There was much to do in Cascade Locks this morning. I needed to ship two large resupply packages to Northern Washington, plus get food for the current leg of the journey, plus do laundry.
The weather forecast showed a high of 95 today.
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The laundromat was a peculiar place. It had no change machine, but the owner made change from his pocket instead, slowly separating the quarters from the pocket lint. He only had 7 quarters for my $2, but that was enough to start the washer. He walked slowly around the store, and told me about the town.
Shopping for supplies was tricky. I needed to put together about 14 days of food, without being too repetitive, from a fairly small grocery, and 10 of those days needed to be shipped.
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After packaging and shipping my supplies, it was time for one last meal of town food before entering the wilds of Washington. We chose the Cascade Locks Ale House, across the street from the post office. And who should be inside, but Bill the dairy scientist, who we’d first met way back on Mt. San Jacinto.
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We chatted about Oregon, and about the trail to come. It turned out, the Bill and Breanna I’d seen on a list at Olallie Lake was not him — he hadn’t seen Breanna since Mammoth, more than 1000 miles ago.
We procrastinated it into a 2 hour lunch, but eventually had to leave. It was time to enter Washington, and to cross the Bridge of the Gods, past Thunder Island.
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Once in Washington, the trail quickly rose up into the mountains, along green ferny tree-covered trails.
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We only covered about 13 miles today. Our late start, plus the changing seasons, meant we’d have to night-hike to get any further, so we set up our tents, and went to sleep.
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Sounds like the guy always 7 quarters only …. lol