Day 45: Lookout, farewell.

 Today began as yesterday-- with a beautiful sunrise. 

The morning sun cast a magical glow on everything in our surroundings. It was sad that we had to (eventually) leave it today.

There was a bit more reading and napping, but the morning was mostly spent packing, hauling everything back to the car, and drinking in the last of the amazing views.

a pile of diapers to pack out.

 

One last snuggle/feeding before we go.

 

A farewell selfie with the tυoʞoo⅃ ɘɘγT

...and a farewell selfie with the view.

By 10:30, we were packed up and out. Ready for our long, long, long drive home. We bumped back down the hill, white-knuckled. Took us a few hours to reach civilization.

I learned that the area we were staying in was part of the 1994 Tyee Burn, and was one of the largest wildfires in the state of Washington. Things are recovering nicely, but there aren't a lot of trees at the top of that mountain.

We took some time to communicate with our kids, and some time to feed and change Ida.

There was a lot of one person driving while the other slept today. We saw this alongside the road in Satus Pass:

Either someone was making lemonade using a gallon of distilled water, or that's the biggest trucker bomb I've ever seen. There's got to be a story behind that. That's not someone running late or not finding a rest stop in an emergency, that's a gallon of pee. Imagine the planning and foresight it would take to fill a gallon with urine while driving. Somebody had to plan ahead to get that gallon bottle, had to manage it and hold onto it for several days until it was full, and had to make sure it didn't spill or slosh the whole time, then had to find the right place to jettison it alongside the road. An awful lot of thought and planning went into that. Eww. Just stop and use the toilet already.

Late in the afternoon, we stopped at Washington's Stonehenge. Jen said that in 20 years of living in the northwest and hearing about it, she'd never been there. So, we fixed that.

henged.

Washington Stonehenge isn't that impressive as far as henges go, but it was a beautiful day in a beautiful location, so we got lots of pictures of Mt. Hood, barges on the river, trains, and a beautiful valley.

Finally, after Subway in Hood River [side note: Hood River is a hard place to find food after-hours], we made it home by 10 PM. Long day. Edgar and Sabrina about pounced on Ida. We'll reunite with Betty tomorrow.