The Cascade Loop

I’ve been jonesing for a good road trip for a while. And sadly, as long as I’ve been in Seattle, I’ve never ventured much further east than Steven’s Pass. With a slow weekend on my hands, I took the advice of some colleagues and did the Cascade Loop.

The Cascade loop is 440 miles of scenic highway driving in the state of Washington. It stretches from Anacortes, though the Cascade Mountains, past the Columbia River, and back down through Leavenworth. In a lot of ways, it was reminiscent of my trip to Anchorage last year when I cruised the Seward Highway. While the Cascade can’t match the natural beauty of the Alaskan highway, it is truly amazing in its own right. The upside is that this time around, I did it with the top down in my Boxster with a full tank as opposed to a rental cavalier riding on fumes. My momma may read this, so I won’t go into the performance difference between the two cars. I’ll just say I didn’t quite match my freefall velocity form last weekend’s skydiving trip. Consistent with my usual weekend sense urgency, I got started bright and early at 1pm. And I stopped at a 7-11 to pick up a free Slurpee (Note: if you ever go to 7-11 on July 11th, you'll get a free 7.11oz slurpee. How cool is that?). I was originally planning to stop about half way through and find a hotel. However, I had such a great time driving and taking pictures I covered the whole route in one day!

Ok, one confession: the actual route takes 526 through the islands. I skipped this leg since I’ve already done the islands and knew it would substantially slow me down to have to either take a ferry or bridges. Instead, I took I-5 straight to Highway 20. The first half hour or so was kinda dull. The real fun started in Concrete (yup, that’s the name of the town). Here you leave the small towns and start getting into the long empty straights and winding country roads. It became a bit of a struggle to convince myself to stop every once in a while to see and shoot some of the sights I was flying by. The wineries and fish hatcheries got no love from me, but views of Skagit river and the Diablo and Ross lakes were breath taking. Plus, merging back into traffic required me to take my engine up to the red line for the first couple of gears.

Winthrop was half time for me. Upon entering the town I noticed a sign that read, ‘Limited parking for RV’s’. Shockingly, when I made it to the downtown strip, it was nothing like the bustling metropolis of Seattle (which, I guess is nothing like the bustling metropolis of, say a New York). Instead, I was greeted with a strip of quaint small shops and the local biker club. After grabbing a light lunch and another bottle of water, I was right back at it.

As much as you hear about the rain in Seattle, you’d never guess there would be parts of Washington as dry as the stretch between Winthrop and The Columbia River. With no small towns or rest stops, this section’s expansive views were a reminder of how big a world we really live in. With no small towns or rest stops, this section was also the fastest. I took some guilty pleasure seeing how many cars that past me when I pulled off to shoot the Columbia River I managed to catch up with.

My final stop was Leavenworth. This Bavarian themed town is a popular tourist attraction in Washington. For dinner? Tradition German fare, of course. Initially, I figured this would be where I stopped for the day. However, still full of energy, I decided to put the top up and finish the tour. By the time I entered King County’s east most limit, I was pretty much sick of driving. This was perfect, when I made it home a little after 11pm, I had completely exhausted my road trip desire. Gotta love Summers in Washington!

Links:
- Pics
- The Cascade Loop