Day 7 - Brooks Memorial State Park to Packwood, Washington -- 140 Miles

Today we traded the warm, sunny environment of this morning at Brooks Memorial State Park south of Yakima, Washington, for the dark, cloudy, rainy afternoon of the Washington Cascades on Route 12 south of Mount Rainier State Park. We had intended to grab Route 410 off of Route 12 that promised to run right into the Park. Indeed, we cruised by a sign that said "road closed" on our way up the mountain. Unfortunately, we failed to see it. But a mile later, we cruised by another sign that we DID see. It announced that "PASS IS CLOSED." At that point I found the nearest wide spot in the road and pulled over.

"That doesn't sound good," I said to Concetta. I guess we better pay attention and go back."

She agreed, and with that I edged the RV around on the narrow patch of dirt, and headed back the other way. It was at that point that we passed the sign that had futilely tried to inform us the road was closed ahead. Not sure how neither I nor my navigator had seen it the first time, but thankfully we had only wasted a couple of miles in the aborted attempt.

Back on Route 12, we resumed our westward progress even as the skies grew darker and the rain began to fall with more enthusiasm. Pretty soon we were climbing towards White Pass at an altitude of 4,469 feet. Thankfully, our newer RV has a V-10 motor and basically scoffs at mountain grades. The older coach would get down to 40 MPH on such climbs, but the present rig can pretty much keep up with the truck traffic at least.

The advent of rain meant that we weren't much in the mood for climbing out of the rig to take photos, but at the upper left is a shot of Concetta at the summit. Though we didn't get photos of our route, I can tell you that the rivers we passed all afternoon were rampaging and running full clear to the overflow mark. The forests were so lush and healthy looking that it was purely a joy to see them. And there were lots of recreation rigs of all sorts out enjoying the magnificence of the Washington Cascades.

Later, As we descended from White Pass summit, we came upon the turnoff for Route 123 that bisects Mount Rainer State Park from the south. I pulled over at that point, and Concetta and I spent a moment trying to decide if it was safe to assume that the pass would be open when it was closed for Route 410, which basically ends up at the same junction in the park. In the end we decided to maintain our course on Route 12, even though the camp that we had decided upon for the evening was located up Route 123. At past three in the afternoon, we just didn't want to have to backtrack again.

Still later, as we rolled into the town of Packwood south of Rainier, and I was paying for a spot in the town's Good Sam recommended camp, I asked the attendant if we would have been successful tackling Route 123 into the park. She told me absolutely not, that workers were up clearing snow even as we spoke, and were actually being housed in Packwood after their shift.

So, the upshot was we didn't get to cruise through Rainier, but we did get into camp early enough to have a nice walk around town, get in some steps, and rack up a handful of digital shots on the subject of weird and wonderful sights you see in one-horse towns. Perhaps the weirdest sight was the above where we came upon a heard of Elk just "hanging out" in a nearby neighborhood like they were waiting for the afternoon tour bus to come and pick them up. How would you like to encounter these brutes in your flower garden some afternoon?

Tomorrow I'm not sure where we'll be headed, probably further west. But wherever we end up tomorrow, we wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.