Washington state is divided in half by the Cascade mountain range. We live on the west (wet) side and to get away from the "wet", it's nice to be able to pop over to the east (dry) side once in awhile. We've had a dry summer, so I wasn't craving the sun or the blue sky. We did a fall kayak and car camping trip to the east side of our state for a few days.
Our first night was spent at Pearrygin lake State park. We had stayed at this campground many years ago when our kids were tiny. On that trip we listened to the coyotes howl all night long. This time at night we watched the Northern lights and stared at the Milky way.
We then went to Alta lake State park. We had been here once before for a family reunion and I really enjoyed it then, but it was especially nice to be there this time at "off - season". Very nice and quiet.
Our kayaking part of the trip ended at Conconully State park. I had been to the Lake Conconully area as a child, but when we arrived there on this trip, I didn't recognize any of it. My childhood memories were that I spent alot of time swinging on the swings, it was very hot and someone had stolen my prize sunglasses from the restroom. I remember I ran back at the time to get them but they were already gone. It's funny how a place can jar old memories and make them fresh again. I could still feel my sadness and disappointment over the loss of those sunglasses. We walked through town after we found our campsite and saw more deer than people. We then walked the nature trail by the campground and saw fish spawning in the creek.
As we headed towards Sun lakes Dry falls State park, the weather started deteriorating and the wind really picked up. We drove parallel to a wild dark and stormy sky on our way to the campground. We were treated to a beautiful rainbow. The wind was really howling at the State park, so we parked our Van sideways at our campsite to try to block the wind. We drove the tourist roads around the campground and found Umatilla rock and Deep lake. I made a mental note to stop by here again, there are some nice trails and kayak areas to try out.
We spent our last night at Potholes State park. We were again treated to some "nice" fall camping weather. I took a video of our camp area during a nice gusty storm.
We took several walks while we were at the Potholes and saw some very large fish being cleaned at the fish cleanup station. I think I saw drool come out of the corner of my husbands mouth. Future fishing dreams were planted there I think.
We sure live in a beautiful state.
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