Cascade Peaks 2018

July 21, 2018
     We left the house this morning for Cascade Peaks near Packwood. We met Hart and Amy Hughes and their two kids at Krain Corner Restaurant for breakfast. What a great way to start a vacation. After eating headed over Hwy 410m and Hwy 123 to the RV park. We arrived after noon and began setting up our site and the Hughes' theirs. Shortly afterward Tracy, Erik and Emerson joined us and began their setup with the Hughes'. The weather for our 8 day stay is supposed to be quite warm in the 80's and 90's

 It is our tradition to go to the Blue Spruce for dinner so off we went. The kids, three of them, are able to come to Spruce but can't sit in the bar area. We had a fun dinner with much laughter.

After dinner we went back to the park for the evening. The kids wanted to swim but the pool was extremely crowded and needed maintenance so they decided to wait until tomorrow. We stayed at the kids' site and enjoyed their campfire.
     Today the young ones went for a swim in the pool after a lot of the campers had left the park. We all took a hike to the Cowlitz River which flows adjacent to the park. It appears there wasn't much flooding this year so there are nice places for us to enjoy the river.
    After breakfast on Monday Gail and I went for a walk all around the park. It is about a 2 mile walk. Yesterday when we arrived the place was very busy but today probably two thirds of the campers have left. After lunch most of us went to the river and soaked and floated for a few hours. Later in the evening we joined the kids at their site and sat by the fire and played games.
     Tuesday was fishing day. Most of us left the park at 8AM heading for Dog Lake just east of the White Pass summit. It is a nice little lake with lots of things to do.

We only caught one trout in several hours so we headed back to the park for lunch. Our intention was to have a trout feed for dinner and fortunately I had frozen some I caught at Lake Pearrygin so there will be plenty for all. Late in the afternoon we went to the kids' site to prep for dinner,. Emerson, 13 years old, asked if she could help clean and cook the fish. I showed her how to clean the fresh trout and she proceeded to clean it. She did a great job aside from a minor gag reflex incident.

She was a real trooper helping cook and serve the fish. She likes crispy fried skin. Gail made a pot of Chili-Ghetti and garlic bread for dinner, too. After dinner we went to our site and sat out in the nice warm evening.
     Wednesday was another beautiful day. After breakfast Gail and I went into town to do some shopping. After lunch I joined the other campers down at the river to sit in a lawn chair in the river to keep cool. It was a fun way to wile away the afternoon. After a couple hours of that I went back to our site. We sat reading in the shade. At about dinner time we went to the other site and joined in on some rousing games of Corn Hole. A bit later we had dinner with the kids.
     Thursday some of us went fishing again. We didn't catch anything so at about noon we all got together for lunch at the Spruce. After lunch we all walked around Packwood checking out a couple of new businesses. Then it was back to the park for the rest of the day. The others came over to our site later in the afternoon for happy hour and appetizers. Thee they left for dinner and we joined them later to sit by the fire and have S'mores.
     Friday we had a nice breakfast and went outside to enjoy the morning. The Packwood Rod Run is this weekend and there are a few custom cars in the park. Here is a very nice '29 Model A roadster pick up that was parked across from us. The owners are from Shelton.

Our plans were to stay until Sunday and then drive over 400 miles to Caldwell, ID. We talked about leaving Saturday instead driving to Pendleton, OR to cut driving time in half for Saturday and Sunday. The next time we saw the kids we told them of our plans. They understood completely. We plan on leaving Saturday by 9:30.