Day 73 Sweat Creek Picnic Area, WA to Omak, WA 53.7 miles Total 3,593.7 mi

 Talk about beating the heat...when I dropped Steve at Sweat Creek it was 46 degrees.  This is what it looked like driving out of Omak. That haze is from the wildfires ~40 miles west of Omak in the Winthrop area.



I wonder why it was named Sweat Creek, but this is all there is.


Driving back toward Omak, it looked pretty smoky.  There are fires to the south and to the west. Any questions of whether we made the right decision about diverting our route were answered after we saw how much smoke and haze there was in Omak.


Even looking back to the east, it was very hazy.


Courtesy of our dear friend Hank Cramer, here are more detailed pictures of why we are altering our route! Hank lives in Winthrop, next to the fires and took these pics yesterday.

Cedar Creek Fire from Hank's driveway

Looking toward Mazama and the Cub Creek Fire from a road in Winthrop. 

Level 3 evacuation means Get Out, NOW!



This one is for Bud, who is fascinated with abandoned structures.

After his ride Steve spent the day re-plotting the route to Puget Sound, our final destination. We now have our next five days planned out, routing and accomodations. Whew..

To top off the day we had a lovely dinner with Hank in Omak. He drove over and we spent the evening catching up and reminiscing over 40 years of friendship. A lot has happened since Steve and Hank were lieutenants together in the 72nd Signal Battalion in Karlsruhe, Germany in the late-70's. This was truly a highlight of our trip. It is too bad we couldn't spend the night at Hank and Kit's ranch in Winthrop, but we'll get there.


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