Thursday

This is how I remember it, a few days after the fact. Thursday, April 8. A full work day for me. Jesse, Wilder, and Ryan leave sometime this morning with Jesse's truck pulling the trailer with three bikes. Somehow they are only in Ellensburg at 5 p.m. as I am getting ready to leave work. I've been checking the weather at Snoqualmie Pass all day. Spring blizzard. But the pass is open. I have to decide whether to sleep in my warm bed and take off at 6 a.m. Friday, or leave around 7 or 8 tonight, drive through a mountain pass in a snowstorm, and sleep in the car in freezing temperatures at Potholes State Park. I say goodbye to Hanna and Ryan and I'm off...
It was snowing hard from about mile marker 38 to 80, so I lost about an hour because everyone had to drive around 20mph. I get through and call the boys, who had purchased some bad “firewood” from Fred Meyer. “Firewood” is in quotes because it failed to burn and produce fire. I pick up some groceries and firewood at Albertson's in Ellensburg.
At 11:30 p.m. I arrive at site 122 at Potholes. The boys greet me with some fine tequila. Mostly they were happy to have a real fire. Ryan didn't pack his tent, so he picked up a very special Fred Meyer Glacier's Edge (glah-see-ay's edge) tent for $25. It is a midget tent.