Hidden Lake/Willawaw

Day 53, Sunday, 8/9: Well, we managed to survive what could have been a major disaster this morning. ‘Someone’ lit the pilot light in the oven, laid the propane lighter on the oven door and then closed the door, sending the lighter to the bottom of the oven. The intent was to slowly heat up the leftover breakfast burrito filling for breakfast. The oven was turned on to about 250 and about 20 or 30 minutes later I heard a weird sound in the oven. Opened the door to an oven full of flames!!! Immediately closed it and yelled for Bob who was in the ‘garage’. Almost used the fire extinguisher but he realized that it was something plastic burning so he reached in with a sock on his hand and pulled it out and onto a pan which he took outside. It was quite frightening!!! Also, we discovered that we didn’t have a battery in our smoke alarm since there was smoke and it never went off!!! Anyway, we averted what could have been a very disastrous situation. One of us could have been hurt/burned if the lighter had exploded after we took it out and the camper could have burned up if we had not found it right away. As it turned out we only ruined a pan (no big deal) and had a bit of a mess to clean up in the oven. Whew!!!! Needless to say, we threw the leftovers away and had something else for breakfast. Only one of us is now allowed to use the propane lighters….

Loaded up the camper and trailer and were on the road about 11:30. It was only about an hour’s drive to the next campground which is called Willawaw (another nice forest service campground) and it is on the highway to Whittier. USFS up here either gets more funding, or is much better managed. Really nice campgrounds and cheaper than what you find in Oregon, Washington, Idaho. Unhooked the trailer and set off for a 2 ½ mile tunnel. It is single lane and you have to wait for the opening time which was about 25 minutes and it cost $12 round trip for a single vehicle. Quite an experience. Not much to see in Whittier except lots of boats and they do have a small area on the water with restaurants and gift shops, etc. Found a place to have fish and chips (I had ½ shrimp and ½ halibut) and it was wonderful. We then drove back to the tunnel and only had to wait about 5 minutes this time. This tunnel is not only used for vehicle traffic but also train traffic so you are straddling train tracks as you drive through it. There are several glaciers along this road too.

Back to camp. We took a bike ride to a salmon viewing area and now having a campfire. Guess we didn’t get enough fire this morning L Played some cribbage and Skip-bo this evening.