The Wandering Koi

So… you know how when you’re riding for several days on a train, only getting out of the train for one or two 20 minute stops each day that you lose track of the days… No? Well, it happens. Some of the pictures over these few days may be out of order. Because I lost track of how long we’d been riding. As one does… Speaking of 20 minute stops. 2 of the 3 of us love books to an inordinate degree. There is a saying in our household, “It’s not hoarding if it’s books.” We call that a library.

We all brought books (even Little Koi, who doesn’t love books as much as YouTube shorts, yet). Funny thing happened at one of the station stops. We had more time to walk around, and we just wandered into a library book sale in Minot, ND. So if you’re ever in Minot, ND, I can vouch for the fact that they have a nice public library.

The scenery changed overnight as we transited across Montana. Last night I went to sleep with plains rolling by the window, flat until the horizon, interrupted only by the occasional ranch buildings. This morning I woke to mountains.

By later in the day, we arrived in Seattle, land of Minecraft buildings and trolls!

We didn’t stay too long in order to start our drive to North Cascades National Park, to make it there in time to set up camp while it was still light. We had been to Olympic National Park years previously when Little Koi was carried in a backpack child carrier, so we wanted to see someplace new.

Soon we got our first intimation that something new was on the horizon.

We arrived at the campsite (did I mention we were tent camping? Although to be fair, at a drive-up campsite in deference to Little Koi).

We set up camp quickly, because we were all distracted by the scenery behind the campsite. But we managed to remember to put all food and other scented items in the bear-proof box.

It had been a long day. It was becoming cooler. And we were all tired from several days of travel. Not to mention that we didn’t charge the solar lantern and there wasn’t much to do. We won’t talk about the inflatable camping pad that wasn’t so inflated by the next morning.