Gorgeous, and a pleasant afternoon stop. It is still functioning, so don't be confused when you check in at an actual funeral home. They'll give you a map that highlights the top ten grave sites that people ask about, and I'd say that I had no idea who eight of them were. Google maps made it more complicated then necessary to get here; one wrong turn and suddenly you're in a rundown sketchy neighborhood. It's pretty, but after stopping at the Christmas Story house, I really just wanted to get back on the road.
Sure, it's a best western, so what's to review? Well, after two weeks on the road, I can tell you there are differences. This place was clean, more or less updated (needed some touching up in the bathroom but we really didn't care), and pet friendly. Lots of grass around the hotel for the dogs to run. The staff were great in that they were college aged kids who were fun and friendly and helpful. Again, the bar was set low by other places we stopped for the night, but there's a lot to be said for normalcy.
We were only here for a night, and thought it was near Devil's Tower, but it wasn't really. The grounds were pretty empty. We were on the top of a hill that sat between two different bodies of water. One of the waterways (no idea what it was) had trees and little coves and rocks, looked slow moving, and it would have been fun to paddle around in a canoe or kayak for a few hours.
The campground entrance seemed to be a ways from the road, and then once you hit the ranger station, you still have another mile or so to drive to find the grounds, so we didn't hear the traffic of I-5, but we also stopped a couple times thinking that we must have passed the entrance.
We choose this spot because it was about 8 hours outside of Seattle, our first stop on our trip. It's conveniently just off of I-5, and if you get a good spot, then the river and rocks and whatnot are all gorgeous. But, for us, we rolled in and couldn't find our spot because the ranger was leading an educational talk pretty much IN our spot. Turns out we were right next to a meeting area. We didn't want to set up and make noise or have them watch us, so we just sat awkwardly for awhile. We could hear the traffic on I-5 until about midnight, and then there's a train which did seem to stop from 12 to 5am or so. The bathrooms were fabulous, mostly because they were actual toilets and sinks. Very clean, smelled pleasant enough. It's a small campground which was nice, too. OH, and you can buy firewood there, too. Out of a giant machine that only takes quarters (although there is a change machine but make sure you have 1's or 5's; sure, it breaks a $10, but then you have $6 in quarters in your car). It wasn't bad for a one-night stop.