Log cabins, Sheep Wagons and a journey to Twilight Town

Our Log Cabin photographed from the Bathing House

We left you in the last blog post just as we arrived in the sweetest log cabin we've seen to date.  This remote farmstead, surrounded as it was by cows and horses, was bliss.  The sun set on our first night there and we couldn't believe our luck.  The place was honestly perfect.  Even the noises of the crazed cow behind the cabin, mooing away like she had her foot stuck in a bear trap, couldn't ruin the peace.  Somehow it just added to it.

Two days just didn't seem to cut it there - we wanted (needed?) more after the journey so far, but we had further to go and knew it had to end.  Spending our days reading, writing and relaxing was lovely and aside from the lack of kitchen all was well.  But, all good things must come to an end and so we packed up Billy Bob and moved out, to Belgrade.

Not happy..

Home sweet Home

The drive was a short one, thank the Lord and passed uneventfully.  As we neared the location we were staying in we realised that the area was covered in swamp.  To anyone that's been travelling, alarm bells will be ringing.  It's a simple equation:

Swamp = Stagnant Water

Stagnant Water + Heat = Mosquitos

ARGH!

Catching up with the blog.

As it turns out it wasn't anywhere near as bad as we thought it might be.  But still, upon arriving we were worried.  Costa Rica had been a nightmare with mozzies (Julia still bears the scars) and seeing all those acres of marshland around us did nothing for our mood.  That all changed though when we arrived.

AirBnB is an amazing resource.  Almost everywhere we have stayed we have been blown away by the care and effort that people put into their rental accommodations.  When Julia told me we were spending the night in a Sheep Wagon, let's just say I wasn't doing cartwheels.  As soon as we saw it though, it was a different story.  I can't possible describe how cute it was, sat there next to a small fenced in pig run with a set of delightful little piggies snuffling around in the low brush.  On the other side was a large field that had sheep, goats (pause for sigh) and even a llama.  A LLAMA!  Wonderful.  I was in my element.  

Grinning from ear to ear, I stepped down from Billy Bob and looked around at this working farm.  The owner, LaVonne came across to greet us and that just capped things off.  She was a lovely lady, with a big warm heart and an even bigger grin.  After settling us in and making sure I knew that I could join her for some goat milking in the morning (pause for more stupid smiles!) she asked us if we needed anything.

Caviar!!!

Jokingly I responded "Well, some caviar wouldn't go amiss!".  Now let it be known this was a joke....intended to convey that we had everything we could possibly want here.  In one of the best "touchés" ever, she came cycling back about 15 minutes later with a little pot of caviar!!!  I blushed beet red and my tongue tripped over itself as I tried to apologise my way out of what must have seemed ridiculously arrogant to a lady working a farm in rural Montana.  LaVonne though had (thank goodness) seen the irony in my comment and just wanted to play along, as her son had a pot of caviar and she'd thought it would be funny to be the hostess with the mostest.  Of all the moments on our world tour, that one will certainly stick in my mind.  As will the goat milking the next day.

That evening we played a lot of cards, had some very lovely red wine to the setting sun and went to bed, truly snug in our wonderful little world.  I say "truly snug" because if I lay straight I fit perfectly between the two walls of the wagon.

Next morning we woke to a tray of coffee and tea outside the door and I quickly wolfed down some breakfast before heading over to LaVonne's farm.  She walked me around the farm, showing me the chickens, the turkeys (they were HUGE!) and then finally we got to the goats.  Curiously enough, they were very docile.  The last time I had been around baby goats I was in fact giving them milk and it had been like trying to feed a cloud of angry bees.  They had flown around me, butting my legs and each other out of the way.  These goats seemed positively happy to have LaVonne squeeze the milk out of their teats.  Looking at her do it, I thought the obvious...."Ah come on!  It doesn't look that hard!  If she can do it I can do it."

so happy 

All I should really say is that LaVonne has a lot of patience.  Her goats are very forgiving and I am no milk maid.  I got milk out of the goat.  I got the milk into the bucket.  Unfortunately I wasn't very good at it.  One of the goats got frustrated at my cack-handedness and took a step into the bucket of milk.  Without batting an eyelid, LaVonne wrote that milk off and poured it out for the chickens (another good learn...I didn't know chickens drank milk).

 I was so focussed on animals and having fun that I missed the time and Julia came across to remind me we had a long drive and I still hadn't had a shower!  So off I trotted, through the field of animals and as I did they all followed.  It was hilarious to see them all chase after me, as though I had a bucket full of food for them.  They all must have been mighty disappointed as I slipped through the gate on the other side as fast as I could.

View from the outdoor shower

The outdoor shower was wonderful and when finally we had said our goodbyes and left the farm, we were both a little sorry to leave.  As we drove through town, not that slowly, Julia took a wrong turn and we ended up driving through a car park.  Just as we were gnashing our teeth at losing time, LaVonne has haired up behind us and was blowing her horn for us to stop.  At first we didn't realise who she was and Julia was a little perturbed.  Then when we saw her waving and recognised her, we pulled over.  She had chased us the few miles down the road, through town, across the railroad tracks and caught up with us here......to give us our little camera back!  So sweet.  We couldn't believe how much trouble she'd gone to (she'd have lost her license the speed she was driving) and said an even fonder goodbye, then this time, hit the road properly. 

Wonderful moment :)

The GPS was giving us the worst read out we'd ever had on all our travels - 572 miles to our next destination !! 438 miles without even turning right or left.  438 miles without even reaching our destination!

(for the non-Imperials out there, 572 miles that's 921km).

Aside from the fact that our destination was hardly world class (a Best Western in Yakima.....pronounced with a short "i" not Yakeema) we were really beginning to be "over" the whole driving thing.   On the flip side the countryside up here was amazing and eventually we would hit the town of Twilight....sorry, I mean the town of Forks. 

Along the way we passed a massive wildfire to our right.  It was very close to us and having seen the deadly results of wildfires earlier in our trip through America, we felt bad for the firecrews having to deal with this monster.  We saw the helicopters dumping huge buckets of water on the fire and it all seemed a little futile.  Then later, as we pulled into a service station to fill up, we saw a bunch of firefighters on their way to the fire.  Watching them brought home the reality of it all, they were real people heading off to this dangerous situation.

Seeing signs for real coffee we decided (well I demanded) that we pull over to indulge.  Good coffee has been a little like Atlantis/the Fountain of Youth/King Solomon's Mines and the Holy Grail all rolled into one impossible to find thing on our travels.  It's amazing the quantities of bad coffee that must be made every day all over the world.....and here we managed to sample yet another variety of it.  Ho hum.

Julia loved that sign in the window of the coffee shop

So armed with our rancid cups of coffee we headed off again ...and drove....then drove some more.....and more......urgh, it seemed to go on forever.  Julia was at the wheel at one point when a pick-up came racing up behind her.  She did the obvious thing which was to let it past and then to follow it.  After all, the police would nab the pick-up first and it wasn't like she was tail-gating the guy.  He did not like her driving one little bit.  After a fair while of her following him, he pulled over, slowed down and then......flipped her the bird!

I was staring at him, because at the time we couldn't work out why he decided, all of a sudden, to slow down.  As he held up his middle finger I burst into a smile and thought it all kind of funny.  I even mouthed "Really?" at him.  Julia on the other hand was not so happy.  It kind of freaked her out and for the next few minutes she was sincerely worried we'd end up being the victims of road rage.  As she slowed down I had to remind her the logical thing for us to do was to speed up, not slow down!

We made Yakima at about 5.30pm and we were both exhausted.  We checked in, enjoyed a nice long shower and a lie down on the nice big bed, then went out for a big fat dinner in a local pub.  Actually it was one of the better restaurants in town.  But this was Yakima and it seemed that between the really run down town centre and the billboards that all either advertised Bail Bonds or requests for information on kidnap/disappearance victims, we were not in Beverly Hills!  As we watched down and outs shuffle around and a couple of junkies stumble across the road in front of us on the way to the pub I really wished I had followed the GPS rather than just try and figure our way to the place.  From one street to the next the place changed completely.

Next day we had a fairly relaxed breakfast that was also, strangely, the first time in my life I have had a breakfast that was 100% devoid of any kind of meaningful nutrition.  It was the first time I had had waffle mixture and the first time I had had utterly synthetic "maple syrup".  Very weird.  I felt like the inhabitant of a futuristic space colony where everything was grown in vats or made by a machine.  Seriously, as I looked at the ingredients on the pots of "food" I really wanted to know at what point the American nation thought it was ok to pass this sh*t off as ok to sell to humans.  Astounding.  The reasoning behind it, is that:

a) every product comes out exactly how it needs to be, with no variations

b) its "best before" date is sometime a few years after the end of the time

c) it's cheap to produce and requires no natural intervention

But really?  Why does my pancake mix need ingredients that are bi-products of the oil and gas refining process?  Aren't we taking the justification of Middle Eastern invasion a little far when we say "Hey boys, we gotta invade Eye-Rak, or you won't be able to enjoy your waffles in the morning no more!"?

I will put my soap box away (before someone at Kraft tries and steals it for another chemical recipe) and continue with our story now.  Where was I?  Ah yes......breakfast.....then......you got it.....another bloody long drive :)  We were heading off to a last minute addition to the "Tour of the National Parks".....Mount Rainier.

I can't recall exactly when it happened, but at some point along our journey Julia had snuck in a quick visit to Mount Rainier National Park on the way to Forks and our visit of the Ho Rainforest.  When she had told me this I was a little sceptical, thinking we'd end up seeing a bunch of trees and mountains, look around and go "Hmm, ok."

How wrong.  Another lesson.  Stop being a cynical d*ck.  Go with things, discover things and keep your mind open, because you WILL learn something and more often than not, nature will astound you; and astound me it did.  I was open mouthed at the place.  Compared to other National Parks it isn't huge and it certainly wasn't busy, but what it lacked in size and visitors it made up for in impact.  Admittedly it was a beautiful day, with a blazing azure sky and bright, warm sun, but frankly I reckon you could be there in any weather and be amazed.  Mount Rainier just rises up out of the surrounding mountain range like a majestic snow clad beast, all craggy and grey but with a wonderful symmetry to his triangular shape.  The forests around were of the deepest green and you knew, if you took the time to hike up into them, you'd just be surrounded by the redolent smell of pine and the deep hush of nature undisturbed.

Mount Rainier

It didn't take long for us to traverse the park and head on out the other side towards Forks.  I kind of wish it had taken longer though.  Mount Rainier National Park was certainly one I would love to return and see once more.

Once on the other side we seemed to be stepping back in time, heading across back country that ...well....seemed a bit backward.  The road was winding and some of the overtaking manoeuvres were a little hairy, but we were both keen to crack on and get to our next stop.  We had 3 nights in Forks and it was going to be lovely to have our own little house again to settle into.  As we drove the weather had turned somewhat and the skies were grey.  No matter though, because as we pulled up to our front door, then unloaded Billy Bob and walked into our new home the skies were blue again.  The next few days would be lovely and comfy!