I'm not invading Niagara, so...

[PacificSEASnake]

Any interest in a fall Cascade Loop tour?

I'm thinking about leaving on 9/18 (Friday), heading over Stevens Pass, 1 day/night stay in Chelan, then coming back over HWY 20 on Saturday. To do the whole loop would include cruising through Whidbey Island, and taking the ferry back to the mainland. From my front door, the total drive time is 11 hours, 25 minutes. (3.5 hours to Chelan, so 8+ hours on day 2)

 

[Y2K10 SRT#39]

That sounds like it would be fun. What does the long range weather say?
PBR

 

[PacificSEASnake]

Depends on where you get the predictions from. Should be between 60 & 95 degrees; mostly sunny, partly cloudy, or rain.

Most of the sites I checked out are leaning toward the drier side of things, though.

I must be off my game right now for some reason - I can't think of one pithy thing to say about yellow... altough if it's too sunny, that may slow us down quite a bit.

 

[Y2K10 SRT#39]

That made me almost speechless. You ALWAYS have some snyde remark to say about Yellow!

What are you thinking for accomodations in Chelan?

PBR

 

[PacificSEASnake]

You? Speechless? Check your tounge, it might have some yellow on it!
(The snyde remarks will continue 'till I have a GTS Bumblebee ACR in my driveway!! )

We're staying in Manson, outside of Chelan. Joe's taking his Mini 'vert and staying with friends in Manson. Mountain View Lodge: Home

Room rates are reasonable, seein' as I still have no job!

 

[SmokinViperGTS]

Sorry, but I won't be able to make it on the 18th. We did, however, recently spend a week in Chelan, at the city park, which has tent camping in case the $89 room is too expensive.

BTW, the lake was 72.5 degrees! Perfect for a hot day.

 

[snnseatl]

We have stayed at the Mountain View lodge before. Nice, clean, cheap place to stay. They have a pool too!

 

[Y2K10 SRT#39]

You? Speechless? Check your tounge, it might have some yellow on it!
omg:

Well it just so happens that I'm STILL eating some yellow M&M's so there probably was some yellow on my tounge! These things are going to last forever!!!

PBR

 

[VicTxV10]

Wow..sounds like a great drive. I did the north loop a few years ago, Burlington to Winthrop. We stayed at Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop. Great place!!
I wish I lived closer, I would be in for this.

 

[PacificSEASnake]

Sorry, but I won't be able to make it on the 18th. We did, however, recently spend a week in Chelan, at the city park, which has tent camping in case the $89 room is too expensive.

BTW, the lake was 72.5 degrees! Perfect for a hot day.

Perfect for fishing, maybe! And by the same wimpy standards, I don't do tent camping either - that's why they make RV's.

We have stayed at the Mountain View lodge before. Nice, clean, cheap place to stay. They have a pool too!

As long as they have a bed and the spa is 102 or above, I'm good. If teh pooll is aLOT warmer than 72, even better.

Well it just so happens that I'm STILL eating some yellow M&M's so there probably was some yellow on my tounge! These things are going to last forever!!!

PBR

Put 'em in a cooler and head north. I'll show you how to make them go fast! They're only yellow on the outside - inside they are much closer to black.

Wow..sounds like a great drive. I did the north loop a few years ago, Burlington to Winthrop. We stayed at Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop. Great place!!
I wish I lived closer, I would be in for this.

Hey, 10 days is plenty of time to get from Texas to Seattle. It's not like you have a yellow car or something.

 

[PacificSEASnake]

Update time; itinerary.

Weather looks to be clear most of the time - slight chance of a shower once we get back to the west side of the mountains on Saturday.

Friday
10 a.m.(ish) Depart Sammamish
(Note: I-90 is down to one lane each direction due to construction)
Head North to SR 522 & HWY 2 over Stevens Pass.
12:20 Arrive in the Bavarian town of Leavenworth & have lunch.
1:30 Depart (unless shopping around takes longer, my wife is going on this trip, ya know)
2:40 (or later, see above) Arrive in Manson, check into hotel and gather bearings.
Head back over to Chelan and putter around.
5-6:00 ish. Dinner in Manson.
After dinner; whatever we feel like doing at the time.

Saturday:
10:00 am Depart Manson & head north to Cascade Highway.

No real plans - just stopping along the way to take in the scenery when something looks interesting.

Some milestones;
Manson to Twisp = 1 hr 29 min. (May want to get lunch here)
Twisp to Marblemount = 2 hr 26 min.
Marblemount to Sammamish = 2 hr 34 min.
Total drive time is 6 hrs 29 min. on Saturday.
If we time it right, we'll be rolling through Clint's back yard right around dinner time.

 

[cobrapilot]

I can"t make this trip but I might be going through seattle around 5-6pm and may detour over that way to see if you all made it back.

 

[PacificSEASnake]

Clint's place is a bit north of Seattle. We probably won't be back to the 47th parallel 'till around 7-8?

 

[sdwpve]

How was the trip?

 

[vwiper]

Charley, Alicia, and I had an excellent time starting on Friday with a couple of wine tasting tours. First one at highway 2 intersection with base of Bluet pass (at the Shell Station) was nice, the other in Chelan was too much tourist trap wine tasting. Weather was good alll the way up to about 1/3 of highway 20 heading West. That is when the Viper (Charlies) had to put the top up. As for me, my little blue mini convertible drives so fast and is so small I left my top down all the way from Chelan until I hit downtown Seattle. Had to pull over there at Spokane & I-5 about 9pm to bail out the water from the back seats, wipe down the interior and put the top up. Hehe... and I am not joking, in Seattle was the first major rain that got my top to go up. Over 20 it was raining abit, but not enought to put the top up. Nice to have no top when driving the north cascades loop so you can look straight up at the top of the hilltops. That is, the hilltops that were not already in the clouds that were bringing down some rain.
We both have some pics, I have some video from my HD Helmet Camera - ContourHD by VholdR camera I have been playing with this year, and maybe I can hook up with our webmaster's for our video pages to get some shots of Charlies black viper convertible behind me in the water mist from my tires and the rain pouring down.
It was a great drive even though there was some rain. Very spotty, here and there and a blast.
No tickets either, but I think that is due to we did not have Bill with us.