Day 263 - North Cascades Loop (Part 2)

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 in 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