So this day was not as early as others but early to most people. I let Ashley get a little more rest before we HAD to hit the road. This put us on the road by 8:00 am. It was a very big day and from the beginning we knew it was going to be a long haul, as our goal was to get to Glacier National Park entrance by 6:00am! We left Crater Lake around 8:00am in the morning and it was pretty cold (about 45°) but other than that, it was beautiful, brisk weather once the sun came up.
We drove around the north side of Crater Lake to exit the park and enjoyed some fascinating views. We stopped a few times at various overlooks to take pictures from different angles then we had previously seen, as you can see from the photos here. Our first stop of the day was to go to Smith Rock State Park which was about 2 and 1/2 hours away in Bend, Oregon.
Fortunately we passed a Pilot gas station and were able to fill up, get some coffee,and a small breakfast snack. Exiting the park we had very little gas, and there didn’t seem to much civilization anywhere, thus worried me for a short period. Nonetheless, we made it.
We made it to the local state park about 2 1/2 hours after we left (around 920). This is a great park that is relatively unknown and features huge rock formations made from lava. There are many hiking trails with a river running through it as well. With the vast, and relatively flat landscape surrounding it, it’s hard to see how this was ever created, as it is very unusual too. There are, however many volcanoes around it , but not within a close distance.
Driving through the west coast of the USA, one can easily recognize the chain of volcanoes that helped form the landscape. From Crater Lake to Mt. Rainer, the west coast is littered with dormant volcanoes. Since Ashley was on able to walk now, we ended up just walking out and doing a short overlook section of the park and taking a picture in a selfie. We spent about 30 minutes there to absorb the good views and the beautiful scenery.
The next spot on our agenda the day was to stop at the Painted Hills National Monument in Oregon. These are exactly as they sound and they look like huge hills with many different colors (mostly orange, yellow, and red). It was about an hour and a half drive to these from Smith Rock State Park and we ended up getting lunch in the very small town of Mitchell, Oregon and headed north through vast wilderness but beautiful country. This was a town with no more than 100 people living there, and the lady who served us at the restaurant was actually the owner, which also happened to be her home. We had a nice hamburger and hit the road again.
The park is located about 20 minutes north of this town, and really is more of an overlook with a hike. There is no formal visitor center, but there is a walkway that has been made to preserve the landscape. We spent about 30 minutes there taking in the incredible colors, and bizarre scenery, then headed north through the state to continue our long haul journey!
This next section was a great drive in my opinion, and unexpected. We headed through iconic farmland of golden wheat fields, and hundreds of square miles of crop. The landscape was covered in wind powered turbines for energy creation, and it was fascinating to discover this. They were gorgeous trees and fantastic views of Mount Hood as well. This was very unexpected for what you think of in Oregon, but we ended up hitting the interstate around 2pm. We enjoyed this section, and by the time we had reached the Columbia River, and crossed it, we were almost 2 hours from Spokane.
We were on a mission to get to see my friend Mike Turpin and to spend two days with my buddy Slaveè (who was the bartender at my golf club) with his family in a cabin we rented in Whitefish, Montana. So after finally reaching the interstate near the Columbia River Gorge we headed east for about 50 miles until he went north on the other interstate towards Spokane Washington. Our last destination of the sunlit day was Palouse Falls State Park.
This was a huge surprise even though it was planned to be this gorgeous. This is known as the the Grand Canyon of the West in a small version in Washington state. This truly was a magnificent sight as a waterfall that dropped about 300 feet had carved this entire canyon over the course of so many years.
This is where we had dinner that night by cooking chicken, rice and vegetables. Poor Ashley was just barely able to walk but fortunately she was healthy enough and in good enough morale to cook while sitting at the bench overlooking the falls. While she cooked I went on a small hike to see if I could reach the top of the falls (which I did) but there were some scary areas that could easily render it too slippery. This proved to be a great stop and had we not needed to meet in the morning at 6 AM , we would have camped here. I believe it was only $8 to camp but we had to keep driving as it was about 7pm in the evening at this point when we cleaned up and got back on the road.
This is when the tough part of the day started to become prevalent. We went through Spokane to use the restroom and get gas and coffee for the long drive ahead. From that point we had about seven hours of driving left. I ended up driving through the night through the gorge near Couer De Lane on the interstate across Montana. It took us all night to end up getting to the beginning hike at Logan‘s pass in Glacier National Park. When we were close to the park it was about 3am, and I still had about 40 minutes of driving left. Iw as extremely tired, so we pulled off to the side of the road, and slept in the car for about 3 hours. This was a great idea and much needed. This turned out to be a great decision too, as we were driving up the world famous ‘Going To The Sun’ road during sunrise, and it was absolutely breathtaking.
We ended up meeting my friend within 10 minutes of saying we would be there! It was quite an amazing feat to drive 13 hours in one day and end up within 10 minutes of our required destination with all the stuff we had planned in one day! If only Ashley was feeling better it would’ve been one of the best days of the trip, if you asked me.
July 10 Expenses
4 snack
5.58 gas snack
24 gas
1 tip
4.92 gas
2 water
16 burger in mitchell
28.89 grocery
10 palouse falls SP fee
16.23 gas
14.47 snack
Total – 127.09
MILES DRIVEN – 821