Sunday, July 21 2019
Neither Tim or I seem to be able to sleep past 6am. It’s something I’ve noticed long before about myself that when I’m camping I wake up early. Probably a combination of going to bed early and not being that comfortable. Anyways, we got up around 5:30am and started breakfast which for me was oatmeal. I measure out half cup of instant oats into little baggies, one for each morning I’d be gone. I did this on the WABDR and it worked out great. The problem is milk. 
It’s hard to keep that cold even out camping. So I tried something different this trip. 
I found some Milkman powdered milk. I figured for oatmeal or cereal it’d be fine and it was. It helps to let it sit for awhile after mixing thoroughly. This will be my go-to method from here out.
We weren’t hurrying, but we still got on the road before 8am. We had to double back to mazama so Tim could get some fuel and then we headed west again. This time our high spot was Washington pass 
which is 5,477 feet and early in the morning it was cold! 
Fortunately we were ready for it. We stopped to take some pictures and chatted with a couple of women who were taking in the view too, then got back on the bikes and headed downhill. The next cool place to stop is the Diablo Dam overlook. The water is an emerald green much like you see from glacier-fed lakes up in Canada. One of the best pictures I’ve ever taken is at the bottom of the road where you cross over a tiny part of the lake formed by the dam. Tim and I stopped there again to try and get some interesting pictures. 
I think we did okay. 
Once you get off the Cascades it’s just one little town after another and more traffic all the time.
We stopped in Sedro Wooley for lunch at Dairy Queen. Burger and a chocolate milkshake – man, that tasted pretty dang good on a hot day! We continue west on 20 until we get to Deception Pass. We had planned to stop originally, but that place was jam-packed with people and I decided to just skip it. Obviously we rode over it, but we didn’t stop to walk out on the bridge or go to the park. But now we’re on Whidbey Island which is a beautiful place. As we rode south on the island we passed the entrance to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. At the entrance are two Grumman Intruders on static display. An A-6 and an EA-6B which is the electronic warfare version. Very cool to see.
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
