All's well that ends ... in Disneyland?

The last few days have been a mix - a lot of walking, alot of cheating.

Upon consulting google maps on Thursday morning, I decided two things: first, that Bothell to Sultan was too far and was not going to happen. Second, that Bothell was a tangled suburban web of streets and likely to get me lost at some point on the way out. Fortunately I had dealt with the first issue the night before, sending some couchsurfing requests to people in Monroe, and while I wouldn't learn it until I was actually in Monroe, they had paid off.

So I took the bus from Bothell to the near side of Woodinville and walked from there. I walked about 8 miles (plus a 2 mile round trip mistake due to a country street sign being turned the wrong way) before encountering my entrance to 522, which was crazy with cars in both directions. It took me about 3 seconds to decide the time had come to hitchhike. I made a sign that said "Monroe," stood near the Shell station's exit, and waited about 30 minutes for my 10 minute ride to Monroe. Thank you David for the ride.

In Monroe I walked about another 2 miles to my place of repose for the night, where I stayed with CouchSurfers Joshua, Heather, and their dog, Manny. Joshua and Manny had the coolest dog tricks I have ever seen. I spent some time chatting with Joshua in the evening and then crashed. I talked to Heather in the morning, and they gave me a ride downtown, from where I made my way to Gold Bar.


-- Josh, Heather, and Manny my hosts in Monroe --

In Gold Bar, I took the advice of some locals and camped out on the banks of the Skykomish River. It was a great night of sleep, except for 90 minutes of passing trains around midnight.


-- A bear about a quarter mile away in Gold Bar --

Allen, this next section will answer your question about the pass.

This morning I woke up early, packed up and cleaned up, and treated myself to a French toast breakfast in town. I then applied generous amounts of sunscreen to save my skin on the first sunny day of my trip, and headed east on US-2. I walked to Index and started considering my timing and situation. In the end, I decided to stick out my thumb and catch a ride through Stevens Pass. I couldn't have been hitching more than 15 minutes before I was picked up by Jonathon. Many of my friends in Seattle will appreciate this tidbit: he was from Minneapolis! Jonathon dropprd me off at Cole's Corner. I took about an hour checking out camping possibilities, found none, made a sign that said "Wenatchee" (I didn't intend to go that far but nobody had heard of the towns I wanted to go to), and in 20 minutes I was on my way to Leavenworth (WA, not the prison!).


-- The road between Gold Bar & Index --

After arriving here and getting my expensive camping set up, I talked to Jason who will be my CouchSurfing host in Wenatchee on Monday and Tuesday, and he described Leavenworth as "Bavarian Hell." It's like Germany-gone-Disneyland here, look it up on Google, I'm sure there are pictures.


-- Welcome to Disneyland ... er, Leavenworth! --

Speaking of pictures, I've decided to take an extra day of rest in Wenatchee, so I'll try to get pictures uploaded there. I'll probably just edit them into the appropriate posts, so be on the lookout.

As an aside, I'm throwing my schedule out for now, except for those places where I have CouchSurfing things scheduled. I have a couple days to brainstorm and retool before I get online again, I'll update the plan and the calendar then.