Monday 18 October 2010

Welcome to the Wild East

After a tussle with Hillary (GPS) over getting out of Bellingham this morning, we finally made it onto the North Cascades Highway and over the divide away from the moist green North-West into the rain-shadow dry gold North-West - which looks remarkably like Otago, as it happens, although with rather pointier mountains.

And more cowboys, especially in the town of Winthrop, which reinvented itself once the highway reached it in 1972 as a Wild West outpost (I seem to remember that in '72 even in New Zealand westerns had given up the fight with outer space - but never mind). So all the buildings have weathered wooden facades, there are hitching posts and cigar-store Indians, and Sheri's Sweet Shop (NEVER give in to more than one panda paw, take it from me) has Western saddles on wooden horses to park your behind on while you scoff enough sugar to induce palpitations.

Plus there are deer all over the place: pretty mule deer with big eyes and big ears, all the better to swivel at you photogenically while they imperturbably crop the grass right outside peoples' houses, and in amongst the cabins here at Sun Mountain Lodge up on top of a hill with 360 degree views of mountains and valleys and lots and lots of sky. Which was blue again, today. Amazing.

2 comments:

the queen said...

I have a little herd of fawns I pass every day on my way home. So sweet. They are half-hidden in the grass.

TravelSkite said...

That would be so cool! You can watch them grow up. It's hunting season here in WA, fat guys in caps and plaid jackets everywhere, tch. But it's only for 9 days.

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