Pacific Northwest - North Washington (Part III)

And this is part 3 of our 2 month road trip to the west during the summer of 2021. Part 1 can be found HERE and part 2 HERE.

After taking a quick car ferry from Port Townsend we arrived in Fort Casey on Whidbey Island. We headed north and explore Fort Ebey State Park with beautiful ocean views and lush forests. We spent some more days at Fidalgo Bay. A fun place to explore Anacortes and nearby area. The town is cute and offers many restaurants, coffee shops and stores. Definitely stop at Black Rock Seafood for some fresh fish or if you enjoy smoked salmon, you can find some delicious and cheap items at Seabear Smokehouse.

Heading north east, we went to spend some days at North Cascades National Park! This is not a very popular National park but beautiful nonetheless. We enjoyed a gorgeous hike near the popular Diablo Lake. (It’s a 6 mile gorgeous hike to the Diablo Lake dam) and then enjoyed a dip in the turquoise blue lake to wrap up our day! The park offers amazing views and hikes. We could’ve easily spent more time exploring this area….

After here we headed back west and a bit north for 5 days of lake fun at Lake Samish. We rent a cabin right at the lake and enjoyed sleeping in beds and being right at the lake. It was a perfect place to recharge and take a break for our RV life! Lake Samish is also the perfect place to explore Bellingham, a popular cute town that offers many attractions. Another good day trip is driving down on Chuckanut drive. This a beautiful scenic drive and many options to stop to walk down to the beach, go for a hike or a refreshment.

We then started heading west again and our final stop in Washington state was Yakima. Jason is a home brewer and the region is know for being the largest hop producer in the US. We were lucky to get a tour at CLS, one of the most popular hop farms in the area. This was very informative for the entire family. We also tried to escape the 105F heat and we enjoyed the nice cool airconditioning of the local movie theater! Finally, there are many u-pick farms in the area. We went to West Valley u-pick farm, where, besides the usual berries, you can also pick vegetables like zucchinis, cucumbers, tomatoes,l and whatever is in season. You pay by the kilo and it was fun!

Heading further west we drove by the famous Gorge Amphitheater. Which is a place we would like to come back and see our all time favorite band, Dave Matthews Band!

The next stop was Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. This place is well known for it’s yearly Ironman and fun water sports. We enjoyed jet skiing and trying to escape from the heat and wildfire smoke! For the jet skis, we highly recommend Fun Unlimited - great staff, location and equipment! There are many hiking options in the area, however we didn’t hike at all due to the poor air quality conditions (and extreme heat).

From here we continued heading east, stopped in Helena (which also seemed like a cute town to explore but due to the ongoing wildfires and poor air quality, we didn’t go outside much to explore. We wrapped up our trip with a couple of days at our friends in Billings before heading back to Estes Park, Colorado!

Here are the stats of our roadtrip:

56 days in Charlotte (our cozy 25ft RV)
5380 miles
9 States and 4 state capitols
5 national parks
6 camp fires (We would’ve loved to have one every night but, unfortunately, there were many firebans across most states. And even with all the precaution we saw a lot of smoke and hazy conditions once we went east... 😞)
8 nights in proper (not RV) beds!
At least a dozen bald eagle sightings
Many laughter and fun moments with friends and family we met up with across our trip.
2 floats down rivers (Lake Tahoe and Bend) and many fun days by the lake. Our favorites were Diamond lake, Lake Tahoe, Samish Lake & Coeur d’Alene lake (where we had fun jetskiing!)