Two months ago, we spent a week of vacation at a house rental in Packwood, WA. If I’m honest, we only chose Packwood because it’s within a three hour drive of home, was in striking distance of snow without danger of roads closing, and we found a house with all our needs at a reasonable price. We’ve camped in the area before; it’s fair to say Packwood is a great basecamp for experiencing all the surrounding natural beauty of Rainier, et al. but there isn’t much to do in the town (of ~300 people)… especially during #lockdown2020.

There wasn’t a whole lot to do besides hang out at home and go on a few short hikes around the neighborhood. We could have gone big if we wanted, but it was pretty wet during that week and there was no real need because our place was nestled between the Cowlitz River and Lake Creek. We did drive up to White Pass to play in the snow one day – Dom lasted about 15 minutes before he was over the cold… and our amateur attempts to keep him properly bundled in it. Other than the snow pics below, everything was taken within walking distance of our rental. I also got a chance to practice my drone photography.

It’s hard for us to have these do-nothing vacations, as we’re very much into boarding planes to explore new cities and countries. We are very much looking forward to returning to that. In the meantime, we’ll continue exploring all the sights our our home state has to offer.  At the least, we got to live that quarantine life somewhere else for awhile. A wood burning stove and hot tub when it’s 38° outside isn’t so bad.