Memorial Day weekend was one of the most gorgeous stretch of 3 days in a row I've had in Seattle in a very long time. Not wanting to waste a minute of this precious weather, I headed out to take a look at Mt. Baker, which is about 3 hours NE of the city. Up until now, I'd only been able to see it from the city and was very interested in seeing it up close finally. It didn't disappoint.





And since the weather continued to be so favorable, the decision was made to proceed even further east onto Washington Pass. This was the last of the mountain passes in WA that I had yet to go through and it represented the farthest east I had been in the state so far. It was absolutely spectacular.



The views just got better and better the farther down the pass. Just as we were about to head down the other side, the traffic came to a complete stop. As in parked. Apparently, an avalanche had fallen across the road and was being cleared by a single front end loader. It was about 50 feet wide and high enough to bury a car. The estimated wait time was about an hour. People just got out of their cars and started drinking. Note the GORGEOUS view we had of where we were stopped, as well as the "all natural" beer coolers that were used during the makeshift tailgate: