Gallery of photos from our fifth, and final, day on the Cascade Loop Scenic Byway. Traveling from Leavenworth westbound on US2 through the Cascades back to the Puget Sound area.
Cascade Loop Day 5-through the Cascades to home
Cascade Loop Day 4-Okanagan & Eastern Cascades
Gallery of photos from our fourth day on the Cascade Loop Scenic Byway. We traveled from Winthrop to Leavenworth spending time in the town of Twisp and at ALpine Lake State Park with stops at several other places along the road.
Cascade Loop Day 3-Winthrop
Gallery of photos from our third day on the Cascade Loop Scenic Byway. We actually took the day off from driving and explored the town of Winthrop.
Cascade Loop Day 2-North Cascades
Gallery of photos from our second day on the Cascade Loop Scenic Byway. We traveled from the prairies near Sedro-Woolley through the forested foothills and across the mountains on the North Cascades Highway.
Cascade Loop Day 1-mostly on Whidbey Island
The Cascade Loop National Scenic Byway is in my state. The loop covers a pretty decent range of the scenery typical of Washington state. We did it clockwise, starting by taking the ferry to Whidbey Island.
Most years we go to Paradise at Mount Rainier for a few days to hike and just enjoy the mountain air. But this year we decided to see some of the state that we haven’t been to before. It seemed like a good idea to spend our vacation dollars locally. We bought a pass for state parks when we renewed our car tabs this year so we tended to focus on visiting state parks during this outing.
Whidbey Island
It started with a ferry ride…naturally.
I’m jaded about islands, my home town is Vashon, my dad still lives there and we go over pretty often. Whidbey is “just” a Puget Sound island. Pretty enough, but it doesn’t seem special. None-the-less walking on the beach and in the woods is always a peace point for my soul.
Some photos from Whidbey Island.
We didn’t really explore the towns, which many people enjoy. The one stop we made for food in Coupeville wasn’t to our taste. We stopped at a pub that only served sausages (which don’t agree with our older tummies) and beer, which I don’t like and the MOTH doesn’t drink when he drives (after lunch was his turn). It looked cute, I’m sure for the right folks it would have been great.
Fidalgo Bay
When we had got to Anacortes any thought of the cute town exploration I had had was out the window. Instead we stopped at an out of the way state park called “Bayview”.
After that we headed to Sedro-Woolley for the night. Our total mileage was 131 and we left home at 9am and got to our hotel in Sedro-Woolley around 5pm. (The shortest route from our house would take less than two hours, we definitely took the slow road, plus a couple of trails).
Continue the Journey: Cascade Loop Scenic Byway series
Other posts about our trip:
I use Raw Therapee and the GIMP, both open source, to process photos. This post describes the process I use.