Winthrop? Oh ya, we love Winthrop! We’ve been visiting there for the past couple of summers with our young children and foresee the adventure becoming an ongoing tradition.
We have had so much fun dabbling in the endless outdoor rec options in a landscape so unique while also having a great time visiting the shops and eateries. It’s really the perfect balance of tradition and comfort and it’s strikingly beautiful.
The last time we visited our route took us back west via the North Cascades Highway. We’d never driven that stretch of Washington and were super excited to see the rugged peaks we’d only seen in pictures.
We knew, based on a little relaxed reading from a perfectly placed Adirondack at Sun Mountain Lodge, that we would need to get gas at the last stop out of town, Mazama, or be without for the next 75 miles or so to Marblemount.
Now maybe it was the lack of sleep from road tripping with our 3 month-old and his 3 year-old sister or maybe the last gas station wasn’t well signed, but I’d say either way, that we were totally to blame for our oblivion. As you may have guessed, we completely missed the gas station. So there we were, in what must have been some hypnotic trance, taking in the scenery, that our gas light came on 35 miles past Mazama!
I’m sure you can just imagine the language used in those first moments, likely scarring our children for years. Then we drove in silence. It was like we could hear how fast the gas was pumping from the tank into the atmosphere. The iconic mountains around us felt almost equal in immensity to how stupid and totally negligent we felt for having two babies in the car with us in this predicament.
Every mile felt more gloomy than the last until at some point we started realizing (or hoping) that maybe we could actually make it. Our conversation tracked every uphill and downhill, noting the quantity of gas each might use as if we had some merit in what we were talking about. Somewhere during this nonsensical banter we found ourselves coasting into Marblemount and up to the gas pump.
It was surreal to watch the numbers spin as the car refueled. To know that this story was over and that somehow one of the many scenarios we pictured never had to play out was a huge relief but the disbelief lingered.
Our 16 gallon tank took almost 18 gallons that day. I don’t think I’ll forget that trip for much more than this story but we certainly learned our lesson and hope sharing a silly story can help someone else remember to remember.
Cheers to tradition!
