September, 2022
What a great week this was. The hop museum, driving around the town of Toppenish, the fruit orchards, the railroad museum, driving up into the canyon. And there were other interesting things I didn’t show you. I enjoy talking with local people and I learn a lot from them. I have a good time doing that. But I don’t take video of that.
Anyway, it was a great week with beautiful autumn weather. This morning it was time to hitch up Towhee the Trailer to the big white truck and head home.
But first I took one last walk around the campground and took this photo (below) of my truck and camper while I was walking through another area in the campground. There’s lots of greenery here. Some campsites are close together but others have plenty of room and trees and shrubs around them for privacy and quiet.
Here’s one last photo (below) of the truck and trailer before I pulled the truck forward, then backed it up directly in front of the trailer and hitched them together. This is always a time of mixed feelings. I almost never want to leave! But I also do want to get home and get the mail and see my friends and play in my garden. And, while I’m hitching up, I’m very focused on each mechanical/physical chore in order to do them correctly, in the proper order, to make sure my rig and I are safe on the road. I double and triple check everything.
And then all things were taken care of and it was time to leave. I pulled out of the campsite and headed north out of Yakima, then turned left (west) onto the I-90 freeway that would take me over Snoqualmie Pass and eventually back to home.
I took the video below while driving west towards Snoqualmie Pass from eastern Washington. I usually head home from a camping trip on Friday morning or early afternoon when there’s a minimal amount of traffic. On Friday afternoon, traffic will be heavy heading east, outbound from Seattle as everyone heads out of town for the weekend. But I head towards Seattle then, so I don’t get snarled up in traffic. Just before I reach Seattle, I turn south on another freeway and head to my home in south Puget Sound. It pays to be retired! Let the weekenders have the weekend … I spend my weekends at home. 🙂
Snoqualmie Pass handles about 28,000 vehicles including about 6,500 semi trucks on an average weekday. That’s an average. Keep in mind that the vehicle traffic in winter is a fraction of the vehicle traffic in summer (or during good weather in autumn and spring). It’s one of the busiest mountain pass highways in the USA. It closes, on average, 5-6 separate days/year due to excessive snow on the road.
Notice the mountains in the video below. In the winter, they are completely covered with snow and ice, as are the trees … and sometimes the road is covered too. Average snowfall on the highway here is 233 inches/year. This mountain pass does close at times in the winter due to heavy snow, ice, avalanches, etc. There are a number of ski areas (downhill and cross-country and snow-boarding) and a number of snowshoe trails up at the top of the Pass. But on a day like today, it was just an easy peasy drive.
I apologize that the video below is often not in focus. I suspect that’s because of the poor road surface and the fact that the camera is continually being bounced around! But you get the idea. 🙂
After my short walk-about break up at the top of Snoqualmie Pass, I got back on the road and headed downhill, down the west side of these mountains. I was headed for home! I want to spend time with friends, do my laundry, and plan my next trip. 🙂
Thank you, all of you, for your comments, for your steady support and viewing of this blog. I sure like having every one of you along on this journey. Thank you from me, from the big white truck, and from Towhee the Trailer (and from Little Towhee, too). We are all in this together, and that includes you! 🙂