August 29-31, 2017 Anacortes,North Cascades NP, Grand Coulee Dam, WA

We drove the RV into downtown Anacortes & walked around. We like this place-a cute downtown & great Marina all within walking distance of each other. We checked out a boat charter place for future reference because there is great boating here. We saw 2 Kadey Krogens docked at the Marina; we think this is where the fall Krogen NW Rendezvous is going to take place in a few weeks.

Alpine RV Park is our stop for the night-not a great place. It consists of a dried up grass lot with really old worn out bathrooms & a creepy manager.  There are a few permanent residents here, the manager being one of them and 2 transients & electricity. Thank goodness we only had to stay one night.

The Picket Glacier Range

North Cascades National Park in Washington is a unique place boasting the most glaciers of any other park outside Alaska.  Most of the park is inaccessible by road so we only saw a portion of it. There are mountains, rivers, lakes & dams. We were able to see a small glacier from the Visitor Center. The main river flowing through the park is the Skagit which is a beautiful deep aquamarine color caused from the glacial runoff. Interestingly, at Mt Rainier NP there was a milky white river which they said was that color from the glacier runoff.  So not all glaciers melt the same color runoff.

Skagit River glacier runoff

Gorge Dam-we saw Salmon

After stopping at the Visitor Center, we hiked to a waterfall and the Gorge Dam.  We saw deep gorges and fairly high Mountains along our drive. One day is not enough to do this park justice but I was still under the weather and couldn't do much hiking which is how to tour this park.

Diablo Lake

Ross Powerhouse

We stayed the night at Pearrygin Lake State Park. Our campsite was right on the shore of pretty Pearrygin Lake. The next morning we drove through a cute western town called Winthrop, still in Washington. The buildings looked like something out of a cowboy movie set.

The Grand Coulee Dam was on our route & Doug was thrilled to see one of the largest concrete structures in the world. It contains nearly 12 million cubic yards of concrete. The Dam is the largest hydropower producer in the United States, enough power to supply 2.3 million households with electricity for one year.