view from langley

Day 263 – North Cascades Loop (Part 2)

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Day 263 of a Year Long Road Trip Along America’s Scenic Byways

Well, I felt like I had an extremely busy day to write about, but now that I have skimmed through the pictures I didn’t go many places.  It must have been the holiday traffic and the wait for the ferry that took up a few hours of my afternoon.

Wallace Falls State Park

This morning I took about a 4.5 mile hike in Wallace Falls State Park.  It was cool out and VANilla had a shady parking spot, so Petey got to wait for me.  I normally take him on dog friendly trails, but I’ve been subject to dragging him midway through the second mile.  Thank goodness I left him to rest, the trail had quite a bit of elevation change. 

It wound through moss covered trees and nearby a creek before reaching a multi-tiered waterfall.  The 265 foot falls included a lower, middle, and upper section. I enjoyed the views at the lower and middle falls where the upper falls was still in view.  I could have hiked just over another mile to the top of the upper falls, but I tend to like the view of the falls from below, so I turned around at the middle falls to save Petey from his alone time in VANilla.

Whidbey Island

Upon leaving the park, I noticed the highway was busy with traffic headed west to Seattle, so I tried killing some time while eating lunch at Zeke’s again.  This was probably a poor choice as in addition to the traffic there was a motorcycle accident.  The motorcycle was upright and the riders seemed fine sitting curbside, but a team of medics were on the scene, so I don’t know the final outcome.  Hopefully all are well. 

We finally made it to the Mukilteo-Clinton 3:30 ferry which transported us across Puget Sound to Whidbey Island.  After a driving tour through the quaint, bayside town of Langley, we found a campsite at Fort Ebey State Park and promptly took advantage of the showers.

Coupeville

Clean and fresh, I took a drive to Coupeville where I found Toby’s Tavern, located is a 100 year old building which used to be a mercantile. Mussels, beer, and CNN!  Ok, so I was hoping it would be ESPN for a little football, but I did hear about the terrible, uncontained fire near Austin.  Wow, sounds like they are raging everywhere in the state.  A fellow mate at the bar finally requested ESPN, so I caught a few minutes of college ball before I steered VANilla back to Fort Ebey State Park just in time for the sunset.  ETB

Map of My Road Trip Across the USA

For a summary about my road trip across the USA, click HERE. For the interactive map, see the below link.

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Check out the photographic note cards and key chains at my shop.  Each card has a travel story associated with it.  20% of proceeds are donated to charity.

photographic note card, waterfall in Olympic National Park

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Beth Bankhead

Former public finance professional turned award winning travel blogger and photographer sharing the earth's beauty one word and image at a time.

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