Stargazing Site Report: Exit 45

I've never been really scared driving at night until I decided to venture out of my area to check out exit 45, east from Seattle on I-90. I learned that this was a stargazing site far from the skyglow of any city and wanted to see what it was all about.

25mins after we (my wife and I) left our house, we got to exit 45 which is quite far from Seattle. The road pretty much leads to nowhere so there is nothing - no lights, dead ends and dirt roads. Driving off of the safe highway, we turned onto the exit, then went another 3 miles on a one-lane dirt road to the site which was supposed to be a clearing. Because of the darkness and bumpy nature of the road, it was a bit scary driving it, knowing that if anything happened to you help would be very far away. The trees didn't help either as they were leaning over the road so much you couldn't see the sky so it was very much like out of a scary movie. After a tense moment of hearing a very strange sound suddenly emanating from the left front tire (a rock had got into the break) we finally got to the clearing, which there was one other car present.

My wife was too scared to get out of the car so I got out to assess the car and location. After looking at the car and seeing that it was fine, I broke out the binoculars and looked at Andromeda. I could already tell that the viewing was better than from my house, but the full moon pretty much ruined any proper location evaluation.

I'm not sure if I'll ever go back there again as it was so remote that you really feel like you could be in danger from something, but then again I'm sure it would have been a great site to view the skies on a dark night. My suggestion is to bring a group of people along, and go earlier when there is some daylight to make the trip less scary.

I'm always looking for a good stargazing area, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know.