Think of Washington state and what comes to mind? Rain, coffeehouses, evergreen forests—not arid gold deserts punctuated by fruit farms. But that, I discovered while hitching along I-90, is what the eastern two-thirds of the state consists of. For a month I picked apples on a farm outside Wenatchee, living in a tent among the fruit trees, reading John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle at night. I recommend crossing the Cascades out of Seattle to see another Northwest.