CYCLING THE NORTHERN TIER, COLONIAL CREEK CAMPGROUND, LAKE DIABLO, NOTRH CASCADES NATIONAL APRK, DAY SEVENTEEN - CAMP BOUND

AUGUST 14, 2012

Heading to Colonial Creek Campground.

I have meet a lot of people travelling, in many forms and what seems to be for many different reasons.

This fellow was walking with what was still a LONG way to go to the top. He admitted his 100lb load on his cart was too much.

Just previously I stopped and talk to a bloke from Sydney, Australia, taking the long way to Mexico.

Another guy heading to New York City. Said he was planning on going to Niagara Falls. Gave him my address and told him that I would hope to see him in a month or two.

Like elsewhere, you quickly get a sense of the traveller you meet. Some have chosen their solitary ride to remain so.

Ross Lake

I had become interested in the writings, life and death of Jack Kerouac.  Randomly at first by picking up some works that focused on the fictional travels of some interesting characters.

Laced in this part of the country are what are now abandoned fire lookout towers and buildings. Jack spent part of the summer of 1956 in the lookout on Desolation Peak. Assessable only by starting up Lake Ross, over my shoulder in the photo above. Followed by what sounds as a rather arduous climb.

The building coincidentally caught my eye long before I knew of it's significance to me.

Having the scenery that warrants a 360 degree view, we are hoping to incorporate a similar and simple lookout in a cottage that we are in the process of planning for our island in Bayfield Inlet.

I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of 'thinking' and 'enjoying' what they call 'living,' I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds. 
–Jack Kerouac

Here my brother and I in 1967 are on the road, Waterton National Park, with our mother and father.
All the young dudes.

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” 
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Lake Diablo

There has been a fire ban in all of the state of Washington since I have arrived.
There are several massive wildfires that are close to having destroyed
one hundred homes and buildings. Evident to me were the odd days that the
smoke haze offered me my only relief from the sun.
Here just approaching my days end was some action that soon became
the talk of the campground. I already eyed the pick up truck that I was going
to throw my stuff in.

COMING UP NEXT: COLONIAL CREEK CAMP. EVACUATION?