Winthrop and change of plans

 So Saturday evening in Winthrop we get a knock on our camper door — very unusual occurrence.  They told us Route 20 was going to be closing at 8am on Sunday.  If we were planning to head that way we needed to leave by 7am to get through.  It was being closed due to wild fires until further notice.  We heard these various reasons for the closure -  debris on the highway from the fires, low visibility due to smoke or they also often use the road as a staging area.  The fire is in North Cascades National Park and has been burning since July.  That was where our next stop was supposed to be.  Certain sections of the park are closed.  The campground we were to stay is not closed, but the one at the next milepost was closed.   We also saw there were lots of trails closed.  With Route 20 closed, instead of 1 1/2 hour ride it would have be 6-7 hours.  There were warnings about the air quality where we were in Winthrop, so I can’t imagine what the air quality would be in the park.  

So, since we have wheels, we can go wherever we want.  So Plan B is we are going to go to the Seattle and then continue on to Olympic National Park as planned.  First stop Dru Bru Brewery Harvest Host for overnight, then to Seattle.

So on Sunday we were able to get a couple of pictures of downtown Winthrop.

We also walked through the Shafer Historical Museum.  This was different because there was no entry fee or entry gate, just donations.  We walked through it several times to a set of stairs that went to downtown.  The buildings were only open at certain times, but the rest you could walk through anytime.  So Sunday morning the buildings were open.  It had alot of mining equipment and information about the early days of Winthrop.  

Here’s a couple of pieces of information I found particularly interesting:

I can’t complain about doing wash when I read how they had to do wash.  

This was a cool round knitting machine to make socks.

Innovation

This Advice from a Singer Sewing Manual is just hysterical.

Due to the air quality and having to work on plan changes and do wash, we had a more mellow day.  We also went to the movies to see Deadpool and Wolverine.  The movie theater we went to was called the Barnyard Theatre.  It was the most unique movie theater I ever remember being at.  We had popcorn, Dave had a beer on tap and we sat in comfy seats to enjoy the show.  

View while you waited for the show to start.  Then they closed the curtains and brought down the screen.

Monday we headed out on the Plan B route.  On the drive we learned another fun fact.  We saw lots of  apple trees covered by white material, large fields of them.  So I had Dave look it up and it is called Hail netting and it protects the fruit from hail damage.  Who knew hail was that common.

Currently writing this while hanging out in the brewery, the Olympics in the background.  

Bye for now.