Friday July 11, 2025 began just like every other day on the trip when Tom’s phone alarm started to beep at six o’clock in our hotel room in Ontario, Oregon. Since the moment we arrived in the Beaver State, I couldn’t get the little critters out of my mind. As a matter of fact, I had a middle-of-the-night encounter with a furry, poolside wood muncher that scared the Bejeezes out of me – thankfully, that was only a nightmare. As I stood and watched my companions while they got ready to take on the day, something seemed very fishy – and I tried hard to wrap my resin head around it. I suddenly realized my quest to see a beaver in its natural habitat might come up short, and that thought was hard for me to swallow.
But then it happened, and my resin jaw nearly fell to the floor. Out of nowhere, I overheard Tom say something to his wife that I’ll not soon forget. In a matter-of-fact tone, my photographer smiled, looked Vicki in the eyes, and said, “Today, we’ll be headed into prime Sasquatch country.” Suddenly, seeing a beaver in the Beaver State wasn’t important to me. For there was something else lurking in the bush; something that was bigger, hairier, and more elusive than one of those dammed tree-munching rodents.
I couldn’t believe I had totally forgotten about the possibility of seeing a Squatch. Since we were scheduled to spend the next nine days and nights in Oregon and Washington, and those states have been historically infamous for hundreds of reported Bigfoot sightings, I felt the odds of me seeing one of those elusive creatures was very good. And why not? After all, on past trips I’ve seen UFOs; had encounters with ghosts; heard what may have been a Carolina Squatch; and nearly came face to face with a shapeshifter. There’s no doubt I’m a magnet for things that go bump in the night or lurk in the bushes during the day. At 7:50am, the three of us hit the road to the unknown; and I couldn’t wait to get there!
My photographer had planned for that Friday to be a travel day, with the goal of reaching our VRBO rental in Bellevue, Washington by late afternoon. To break up the 450-mile journey, Tom promised his wife that we’d visit some antique malls along the route and possibly stop at a few scenic overlooks where they’d get a view of the breathtaking landscape. As for me, I had one job, and one job only – I was on the lookout for Sasquatch.
Even though my quest to see an elusive Squatch had proved to be fruitless during the first couple of hours on the road, I thought the scenery in Northeastern Oregon was something to behold. With every curve Vicki navigated along I-82 and I-90, the changing landscape made the three of us gasp in wonderment. And while photographs can never capture the view the same as we saw it, Tom did his best to record a few moments during the long drive.
More personal history was made when we crossed the Columbia River and entered the state of Washington at 10:30am. While Vicki had visited Seattle in the late 1970s, Tom and I had never stepped foot in the Evergreen State before. My photographer’s goal of visiting all 50 states got closer to reality as Washington was number 48 for him, while I still had Nevada, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii left on my bucket list. With my camera guy’s distaste for flying, and the fact he’ll be 69 (hehehehe) on August 19th, he and I just might fall short. As for Tom’s wife, she reached number 49 when we entered Oregon the previous day, with only the state of Alaska left for her to visit in person.
Not too long after we crossed the Southern border of Washington and continued our journey to the Seattle area in the Northwest, we saw what appeared to be possible thunderhead clouds just above the horizon in front of us. Were we headed into the teeth of a storm? It seemed weird as there weren’t any other clouds for as far as our eyes could see. Suddenly, I heard Tom say to his wife, “I don’t think those are clouds. I’ll bet that’s a snow-capped mountain.”
Sure enough, just as we passed the city of Grandview, Washington, we had our first great look at the 12,281-foot-tall volcanic mountain known as Mount Adams, which was over 100 miles away. Suddenly, as we approached the city of Yakima and were still admiring Adams, another snow-capped peak appeared over the horizon as it played peak-a-boo with us between some lower-level mountains in the Cascades. It was Washington’s most-famous and most-dangerous of its five volcanoes – the 14,410-foot-tall Mount Rainier.
The three of us were awestruck by the view. In fact, that’s the reason we drove all the way to Washington; to see its mountains, and of course, to visit a couple of the state’s Presidential sites.
We had been on the road for the past five hours or so, which meant my two companions had numb butts, full bladders, and empty stomachs; all of which spelled Mickey D’s. Not only did the stop in Yakima give Tom and Vick a chance to relieve all three of their symptoms, but we also visited an antique store called Yakima Finds while in town. At the end of our 30-minute stay, my companions couldn’t find anything in Yakima at Yakima Finds.
Back on the road by one o’clock, we continued our journey towards our home-away-from-home in Bellevue, Washington. But only an hour after we left Yakima, we stopped in another town along I-90. Tom had discovered there was a huge antique mall in Cle Elum, and he and his wife couldn’t pass that one up.
It was a few minutes past two in the afternoon when we rolled into Cle Elum; a small town of roughly 2,000 citizens. It turned out the city was also the birthplace of NASA astronaut Dick Scobee, who was killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion on January 28, 1986.
But we weren’t there to find Dick, we were in town to shop; and shop we did. As soon as the three of us walked through the doors of Tuckaway Antiques, I immediately knew we had hit the “honey hole”. The front part of the store was filled to the rafters with Rock and Roll memorabilia. We saw a seemingly endless number of albums, posters, tee shirts, books, and buttons – and the stuff featured nearly every rock star and group from Alice Cooper to ZZ Top. A few items caught Tom’s collective eye, including a Gene Simmons autographed book; a signed poster of Alice Cooper; and several concert shirts that were too small for my fat photographer to wear. After nearly a half hour of browsing through the store with drool running from his mouth, however, Tom left Tuckaway Antiques with nothing tucked away under his arm.
The final eighty miles of the day’s long drive into the Seattle area was uneventful, although the scenery was spectacular. And as hard as I tried, and I must’ve stared at several billion pine trees along the way, I never spotted one tall, hairy, bipedal critter that was lurking in the brush.
The Friday afternoon traffic grew hectic when we got close to our final destination of the day – the Seattle suburb of Bellevue, which had a population of around 150,000 people and is the fifth largest city in the state of Washington. There was one good reason my photographer had chosen Bellevue as their primary hub for the next four nights – it was because he’s cheap. Most VRBO rentals and Airbnb’s in Seattle were priced at $300-$400 per night, and that didn’t include parking. The place he picked was only six miles from downtown Seattle, it featured off-road parking and laundry facilities, and the price tag per night’s stay was only $139. In my mind, there had to have been a catch. Was this the basement lair of a serial killer? After all, the Seattle area has had their fair share of serial killers over the years, including Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer.
I hate being right all the time – sometimes it feels like a curse. The moment we pulled into the driveway of our VRBO rental at 4:15pm, I heard Tom say to his wife, “Well, I hope this place is bigger than it looks from the outside.” But after my photographer had punched-in the code and opened the door, I instantly saw the disappointment on his face. I thought to myself, “This is what you get for being thrifty.”
Although the rental was located in a very nice, well-to-do, safe neighborhood, the furnished basement my companions had paid to stay was advertised on VRBO as a “Private Suite”. Let me tell you, it was anything but sweet. The place featured a small living area, a very small bedroom with one makeshift bed, and a bathroom that was the size of a phone booth. But it was now our home, and we were forced to make the best of it – at least for a few nights.
Within an hour or so after arrival, Tom and his wife had the Jeep unpacked and their gear stowed away in the nooks and crannies of the small apartment. By 5:45pm, the three of us were headed out on a new adventure – this time it was a quest to find Vicki a new pair of sneakers to replace her ash covered white ones. Not knowing the area and only armed with their phones and GPS to guide them, my companions decided the best place to shop was at Bellevue Square Mall – which was less than a five-minute drive from our basement habitat.
I figured it would be a simple task to find shoes for my photographer’s wife in a mall the size of Bellevue Square. Finding shoes was the easy part – finding shoes she liked and ones that fit was another story. Finally, after Tom and Vicki had wandered the corridors of the mall where they visited Foot Locker, Champs, and Macy’s a few times each, she finally decided to purchase a pair of pink colored Nike ReactX.
When we walked out of the store, I saw my photographer had a numb look on his face after the long and exhausting hike in search of the elusive sneaker. Then when his wife was out of earshot, I heard Tom say under his breath, “She has the decision-making capabilities of a squirrel crossing the street.”
Dinner was another story – and it took some additional decision making. When my companions couldn’t agree on one of the small handful of restaurants situated inside the mall, and Tom wasn’t about to settle for a Cinnabon or a Wetzel’s Pretzel, the two of them came up with an alternative plan.
My two travel mates decided to have dinner at the Lil’ Jon Restaurant, which was located roughly six or seven miles Southeast of the mall. I thought the decision was brilliant, because it served two purposes. First, Tom and his wife would eat food that wasn’t the usual garbage served at a shopping mall. And second, they would be able to find the exact location of Lil’ Jon’s, because the three of us were scheduled to rendezvous with Vicki’s cousin Kelly at the same diner at eight o’clock the following morning.
Once inside Lil’ Jon’s, Tom and Vicki each devoured an order of nachos. My photographer, who’s very gluttonous most of the time, also gulped down a large blackberry shake with his food. As I stood and watched my camera man and his wife shove loaded nacho chips into their mouths, I listened to Vicki as she talked about how excited she was to meet up with Kelly the following day. After all, Vicki hadn’t seen her cousin, who grew up and has lived her entire life in the Seattle area, in over thirty years. I laughed to myself and thought, “Well, that’ll be one morning Tom won’t need a cattle prod to get his wife out of bed!”
Following dinner, my photographer had the bright idea to find a spot where he could get a good look at Mount Rainier, since the sky was still cloudless and he figured the sun angle would be great. But after following our server’s precise directions to the nearby town of Issaquah, where the seemingly knowledgeable, local woman said the view was spectacular, we never saw one iota of the third tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. Even after Tom had asked his wife to drive South for over ten miles, Rainier remained hidden behind the mountainous, tree covered terrain. In my mind, Mount Rainier seemed as elusive as the mighty Sasquatch – at least on that evening.
Discouraged, disappointed, and downright disgruntled after the wild goose chase, the three of us made it back “home” at 8:30pm. Then to add insult to injury, my photographer discovered the small television in our abode didn’t work. After a call for help, the homeowner, Phillip, came down the spiral staircase from the main house and was able to get the TV to activate. But at one point, when Philip had finished, I thought Tom was going to throw Rory’s volcanic rock from Craters of the Moon through the television screen when the Asian American said the only programming available was through YouTube. I laughed to myself when my photographer said to Phillip, “I thought this was a Smart TV. It doesn’t seem very smart to me if we can’t watch regular programming on live TV.” Phillip smiled; pounced up the staircase like an Olympic gymnast; and we never saw him again.
What the heck fire was my photographer going to do? He wasn’t going to be able to watch any of his regular nightly shows for at least three more nights. And as an additional kick to the groin, the place was void of air conditioning and the bed was too low to the floor for a fat man with bum knees.
When the lights were extinguished at nine o’clock, I stood next to Rory’s lava rock in the living area and I remained there throughout the night. I figured if my photographer suddenly felt the urge to get out of his low-riding bed and throw that lava rock through the television set because he missed Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, I’d be there to remind him, “That rock is a gift for Rory. You don’t want it to end up as evidence at the police station.”
The lesson we learned that night was – if you try to save bucks in Bellevue, you become sleepless in Seattle.
