Today, as we left the Paradise campground, we looked out to the east and could see three volcanoes above and the beautiful Cowlitz River Valley below. The weather was delightfully clear this morning. About in the middle of this staggering view sits the town of Mossyrock, famous for nothing. It is surrounded by plentiful farmlands and nursery facilities and not far from the edge of Mayfield Lake, actually a reservoir backed up by Mayfield Dam.

We started east on WA-12 but as soon as we crossed the lake, we turned east and south onto some very narrow but almost traffic-free rural roads. Many other folks must also admire the scenery around here because we passed by some attractive places folks have built for themselves overlooking the magnificence. Neighbors are scarce, the lakes are gorgeous and the mountains beyond are stunning. Smart builders have installed large shaded porches and comfy seating on the fronts of their houses and those porches offer unbeatable views of the gorgeous lake and pasture environment.

After considerable zigging and zagging, we emerged in Mossyrock. We have been there many times before and we suspect the local economy must be improving because there were many old structures we thought were going to die of neglect that have recently been purchased and renovated by the locals. Mossyrock seems to be on a comeback.

Leaving Mossyrock, we took another back road and were able to make a visit into Ike Kinswa State Park on the shore of Mayfield Lake. Unfortunately, there was a sign at the gate indicating that although the water and areas away from the lake were okay to visit, there was some problem with areas of exposed shoreline lake bottom that the Ranger was suggesting was nasty. We didn’t investigate.

This afternoon it started to get cloudy and in the early evening it started to rain quit vigorously. The drumming of huge raindrops on our white fiberglass trailer slide-outs was almost biblical and a few times during the evening the rain got so intense that it blocked the signal to our satellite antenna, killing TV-based entertainment for part of prime time. Since there is hardly anything we want to see in prime time, it was not much of a crisis. We have books, DVDs, movies and shows on thumb drives and an auxiliary hard drive and a PS4 with Red Dead Redemption II so our entertainment options are varied even if the TV programming takes a dump.

There’s a few pix. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/tJMy5M7i9WLA45VR8