Late, Late, and Late to Washington

Pacific Northwest August Travelog #1
Chehalis, WA - Fri, 5 Aug 2022, 1:30am

Late, late, and late. That's the story of our trip to Washington this evening. Except it's not even evening anymore. It was already 1am Friday when we checked in to our hotel in Chehalis.

Getting to SJC airport this evening was late. It took almost 20 minutes for a car to arrive. And wouldn't you know it... right as the driver pulled away, the UPS truck turned onto our block with the computer I've been waiting for. "I can wait here while you go get it," the Uber driver offered, but I declined; I felt there wasn't time to fuss around with it.

Instead I called my neighbor, Mark. He was home! And he was happy to go outside and meet the driver! Two minutes later Mark had signed for the computer. I'll pick it up from him Monday morning after we get home. At least something went right!

Of course, not long after we got to SJC airport we saw familiar news....



Yup, our flight on Southwest Airlines was delayed. The incoming aircraft arrived 25 minutes late, we boarded 30 minutes late, then we took off 45 minutes late. The last bit of schedule slip was because we were waiting on fuel. ...Though "only" 45 minutes late was better than a lot of Southwest flights fared on Thursday. A thunderstorm in Las Vegas plus a blackout to their computer systems in the morning caused an operational meltdown still spreading across their flight network 10 hours later.

At PDX airport I headed to the car rental depot to pick a car while Hawk waiting for our checked bag. I picked what I thought was a good car; it had seat heaters! But Hawk when Hawk arrived she found the shape of the seat was no good. We hunted around for different cars for a while until a manager came out and told us to stop it. When I explained to her what we were trying to find— seat heaters; and I'd rented a luxury car, so that wasn't an unrealistic expectation— she actually helped us. She gave us a free upgrade to an even nicer car class.

By the time we hit the road to Chehalis, WA, 85 miles away, it was already 11pm. "Why fly to Portland, Oregon, when you're traveling to Washington?" you might ask. Flying to Seattle would've been the easier thing. Indeed, it's what I wanted to do. But when I was booking this last-minute trip two nights ago there were no rental cars available in Seattle. None. Flying to PDX and driving extra was a compromise that made this trip feasible.

The last bit of frustrating delay tonight happened when we decided to visit a grocery store before checking in. "They're open until 1am, we can just make it," we agreed. But at the store: 1) the sodas I wanted were ridiculously expensive. I really badly wanted not to buy them because the price was offensively high, but the alternative was to spend even more time going somewhere else tomorrow in hopes of saving a few dollars. And then 2) when we got in line to pay there was a woman in front of us buying, like, two weeks of groceries. And paying for them in multiple transactions. Apparently because she couldn't buy her booze with her welfare card.

Well, now I'm settled in at the hotel, absurdly expensive soda and all. Oh, and I just discovered this hotel is next to an active railroad track. A track that is active with trains after 1am. Two have gone past in 10 minutes. And their engineers blow the horns liberally. My plan was to get up by 7 in the morning. At this point, with it going on 2am already and me unlikely to sleep soundly because of wailing horns every 10 minutes, I doubt that's going to happen.

Update: Fortunately the trains did not run all night, and I slept well... considering I got to bed at 2am and had to be up early for a full day Friday. Speaking of Friday, we wedged in four hikes (keep reading in next blog!) in and around Mt. St. Helens.

From Chehalis to Puyallup with 4 Hikes in Between

Pacific Northwest August Travelog #2
Puyallup, WA - Fri, 5 Aug 2022, 11:30pm

Whew, it's been quite a day of hiking in Washington! I'd say we began by getting up bright and early but we didn't. After only getting to bed at 2am after a late night arrival last night we were in no mood to get up with our 6:30/6:45am alarms. I swatted the snooze on mine a few times then turned it off entirely. I got up at the crack of 9:00.

From there we ate breakfast in the room, showered, and packed our bags for the day. We checked out and headed out to Covel Creek Falls, about 90 minutes east and around the far side of Mount St. Helens. The trail at Covel Creek is a 4 mile semi loop trail. I believe the technical term is lollipop.

The Covel Creek Trail climbs about 1,000' and visits two waterfalls: the eponymous Covel Creek Falls and Angel Falls. Covel Creek Falls is awesome because it's about 80' tall and the trail goes behind it. Angel Falls is awesome because while it doesn't look like much from the main trail, a short spur trail leads back 100' in the canyon to a spot where you can appreciate that Angel Falls is a really a 100'+ tall wet wall; moss draped bare rock with many rivulets of water running down it.

Hiking Covel Creek took us a few hours and consumed a lot of our energy. With so many other worthy things to hike in the area we weren't ready to throw in the towel, though. As long as there's light, as long as there's energy, we hike.

Just around the corner from Covel Creek Trail was the trail for Camp Creek Falls. It was mercifully short, just 1/2 mile round trip, so we could manage hiking it on the heels of Covel Creek. Camp Creek was flowing strongly. It put on quite a display as it poured down a 60' cascade.

Our next stop was a fair drive away: Windy Ridge in Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. It was just after 5pm by the time we arrived at the Windy Ridge parking lot, at the end of the road that comes in from the northeast side. Mt. St. Helens itself was still a few miles beyond us, but we were close enough that we could see a wisp of smoke rising from its bore. Windy Ridge, tho... Windy Ridge is a hilltop reached by a staircase up from the parking lot. There are four hundred thirty-nine stairs to get to the top. Guess how I know. From the top I could see not only Mt. St. Helens a few miles to the south but also Mt. Adams to the east and Mt. Rainier to the northeast. Both are still capped with snow in August.

Our final stop, at least our final stop hiking-wise, was at Iron Creek Falls. We passed it on the way up to Windy Ridge and decided to hike it afterwards, time permitting. Well, I don't know if time really permitted, but we decided that since nobody was checking time permits we'd just do it. It was an easy 1/4 mile walk. The falls shoot out of a chute and drop about 25' into a nice bowl. And the water really does shoot. It projects almost 20' out from the rock lip.

On our drive from there to Puyallup, our stop for the night (and tomorrow night, too), we stopped in the small town of Morton for dinner. We ordered burgers and fries at an order-at-the-window type restaurant. We sat on the porch and ate our dinner until the sun was almost down.

Now we're in Puyallup. We reached the hotel around 10:40. I took a quick soak in the hot tub followed by a hot shower. Together those sluiced off the dirt and sweat I felt covered with and loosened my tight muscles. Now I'm unwinding before bed to get ready for another full day tomorrow.

Update: Saturday we do "Ring Around Rainier" with visits to several more waterfalls!

Update 2: I've written blogs about the four hikes we did on Friday:

• Covel Creek
• Camp Creek Falls
• Windy Ridge at Mount St. Helens
• Iron Creek Falls