Started the day with some breakfast in the casino and sat for a while writing up yesterdays travel. After breakfast I filled up the car to prepare for my journey eastwards over the Cascade Mountains.
I had planned to drive back to Burlington to drive across on Highway 20 but noticed that I could turn at Bellingham and do the first part of the drive through the town of Acme.
Who would not want to travel through the town where the Coyote got all his packages from while he was chasing the Roadrunner. I even stopped at the Acme Diner but they did not have any Roadrunner steaks on the menu.
From there I travelled down to and turned left at Highway 20 and started the drive up into the mountains. I drove through the town of Concrete and started the journey upwards.
The drive was not to hard with the road following the river up the valley. There was a lot of traffic coming down off the mountain but not much traveling my way. There were plenty of places to pull over for a break and to view the scenery. There was also a lot of campgrounds to stop at if you wanted and a lot of trails to explore. Along the side of the road were a lot of places to stop and take a dip in the river and a lot of people were taking advantage of that.
There are a series of dams along the roadway as well where the electricity company has built hydro electrical plants to provide electricity to Washington State. The first one I can to is Gorge High Dam which was built in 1961. You can view the dam from a scenic walkway that is an easy walk through some forest area.
The next dam is Diablo Dam. It was completed in 1930 by the Seattle City Light company and has a small town of workers who run the Hydro plant. There is a small campground there where I had planned to spend the night but it was full of campers already by the time I arrived early afternoon. As it is a first come first served campground I had to move on.
You can drive over the dam and there is some trails from there that you can walk out on to get scenic views. The views are amazing as well. The waterways is huge above the dam wall.
There is another dam, Ross Dam also higher up the mountain where you can stop above and again the view is spectacular. The sun was behind the photos I took which effected the photography a bit.
Not long after that you reach the highest point of the drive before heading down the eastern side of the range. The drive down the mountain range is steeper than the western side but again the views were amazing.
Once you reach the flat grounds again you start driving through ranch land and through the town of Winthrop, which the main business area of the town was rebuilt using a western theme in 1972 when the new Highway 20 was nearing completion. The rebuild has enabled the town to become a great tourist attraction. The buildings all look as though you were driving through a 1800’s western town.
I visited the Old Schoolhouse Brewery and spoke with the staff about the beers. It is a great setting for the brewery and they seem to be doing great business. I bought a cap and picked up some bottle labels while I was there.
Looking at my maps I realised I should drive onto the Lake Chelan area which was south east of Winthrop and along the way passed through a area of apple orchards. The road follows a river and the orchards are water fed from the river. Further down are some more lakes and dams.
Lake Chelan is a large tourist resort area with a plenty of accommodation and a large holiday home region. The lake area is large and the area has a lot of varying activities for all holiday makers including a lot of wineries. Just along the lake is the town of Manson where I visited the Mill Bay casino and had dinner and did some gambling before parking the van in the RV parking area for the night.
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