Ready for fall?

[seattlerain]

As it gets closer to fall and fall color, weather.com, and a few other sites have fall color reports and forecasts.

Here are a few links that might be of interest:

Fall Color Viewing Locations

seattlepi.com|High-altitude conifers outshine other trees in fall

Washington Fall Foliage Hotline 1-800-354-4595

It is more than a days drive, however I would highly recommend to anybody who loves fall color to take a trip to northeastern Washington, especially the Pend Oreille. The warm, dry fall days and cool nights make for spectacular fall colors.

[Snowizhome46]

Living in Wa for the past 40+ yrs I would like to see more of sunny days...Last yr winter was harsh enough up here in Marblemount!! yes, we had 3-5ft of snow. not complaining at all..Love it here in the Mountains. But I dont wish for fall just yet....lol

[pwright1]

If you don't want to drive far check out the Arboretum in Seattle around mid October.

[seattlerain]

Originally Posted by pwright1

If you don't want to drive far check out the Arboretum in Seattle around mid October.

That is a great idea, the Arboretum is one of the best places in western Washington for fall color!

[mayfair]

The bigleaf maples up around Arlington are beautiful in fall. We should get some nice color this fall with the dry weather.

[pwright1]

I thought I would miss the fall season after leaving the east coast but Seattle's falls are very colorful imo.
Check out fall around Seattle in past years.

[tada]

Today is a painful reminder to me that the holiday gauntlet is around the corner...

[jenlion]

Originally Posted by Ira500

I am also curious -- for that Rt 2 drive -- anyone know a general window for when color might be best? No idea whether we're looking at late Sept or at early November.

Late September, early October.

So, with the nice weekend weather Oct 11-12, we finally made the Cascade Loop drive. I was kind of surprised --
- Not a lot of color along the northern part of the route. Washington Pass is always spectacular, and there was some color, but a lot of the (deciduous) trees are still green.
- Winthrop was even less with-it than I'd expected. Only one place open for breakfast at 8:30 in the morning, and they took more than an HOUR to get simple eggs and stuff out. With a toddler, that was miserable. Wound up splitting up to walk him around. The dinner we had the night before was served cold. Very weird place. I'd have thought that for a tourist town, the services might be a little.... um... together.
- Methow valley is just spectacular. Even though the color isn't at peak yet, it's amazing. Lots of deer to watch out for though!
- There was NOTHING in Chelan. All this that I've heard about the wonderful apples, I expected apple-stuff everywhere. I thought I'd find some wonderful fall apple cider, fresh, see you-pick-it stuff, that kind of thing. NOPE! Even the Visitor Information center is closed on Sundays. Huh? Closed on half the weekend? Eh? Signs for winery with a lunch... OK... oh, they're all closed too! So, there might have been some stuff around, but we couldn't find it. All we found were little girls stealing grapes through the netting. Wound up buying a bag of apples out of a random fridge, and putting money in a box, after following a sign. And it turned out the apples weren't even good! I found one roadside place selling cider outside Entiat, and the lady explained that it's been too warm this year, so far, to make good cider. Guess that explains the weakness of the color in the trees, too.
- You should not try to get lattes east of the cascades. Had a crappy night for sleep? Too bad. Learn to drink your coffee straight, or deal without. After three tries at three places (the two worst lattes I've had, and then a sign that said "be back soon" -- eh??) at a third, I gave up.
- Central WA is like TX politically. We did see some Obama signs, vandalized overnight while we were there. We did not see ANY McCain signs, now that I think about it, though. Strange. There was some hate obvious just in signs posted around. Oh, and they don't like Seattle. Rossi especially thinks you shouldn't let Seattle decide the election. The other repubs have picked up that line too. Lots of Seattle-bashing. Lots of bashing, period.
- Maybe there is some stuff IN Wenatchee, but as the toddler was finally napping, we passed through the outskirts.
- The color was great from between Wenatchee and Stevens Pass. Finally some pretty colored trees! Yay! And the light was perfect for it in the mid afternoon (well, at least the hillsides were lit properly, you'll never get that golden evening light out there because of the mountains). Very nice. No real desire to stop in Leavenworth again, we've done that, but the setting is just beautiful.
- Still love Stevens Pass, but prefer Snoqualmie pass.
- The traffic is terrible from gold bar to monroe. Why is that? We've been down 2 from the pass to Monroe three times, and it's been stop and go each time. Odd.

We went because the timing seemed right calendar-wise and the weather was cooperating by delivering sunshine on an October weekend, but it looks like the trees and the apples will probably be in better shape in another couple of weeks, unless it suddenly freezes and everything dies.

Will probably try it another year, but maybe we'll take 90 and 2 instead of 20 and 2.

We also learned that Ted Bundee was the first person to drive down route 20 after it opened. Gotta love random facts at the visitor center at N. Cascades Natl Park!

I still do love living here. Can't believe the variety of scenery you can get in a day's drive. Spectacular.