. So many beautiful waterfalls.
On our drive away from Staircase, we stopped to see the Lake Monster that Tony had spotted. Don't listen to anything he tells you. I saw the river otter, really, there was no monster!
We went to follow the forestry roads to do some off roading and first came across this awesome (HIGH) steel bridge.
It was very high.
Ha Ha
Even better
Victor Falls
One of our views after much 4x4ing
You can't tell, but it was very muddy and Tony was very happy.
I can't tell what Tony is pointing at there.
ReplyDeleteWhat a cool bridge! (The graffiti is awesome.)