A Nice Day for a White River

After a short visit with half of our spawn, we knew we’d have to go into a 2-week long quarantine before trying to visit a more elderly member of our family. So we searched our maps, discussed a couple of places we’d like to see, places we had already seen, and we found out that it was a nice day (2 weeks) for a White River trip. 

A dispersed camping area in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, right alongside the White River would suit our purposes nicely. We had food, water, a beautiful view, and a way to walk our canine writing assistants off leash and without other humans. 

What did we learn about the White River area? Not much ‒ come on we were quarantined, not partying with the locals. We did discover that our little section was right next to a popular dirt bike riding trail. And cars just kept coming and coming and coming into our little dead end spot. 

Our annoyance turned into a bit of embarrassment when we discovered (thanks dude who knew how to have a conversation at medically prescribed social distance) that Google maps says that there is a road there. Apparently a storm years before had washed out the road. No one bothered to repair it; they just restrung a power line, added a jersey barrier, and let Google keep thinking the whole road was there. 

The traffic was the only negative thing for the whole two weeks, and once we realized that we were parked in the middle of the “road” it didn’t really bother us much.

We visited Mt. Rainier and marveled at its beauty from the pandemic-safe enclosure of our car. We even found ourselves an empty picnic spot, but we did have to share with a rather large crow who had absolutely no shits to give. 

The rest of this two weeks was spent with him carving, sanding, staining, and wrapping a walking stick, that he would later break, while she re-potted her succulents and watched Umbrella Academy season 2. A 2-week long scrabble championship event was hosted by the dogs, and he lost. Then with a day left to go, she points out what a lack of wildlife we had seen in the area – except for the mosquitoes and endless hordes or raiding field mice. 

So what is the point of this blog? Is it just a rundown of two relatively uneventful weeks in the middle of nowhere, Washington? Nope. You read this entire thing just so you could see this beautiful creature, and her spawn, who spent half of our last day hanging out with us.