Washington Trip, Part 2- East Side to West Side

We left the Pullman area and headed to the west side of Washington.  We made plans to camp one night and hike for huckleberries on the way.
We stayed at Beaver campground along the Wind River.  It was wonderful!  We arrived on Sunday afternoon and spent the rest of the day resting and exploring the area.

Titus really liked finding a deep spot in the river and swimming against the current.  It was like he was in one of those continuous current pools where you just stay in one spot and swim.  He would do that for a while, then get out of the current and rest, and then go back and swim some more.  It was fun to watch!

Josh and Titus in the Wind River

Beaver Campground site #10

The next day we got up and drove to the Observation Peak trail head.  We followed the directions on the WTA website, but it was a horrible drive with really bad roads.  We found a much easier, quicker way out and wished we had known about it before.  We intentionally found an easy hike since our main goal was to get berries.  It was a beautiful day with great views!

Observation Peak

 A little hazy, but still beautiful

We went for huckleberries but found these blueberries instead.  We picked 2+ qts pretty quickly.

Happy boy getting his share of berries

Sign of a productive berry hike

We will ration out these berries and make them last as long as we can.  It's easy to see why people charge $50/gallon for berries at farmer's markets.

After our hike, we continued west to go visit my aunt and uncle that live in Kelso, WA.  They took us down to the Cannon Beach area in Oregon since Josh had never been there before.  It was a perfect hazy, cool day.  We walked around the beach, hiked a 4-mile trail, had a picnic lunch, and then did a little shopping in town.

Haystack Rock

Light rain on the beach

Washington has big slugs!

This trail had some pretty amazing trees along the way.

Uncle Bill led the way followed by Aunt Patty and myself.  Josh pulled up the rear and kept getting left behind because he kept stopping to eat various berries along the trail.

 I'll cover our day in Portland in my next post.