With a major family reunion planned for my mother-in-law’s 90th birthday, we decided to take two weeks and drive two and from Anacortes, Washington. Our route took us inland on the way north and closer to and along the coast on the way south. This post will mostly be a travelogue and, following my normal practice, I don’t include too many pictures of people. This is my third road trip post, the first being our trip to Anacortes in 2011, the second being an extended return trip from Anacortes in 2017.

We left on a Sunday morning, getting on the road around 8:30am. We went north through the San Fernando Valley, then merged on to the Antelope Valley Freeway, CA-14 in Sylmar. From there passed through Palmdale and Landcaster, stopping for gas in Mojave. This was a day for distance. After passing through the beautiful Red Rock Canyon State Park, we merged with US-395 where CA-14 ends just outside of Inyokern. Lunch was in Bishop, where my wife took over driving. When we passed through Independence, it was too early to have lunch at the Still Life Cafe, a remarkable French restaurant in this small town (population 660).

The terrain, which had started off with the coastal mountains, moved to the Mojave Desert and the arid and spectacular eastern Sierra Owens Valley, began to switch to pine and meadows. Mono Lake is beautiful I finally took a picture just outside of Bridgeport, California, 360 miles after departing Los Angeles.

You climb out of this valley, into a pine forest before turning northward towards Nevada. After you turn north, the highway follows the West Walker River. It flows down into another Antelope Valley, by the small town of Walker, feeding Topaz Lake and ultimately Walker Lake in Nevada. There was still plenty of water in the river from our generous snow-pack this year.

We stopped at the Shingle Mill Flat picnic area to stretch our legs and see the river.

It was then just a few more miles to Topaz Lake and the Best Western Topaz Lake Inn. With the conclusion of our first day, I will drop in the “continue reading” break and hope that you look at the pictures ahead from Crater Lake and Hood River. More to come next month in part 2.

Day two took us from Topaz Lake to Klamath Falls, Oregon. This was another primarily driving day, about 80 miles shorter than the prior day. The scenery was a mix of mountain forest and valley. We saw Mount Shasta in the distance as we got closer to Klamath Falls. For lunch, we stopped to pick up sandwiches in Susanville, California where we saw this deer and her two young fawns. Port of Subs made us some good sandwiches which we took up the road.

With lunch in hand, we headed north on CA-139, having left US-395 behind just before Susanville. We stopped at the Willow Creek Picnic Site (next to Willow Creek Campground) and had our lunch. It was a bit rustic, but it made for a good place to stop for lunch about an hour drive from Susanville. I had managed to put my camera into aperture priority mode, so I didn’t get many good pictures of this pretty area. I may have overdone the processing on this one, but I like it.

From there it was on to the Best Western Plus Olympic Inn in Klamath Falls. There is a fabulous Thai restaurant walking distance from the hotel called the Thai Orchid Cafe. Their Thai food is off the charts good.

The next day was our first real sightseeing day with a visit to Crater Lake National Park. I took this picture of Crater Lake on a trip to Seattle back in 2017. You’ll see below that it is worth visiting on the ground.

It’s about an hour and a half drive to Crater Lake from Klamath Falls. We arrived just before the morning rush. We went straight to the Rim Village Visitor Center and took some nice pictures. This is a panorama from the visitor center. The island is called Wizard Island.

Here is a closer view of Wizard Island.

Crater Lake was formed after a massive volcanic explosion roughly 7,000 years ago. This explosion formed the caldera that, over time, filled with water from rain and snow. With a depth of 1,949 feet (594 m), it is the deepest lake in the United States. No rivers flow in or out of the lake. Water seeps out of the sides of the caldera and evaporates and is replenished by rain and snow. According to Wikipedia, the water is recycled every 250 years. This next view is taken from the west shore as we drove around the lake before heading back north. (Click on the picture for a full-sized view.)

From there it was north out of the park, east on state route 138, part of the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway, and then heading north on US-97. Our destination was Hood River, Oregon. We stopped for a picnic lunch at La Pine State Park, which was convenient, in nice shape, and free. We turned northeast on US-26 in Madras, made our way through Mount Hood national forest with some spectacular views.

Our destination in Hood River, Oregon, was, surprisingly, the Best Western Plus Hood River Inn. This Best Western offers a full restaurant breakfast with your room. It is very nice. For dinner, we went to Simon’s Cliff House, the restaurant inside of the Columbia Gorge Hotel. The meal was excellent and the gardens at the hotel were beautiful.

This view looks across the Columbia River (Lake Bonneville Dam at this point) from in front of the hotel.

We took a short walk along the Hood River Waterfront Trail by Hood River Bridge before retiring for the night. Destination for the next day: Anacortes, Washington.

We left fairly early the next morning for Anacortes, traveling east on I-84 in the Columbia Gorge until we caught up with US-97 again and crossed the Columbia into Washington state. We met up with I-82 in Toppenish, Washington, where the big excitement was an air evacuation from the park where we stopped for a break. From there to I-90 in Ellensburg, Washington and then west toward Snoqualmie Pass. We stopped for lunch at the Parkside Cafe in Easton, which had great burgers which were half price on Wednesdays.

Over the pass then north on small roads east of the I-405 and I-5 through some rural and some vanity cities east of the main Seattle area. It was a pretty drive and added little to our time. Then we arrived at our wonderful VRBO house in Anacortes.

This post has gotten too long so I will call this part one and take up Anacortes south next month.