RV Travels With Huggy

I thought I'd report back on how the Prius is doing for us so far. We have over 800 miles on it at this point and our average mileage for that distance is right about 51 miles per gallon. I've filled the gas tank and will soon do it again, but it wasn't real low when I filled it. The tank was full when we got the car and I've read that you do not want to let it run out so, not knowing how accurate the gas gauge is, I filled it at only about 3/8 of a tank indicated. Most of our current mileage has been here around town with a couple of short freeway trips of 20 - 25 miles each direction. But, next week we will be driving to Spokane, about 320 miles away, so that will be a good road trip to see how it does on the highway.

So far the only negative we have found is that every time Pat gets out of it, either from the driver or passenger seat, she seems to build up a static charge and gets a spark that is very noticeable when she pushes the door closed. I keep telling her that it just indicates that she is a very electrifying woman but somehow I don't think she appreciates those little (or maybe not so little, according to her) jolts. We did add a static strap that drags on the ground but it didn't seem to help very much if at all. She has a static spray that she sometimes uses on certain clothes like slips and she sprayed the passenger seat with it. That, combined with the static strap, did seem to help. Now we need to see how long it will last. I'll have to post this as a question on the Prius Chat forum that I belong to and see if anyone else has this problem and if so, how did they resolve it.

It does look like our fantastic summer weather is over. We have had some rain over the last couple of weeks and rather than temps in the upper 70s, most days have been in the upper 50s or 60s. Right now we are in a few days of sunshine and daily high temps in the mid-60s, which is sure something we can't complain about. I just kind of hate to see the summer end.

A Blogger friend asked after my last post if I was going to change the name of my blog, now that I don't have an RV anymore. That is something I've wondered about before as Huggy hasn't traveled with us in the RV since we bought this new one in March of 2007, so the name hasn't been totally accurate for two and a half years. I probably should change it, or maybe just stop posting. All of these blogs seem to eventually end and perhaps that time has come for mine. My original purpose for starting it was to keep my family and friends informed of where I was and what I was doing as Huggy and I traveled around the Western United States in the RV. That has all changed, totally. I'll ask those who still bother to check my rare posts what you all think. Should I end it now? Or maybe just rename it and continue with no real direction?

Labels: Cars, Huggy, Reminiscing, RVing

All the Back To School sales that are going on and articles in the local newspaper would have me thinking that summer is about over. School seems to start earlier and earlier as time goes on. In our area we usually don't have very reliable summer like weather until after about the 10th of July but this year has been different. We had rain the day after we got back from our North Cascades Loop trip in mid-May and almost none since then. The temperatures have been pretty consistently in the 80s with a few days actually into the 90s. Until about a week and a half ago. Since then we have had some rain and cooler temps. But, now the thermometer is heading back up with talk of maybe into the 90s by mid-week.

Often I prefer to take trips after school has started in the fall as our September weather is usually beautiful, but that is also when I hope to go to the Spokane area for a week or so. Eastern Washington is cooler and more comfortable then than it is in the summer and we coastal residents are not used to hot temps. Maybe we will go there and down to the ocean for a few days. But we do need to rebuild the tow dolly in order to safely take the Beetle along and you got to have a tow car.

We did go to the local Skagit County Fair this past week and Pat was a lot braver than me and had a caricature drawing done of her by a artist who was there. I'll post it here and see what you all think of it.

I guess it is okay but I think I like some of my photos of her a lot better. But these things are not done to try to make them an actual portrait. And this was done just two days before she spent the morning at her hair dresser. Oh well.

Labels: Festivals, Griping, Pat and I, Reminiscing, RVing, Weather

We left the home of our friends in Manson, WA on Sunday, May 17th. I got the VW Bug loaded onto the tow dolly fine and we headed out, after lunch, for one of my favorite small towns to visit, Winthrop. Winthrop has adopted an Old West kind of look, with wooden boardwalk sidewalks, etc. There are even a few hitching posts in front of some of the stores plus a snack place where you can sit on saddles to eat your ice cream cone or mocha.

Anyway, we got to the KOA park in town with no problems from the dolly and were able to get a pull through site so didn't have to take the car off. The park gave us a shuttle ride on into the downtown area and the Duck Brand Hotel & Cantina where we like to eat dinner. We did walk through town but it was late enough in the day that most shops were closed, then the shuttle picked us up and took us back to the RV. There are no TV connections at this KOA so we just read and listened to music until bedtime.

Monday morning we had breakfast in the rig, then got ready to leave. Our trip that day was only about 140 miles but across the North Cascades Highway (WA State Route 20) which crosses two mountain passes in the rugged North Cascade Mountains. Washington Pass is over 5400' elevation and the peaks around it rise well above that. The State does not try to keep this roadway open through the winter but they do try to reopen it by May 1st. This year they made their deadline although there was over 60 feet of snow that had to be removed from the roadway in places. This time of the year you will still see a lot of snow alongside the road.

I stopped about three miles before we reached the first pass, Washington Pass, to take some photos of the mountains. It was a gloriously beautiful day, with sunshine and really quite warm for that high in the mountains. I parked alongside the road in a wide spot that had been cleared and here are the photo results:


This first view is looking ahead on up the road toward the summit. The mountain peak shown ahead is one of the most famous in this area, called Liberty Bell Mountain. The Cascade Mountain range divides Eastern Washington from Western Washington. It is a curtain that stops much of the ocean moisture (read that as "rain") that we are famous for in Western Washington from going to the Eastern side of the state, so there is actual desert over there. We locals tend to think of it as the wet and dry side. These mountains are also geologically pretty new so the peaks are rugged, coming to sharp points as opposed to most mountains in the eastern part of the country where those sharp points have been rounded over eons by wind and rain. The roadway is still below the tree line but the higher part of the peaks are above that line, so there are no trees up there. The elevation of Liberty Bell is listed as 7720' and it is a popular peak to climb, with easy to hard routes.


This view is off to the left of the roadway and just shows a few more of the mountain peaks that were around us. The trees are all evergreens, mostly spruce or fir. On the wet side there are a lot of cedar trees while the east side, down lower, has a lot of pine. But, they are all evergreens with needles rather than leaves.


This view is just to the left of the previous one and looking a bit back toward Winthrop. You can see how close the road is to the slope where it drops off into the valley. I think it would be quite a challenge to safely plow snow from this road when the snow depth is measured in feet and you can not see the edge from the snow plows. These people do a great job at what they do!

Anyway, while here I walked back to check on the car on the dolly. Good thing. I found the strap on the right front wheel had pulled completely off the tire. The only thing holding that side of the car to the dolly was the emergency chain! We tried to remove the strap to start over but I had a hard time getting the ratchet to release so I could loosen the strap. I finally got it loose, then it would not return to position to tighten it. We fought it about 15 minutes, then finally decided we had to take the car off the dolly and have Pat drive it home, following the RV. She did that- about 104 miles. Other than this, we arrived home shortly after 15:00 with no other problems.

I've looked over the problem with the dolly with Pat's son-in-law and we think the biggest problem is that the dolly doesn't fit the VW. The tie down connections are off to the side rather than centered on the wheels, so the straps are pulled off to the side, where they eventually fall off with the vibrations from pulling it over the roadway. We plan to rebuild it to actually fit it to that car, since that's the one we will tow. We will also replace the ratchets that came with it as they seem to be fairly lightly made. J owns an auto repair business and used to have a tow business so he is pretty familiar with this kind of thing. I know a lot of people tow various vehicles this way and it seems to work fine, so I guess we just have to fine tune our rig. It sure was easier to flat tow the Saturn!

Addition: Wow, I just noticed my hit counter for this blog shows that I've had over 50,000 visits since I put that counter on when the blog was 3 or 4 months old. Thank you all for your visits!

Labels: Griping, Landscapes, Pat and I, Photos, RVing

On our May RV trip around the North Cascade Loop drive, we spent our first two nights at Icicle River RV Park and I've already posted about our stay there. We next drove north to the town of Manson which is on the shores of Lake Chelan. Here is where a friend whom I worked with many years at Metro Transit in Seattle chose to retire to. We parked our RV in their driveway, connected to 120 volt power to just run a few things and were basically dry camping, using our own water and holding tanks, although we had the house right there with all of its systems.

R & D bought a home there which was on a former apple orchard and they originally did have about three rows of apple trees from the orchard on their property. When the rest of that property was sold, the new buyers of it were planning to put in grapes as they were starting a winery and wanted to grow some of their own grapes. I guess that you have certain obligations to maintain apple trees if you have more than a very few in order to protect the other orchards, and my friends didn't want that as a job so when the new owners of the bulk of the orchard asked them if they would like to have their trees "picked" along with the others, they did except for a very few chosen ones. They brought in a backhoe and chained the bucket to each tree, then picked them like a carrot. They were then run through a chipper to make a great mulch. This was about 2002 and there is now a producing vineyard where the former apple orchard used to be. I showed a photo that was a view from the deck of R & D's home, looking down across that vineyard toward the winery, which is named Tildio Winery for a type of birds that are found there. Here are a couple of other photos of the house and their view:


This is a similar view to the previous one but looking over the winery with a longer lens. You can still see a part of Roses Lake (R's fishing lake) as well as ridges and mountains around the area. Lake Chelan is something like 55 miles long, extending to the west-northwest from the town of Chelan. There is a small town named Stehekin at the west end. This link will take you to the City Guide for Stehekin. There are no roads into Stehekin from the outside and about the only access is via boat or aircraft. The "Lady of the Lake" makes daily boat trips from Chelan and carries mail, goods, passengers, etc. I do not know the permanent population up there but the City Guide says it is less than 100. If one wants a place to go that is a long way away from the rest of the world, this one fits the bill well. Plan to walk when there. This photo was probably taken on May 16th and as you can see, there still is quite a lot of snow at the higher elevations of the hills in the background. This area does have a "winter."


Here is a part of R & Ds west facing deck and some of the bird feeders located there. Many birds of various types are in the area, including a family of owls that has lived for some years in the evergreen glen behind the house. D especially enjoys feeding and watching the antics of the birds. Behind these picture windows is the living room so as you can guess, there is a fantastic view from there, too.

One of the things we like doing in this area is wine tasting at some of the many wineries. The dentist that D worked for many years for in the Seattle area retired over here and started a winery which is now probably the largest operation in the area and one of the longest running ones. It is named Tsillan Cellars which is the Indian spelling of the town, Chelan. This link will take you to their web site. I have posted photos from there in the past so really don't have a lot to add now, although here are two new ones.


This winery is on the other side of the lake from R & Cs home. The town of Chelan is about 7 miles down lake from Manson, at the foot of the lake, and this winery is just around the end of the lake on the other side. This view is from the winery which is located on a hill above the road and is looking across the lake. Manson is over there at the left and if the lens were long enough you could almost see the house where our RV is parked, except for the hill that is between there and the camera. Tsillan Cellars grows many of their own grapes on their own vineyards but they also bring some in from other growers, especially from other locations in Eastern Washington State.

The winery grounds are beautiful as are the buildings. Live entertainment is offered here often, outside when the weather permits. There is a large water system that starts with a pond at the upper level, then the water falls down to a lower pond that is stocked with colorful Koi fish. There is a small island in the lower pond, with a cover over it and that becomes a very popular place to enjoy a meal from the Italian restaurant at the winery, Sorrento's Ristorante (we ate our lunch there one day.)


This photo shows a young father showing his baby daughter the Koi fish from the bridge over to the island. Go check the winery website for other photos and more info about the place. If you are ever in the Chelan area, be sure to stop in for a visit and tasting and say "Hi" to Doctor Bob if he is in.

While in this area we didn't forget my daily mocha's. There is a new Starbucks but we sampled mochas from The Vogue in Chelan the first night there. They have live entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights so it can be a destination place of its own. We were back there on Saturday and took R to a local place near Manson for our mochas on Sunday, the morning that we left to move the RV on to the Western themed town of Winthrop which is located at the Eastern side of the North Cascades Highway. Our home is at the Western side of that highway. I'll do another post soon on our visit to Winthrop. This time we did not see the deer family there we photographed last year, but did again eat a dinner in my favorite Winthrop restaurant.

More later. Pat's granddaughter is graduating from Mt. Vernon High School tonight and it is time for me to make sure our cameras are ready for the event and to start getting ready for dinner before we go.

Labels: Friends, Photos, RVing, Small towns, Wine tasting

Our first stop on our recent RV trip was one of our favorite RV parks, the Icicle River RV Park at the Bavarian town of Leavenworth, WA. This park is about three miles up the Icicle River Road which is the first road you come to as you enter the town from the west on highway US 2 after coming through Stevens Pass. We did stop at our candy store, The Alps, but knew they had a bad fire there over this past winter and the building was totally destroyed. They are operating from one (soon to be two) small buildings that have been setup near the location of the old building but they did not have room for anything but candy. I bought some divinity fudge, Pat bought some cashew bark, probably our two favorites, at least in what they carry. They will rebuild and hopefully by next season be returned to full operation. It has always been a good place to buy toads and I am married to a toad collector. The previous photos that I posted of our tow dolly were taken here in this park and here are a few more photos to show a bit more of the place.


This shows our RV parked in space 100 which is right on the river. Our VW Bug is shown behind the RV. We used to travel with a Saturn which can be flat towed behind the motorhome but I traded it in on the Smart Car. The VW is front wheel drive (ours has a diesel engine with an automatic transmission) but it has to have it's front wheels off the ground when being pulled behind the RV. So, we had to buy the dolly. More on that later in another post.


This is a view looking alongside the driver's side of our RV toward the river which was right in front of the rig. This is one of the most popular spaces in this park due to the fantastic view of the river. Right now the river is running fast and high due to snow melt in the mountains. Of course the water is also very cold. We went to sleep every night listening to the rapids outside our front door. This view shows our slideout extended. When we bought this rig I wasn't sure if I would like having a slideout or not. So far, I really do like it as it gives a lot more useful inside room. Ours isn't real large and there is only one so the weight added is not too bad. As long as it keeps working as it should, I'll like it.


This view is looking downstream from an RV site that is a couple to the right of ours as you were looking at the previous photo. I think this shows the general lay of the land pretty well and a bit broader view of the river. The elevation of Leavenworth is 1200 feet so it isn't way up in the mountains although it does look to be when you see them all around you.

Our first morning there I got up, turned on the furnace to bring up the temp inside to a more comfortable level and started the coffee pot. Electric heat turned was off as I always do while the coffee pot is brewing. This was just after 6am, about our usual time to get up. At about 6:20, while watching the news on TV (cable in the park) and enjoying a cup of coffee, all our power went off. The only things we had running were the fridge on electric power, the coffee pot but it was finished brewing so just keeping the hot plate hot, and the TV. I may have turned the electric heater back on but it would have been just idling as the propane furnace made quick work of bringing the inside temp up from 56 to 68.

I went outside to check the electrical breaker at our campsite post but it had not tripped. Next I checked the inside breakers in the rig but the only one that could have turned everything off was the main and it had not tripped. I looked around but the campers on each side of us were not yet up. However, the lights were on on the porch of the clubhouse, just behind our campsite. We listened to the radio running on our small inverter, drank our coffee and got ready to leave. In town, we had a wonderful breakfast at Sandy's Waffle Haus (remember this is a pretend Bavarian town and that is the way they spell it) and when back to the campground, I hunted up the guy who maintains the place. He said they had every campsite double fused and reset the breaker that had tripped. It was inside a locked box on the side of the clubhouse behind us.


Here is that clubhouse and you can see the large breaker box on the side of the building. We hoped that would solve our problem. We went back to town, did our usual shopping, managing to only buy one thing each. But we did enjoy a lunch at what is probably our favorite restaurant there, Cafe Christa and even went back later in the afternoon to share a decadent Kahlua chocolate mousse cake like thing. Pat knows the name of it but she isn't here right now so I can ask. But it was VERY good! We also had mochas at Starbucks.

We were intending to eat at the rig, heating things from our freezer in the microwave, for dinner. Pat started heating the one that would take the longest time while we also watched the news on the TV. After the microwave ran for about three minutes, that d@#n breaker blew again. Now it was about 17:30 and the office was closed but I managed to find the volunteer on duty, told him of the problem, and he came with the key to reset the breaker. Again. Remember that box has a padlock on it.

Back to the RV, Pat restarted the microwave, this time with nothing drawing AC power except the microwave, and it is only a 1000 watt appliance. We were on a 30amp service so should have been okay for up to something like 3600 watts (120v times 30 amps) but again after three minutes or so, it blew the breaker! Me back to the volunteer who unlocked the box, reset the breaker and this time left it unlocked. (The park was not very full this time of the year on a weeknight so this was pretty safe. I knew exactly which breaker tripped and needed to be reset by now.)

Back to the RV. Pat had been thinking and came up with the idea that it seemed to go after a steady draw of power for about three minutes. So, she cooked our dinner using just two minute bursts of the microwave. This time it didn't blow the breaker again, and we were able to use the TV, the fridge on electric mode, the heater (all night) and the converter that powers the 12v lights, etc all evening without it tripping again. It just seemed to go with the draw of the microwave after about three minutes of running.

The next morning (Friday), as we were getting ready to leave the park, the maintenance guy came down to ask about it. Our conclusion is that perhaps that specific breaker has grown weak. He has extras and was going to replace it in the main box before the next camper arrived to use space 100. I was almost tempted to just give up on the campground power and use our generator to cook that dinner, but didn't want to pollute the area with generator noise!

Labels: Griping, Pat and I, Photos, RVing

We like to go to Eastern Washington State in the spring or fall as it is a bit hotter than we like in the summer. By May the weather there is good and we from the wet side of the mountains are more than ready for some dry, warm weather. This is our second year in a row making the trip around the North Cascades Loop drive but it was our first one taking the VW Bug as a tow vehicle on our new tow dolly. It has been an interesting experience.

I had never secured a car onto one of these so we asked Pat's son-in-law to help. It was done and we got away from Mt. Vernon about 10:30 Wednesday morning. We made it about ten miles when we discovered one of the straps securing the driver's side front wheel of the Bug to the dolly had come off, been drug for unknown miles along the freeway and pretty well torn up. Back to Mt. Vernon. Pat's SIL found another strap, it was installed a little differently and we were again underway, but this time we made many stops, the first after only about 2 miles, to check on those straps. They were fine.

We arrived in the Icicle River RV Park about 16:00, took the car off the dolly and parked the RV in our assigned space #100. Here is the dolly parked beside the RV:


Pat commented that the trailer light on the right side of the dolly didn't look right. Here is the one on the left side:


The right side light looked the same except it was turned 180 degrees to fit that side of the dolly. Here is a photo of that part of it now:

As you can see, she was right in that it didn't look right. In fact, it was gone. We have no idea where nor when it came off but it is totally gone. Now we will have to get another one when we get back home. But it has been working okay for us since then.

We spent two nights in Leavenworth, then yesterday drove to Manson, WA along Lake Chelan to visit our friends, R & D. Last year we stayed in a RV park in Chelan but this time are dry camping in their driveway. The house is out in the country on a former apple orchard. R likes to fish and Roses Lake is just below the house. The former apple orchard is now a grape vineyard and the winery is just beyond the vineyard. One of our favorite activities in this part of the state is to visit the various wineries and their tasting rooms. The nearest winery is that one just beyond the vineyard, a distance of about 500 feet from their house.


Here is a view from their deck looking across the vineyard to the winery with a part of Roses Lake beyond. This is a beautiful are.

Now I must stop as we are about to head off for a couple of more wine tasting rooms. More later.

Labels: Friends, Pat and I, Photos, RVing, Trips to see things

One of the things we did while at the ocean on our RV trip to Ocean Mist RV Resort at Ocean City, Washington last August was take our kites along and fly them. Here at home the winds seemed a bit fickle whenever we wanted to go kite flying but there is usually a steady breeze on the coast that comes off the ocean. The day these were taken was no exception.


Here is Pat flying my kite. Hers is a frog but my owl was up so I asked her to take its controls while I took some photos. This patch of grass is behind the RVs that were across the roadway from ours and between the RV park and the ocean itself. It was a great place for kites what with the steady wind, no trees nearby and plenty of open space.


A closer view of my kite. They are pretty inexpensive kites but actually fly pretty well when there is enough wind and it is fairly steady. I think she got them at Walmart for $5 each and that included the string. Pretty cheap fun!

My new computer that I ordered from Costco.com came last Wednesday. The monitor to go with it came a week sooner but it only came from California while the computer itself came from New Jersey. I ordered an extra 500GB hard drive and an extra DVD player/writer from Amazon.com and of course they came from different places and the HD didn't arrive until Monday this week. I only wanted to crack the case once so waited for both of them to arrive before installing either. I started setting it up on Friday, installed the two drives yesterday and finally got Microsoft Office 2007 installed last night and just today got Outlook setup with my addresses, past emails, etc. from the other machine. I have this new one sitting on a small RV table beside the other one but am about ready to swap the two machines. I'll put the other one on the laptop counter near Pat's computer to move her things to it, then put it in place on her computer desk. One of her daughters will take her old one home so all of them will be in use. I've now got enormous storage space with almost 2 terabytes of storage on hard disks, counting the external drives. What a change from 25 years ago when I first started playing with computers!

Labels: Computers, Flying, Pat and I, Photos, RVing

There is a great miniature golf course at Ponderosa Falls RV Resort and my brother and I played all 18 holes there on Wednesday of last week. That was the day the temperature reached 84 degrees in Spokane in the afternoon and of course that was when we were out there playing golf. This RV park used to be in the Yogi Bear Campground chain and there are still some left overs from that era, including the golf course. The course has a man-made river that flows through it, starting with a water fall that is about 25 feet high. There are foot bridges that cross the river in a few places through the golf course, and at one point there is a rapids that drops probably about 6 feet.


Here my brother, L, has just taken a shot and you can see the ball moving toward the camera on the carpet. As you can see there are lights and the course is playable until about 22:30 hours at night. The RV you see in the background is ours- we were right beside the 15th hole. This is about the only place that I can say that I "live" on a golf course!


One thing about just playing alone this way is that you can kind of make up your own rules. We would sometimes have the ball end up against one of the bricks at the side of the course and we determined that it was proper to move the ball up to 6 inches out into the course so that you could hit it with the putter. Here L is doing just that.


This view is looking down over the rapids toward the 15th hole, with our RV in the background. I hadn't taken my camera along but, thanks to cell phones, I called Pat who carried it out to me, handing it across the fence. Otherwise I'd have had to walk all the way back to the start and to the RV, then back to where we were playing. Alright, it wasn't all that far, but it was pretty hot!

This RV park is beautiful, with many Ponderosa pine trees all through it. Central Washington State is more of a desert with very few plants other than sage brush but about 20 miles west of Spokane you start back into the trees. Here they are the long needle Ponderosa pine rather than the predominant fir, spruce and cedar trees found on the west (wetter) side of the Cascade Mountains.


Here is the rapids as seen from below, with the fairway of the 15th hole at the left side of the photo. Those lights turn off at 22:30 so we could go to sleep at night but the water runs all night. At first we wondered if being so close to the rapids would be a problem but it turned out to just be a pleasant background sound, kind of like being near the ocean where the surf is breaking on the beach.


As I said, this place used to be a Yogi Bear Campground and here is Yogi's little friend, BooBoo, atop about the 5th hole on a large piece of driftwood. The driftwood really isn't green but with strong sunlight reflecting up on the bottom of the driftwood arch, it does give it a very green color. You can also see the waterfall that marks the start of the river. Of course the hole you had to sink the ball into is under that arch BooBoo is on.


I didn't have my macro lens along on this trip but my standard 18 - 200mm zoom lens will focus fairly close, so I was able to get a pretty good photo of this dragon fly who had lighted on a fir tree branch. This is a bit of an enlargement from the original image as it tended to fly off if I tried to get any closer.

The park has a lot of other activities available including an indoor swimming pool, weights room, pickleball court, volleyball, plus some neat things for kids.

Here my Grand Daughter, K, is enjoying one of the paddle boats in the kids lagoon at the park. K wasn't there with us this year- this photo was taken in July, 2006.

I really enjoy visiting Ponderosa Falls RV Resort. As I said earlier, it is one of the parks owned by the group I belong to, K/M Resorts, and it is one of those that I have spent the most time in. This one and Ocean Mist on the Washington coast where Pat & I visited back in August.

I have a few other miscellaneous photos from the trip that I'll post at another time. Now that we are home I have the faster Internet connection and posting of photos seems to work much better. But I did get these six edited in Photoshop Elements and uploaded to my Flickr site from my laptop computer with the WiFi connection in the park. So it wasn't all a failure.

Labels: Family, Grandkids, Photos, RVing, Trips to see things

We have been on the road away from home now for almost a week. I love traveling! But, we go home tomorrow and I love being there, too.

Our weather has changed. Wednesday the temp hit 83, Thursday about 73 and since then the daily high has been just in the 60s and there has been some rain, mostly over night. Today is supposed to be mostly sunny and even better tomorrow which will be nice as it is easier to drive the motorhome with the car in tow when it isn't raining.

I am able to log onto the WiFi system here in the RV park but it isn't working very well with my Flickr site so I've been unable to make a post with photos. We will be home tomorrow night and I'll probably be able to get to it Tuesday, after my dentist appointment. Anyhow, I do have a few photos from this trip and we'll get them up. Eventually.

Labels: RVing

We left home yesterday at about 9:15 with the motor home towing our Saturn "toad" car, stopped for my important "on the road" mocha, then hit the freeway southbound from Mount Vernon. There were no traffic problems anywhere along our route, even through Everett. They recently opened two extra lanes through town there so through the central part of town there are now four regular lanes plus one high occupancy vehicle lane and those really have made a difference. Of course, we were there just after 10, not at 8am in rush hour traffic.

Since we were heading east, we took the I-405 cutoff that goes east, then south through Bothel, Woodenville, Kirkland and Bellevue to the I-90 interchange where we picked up I-90 east bound. By Northbend it was time to stop for a potty break and to stretch our legs, then we were back on the road to cross Snoqualmie Pass over the Cascade Mountains.

Coming into Eastern Washington we started spotting signs for fresh peaches, so we stopped at Thorp Produce, a large place that is right beside the freeway. It is one of those places that I've always said that I wanted to stop visit but never did. This time we did. They were cutting samples of the peaches and they were wonderful! We only bought three but probably will buy a box next week when we are on our way home.

This place has a lot more than just fresh produce. We had forgotten to bring salad dressing but we found many there to purchase. Many sounded good but we managed to settle on two, one of which (Blackberry Walnut Dressing) we opened- it is very good. We also found some interesting things to buy to get a better start on our Christmas shopping. They are building what looks like a large gas station next door to the produce building. It would be nice if it also offered lunch.

But since it didn't, we drove on into Ellensburg and stopped at the large truck place there for lunch in their dining room. You know there will be plenty of space to park a 31 foot long motorhome with a Saturn tow car behind in a truck stop! As we were leaving, after a good lunch, there was a convoy of Army vehicles pulling in. Fort Lewis is on our side of the mountains, south of Tacoma, but these folks were heading for the Army's Yakima Firing Range which is larger than even Ft. Lewis for training exercises.

Back on the freeway, we continued east. I started thinking that the office at the campground might close at 17:00 and wasn't sure if we would get there on time if we made another stop, but we wanted to stretch our legs so pulled into one of the state rest stops. On this side of the mountains there is one about every 30 miles or so along I-90. I called and was right, they close at 17:00, so we limited our stop to a short one, hit the road and I jacked up our cruise control speed to 64 from the previous 56. We arrived here at 16:40 and were assigned space Y-8. After hooking up, Pat fixed dinner, we watched the news on TV (how about the stock market crash?), read & watched TV. To bed early, about 21:00, as we were both tired.

This morning we have sunshine but it is cool outside, probably about 50 degrees. The TV said to expect 73 by lunch time and a high today of 83. But by Saturday it said to expect cooler weather and showers. I don't know for sure where we are going today nor what we are doing, but will find out. Now for breakfast.

Labels: Pat and I, RVing

We will be leaving tomorrow morning on a week long RV trip to Spokane, WA! I usually go to my home town for one to two weeks in the summer but as Pat isn't fond (that is an understatement) of hot weather, and Spokane is usually in the 90s in July, we postponed the trip to fall. It looks like it will be a very good time to go as the forecasts sound like at least most of our week there has less than a 10% chance of rain and daily high temps in the 70s. It will be fairly cool over night but we will be in a full hookup RV park so can easily stay warm. Yipee!

I will take the laptop computer (what I am writing this now on) and we should be able to connect to the park WiFi system in our membership RV park that is just west of town. If that doesn't work out, I can take the PC to my brother's house a few times and hook it up on his broadband cable based system.

Now I must go mow the lawn then get back to work loading the RV.

Labels: Pat and I, RVing, Weather

While we were on our RV trip back in August I discovered this statue near the beach in Ocean City, Washington State. The northwest isn't as well known for surfing as Southern California or Hawaii, mainly because our water is very cold in comparison, but these guys don't exist all over the place either and are best known as living here in the NW. I couldn't resist taking a few photos of this Surfer Dude as we were leaving town.


He is cut out of a tree trunk with the surf board added, and stands beside the reader board sign of a beach side motel. Chain saw carving of trees into decorative sculptures is pretty popular up here and Grays Harbor County, where this motel is located, is well known for lumbering and chain saw carvers. Does anyone want a three foot tall bear that holds your Charmin (or whatever brand you like) toilet paper roll? They sell them around here.


Here is a little different angle view of the Dude. That is a pretty good nightly rate listed on the motel's reader board behind him. I can't speak to how good the place is as we have not stayed there, but from what I saw it isn't one of the newest nor fanciest places on the beach, but for $45 a night, I think I would be willing to stay there. It does appear to be clean.


A closer view of the Dude. Notice he is showing the traditional Hawaiian hand sign. Also notice the fog in the trees behind him and the motel. The ocean is out there and the morning fog hadn't yet burned off as we were leaving to drive home. And some people doubt that there really are Sasquatches living in the wild!

Labels: Hawaii, Humor, Photos, RVing, Small towns, Trips to see things

Here are a few photos from various places along the beaches from our recent RV trip. These are all north of where we were "camping" at Ocean City.


This is pretty representative of beach scenes along the northern part of the Olympic Peninsula. We are at the edge of the Olympic Rain Forest and the sky is overcast much of the time. There are also a lot of streams and rivers that flow down from the Olympic Mountains into the Pacific Ocean along here. This area shown here in the photo is on Quinault Indian Tribal lands and the beach is posted no trespassing. I was on the shoulder of the road that runs north along the coast to the Indian town of Taholah on State Route 109.


This sign was just a few feet from where I took this photo.


Here is a different view with a different focal length lens of a part of the area in the previous photo. This beach is pretty flat although there are some large rocks as you can see in the distance. The foliage is lush and dense due to the temperate climate and a lot of rainfall.


On Tuesday the 12th, after our trip north to Taholah, we stopped for lunch in the Green Lantern Pub in Copalis Beach. This is the view we enjoyed from there, looking north across the grass and down the meandering stream toward the open ocean. The mist hanging on the upper part of the hill in the background tells you a lot about the weather conditions down here.


A little different view of the same area as the last photo. This was taken with a longer focal length lens (more of a telephoto) and shows the stream a lot better. The hill here is the lower one that just shows at the far right side of the last photo.


And this is a closer view yet. There could easily be wildlife in the view as they are all around.

These beaches are sure different from those in Hawaii, like that one in the last post, that I took on Maui while we were there last October. It is hard to remember that this cold water is the same as that warm, comfortable water over there. We didn't really have much sunshine during this trip but it was still nice weather, for the Washington Coast. Any day down there that it doesn't rain is a pretty good weather day.

Labels: Photos, RVing, Trips to see things, Weather

Okay, another week has gone by and I am just now getting the next post made of our trip to the ocean. I went through the photos from the beach at Ocean Mist Resort and came up with a dozen photos that kind of show what it was like. The day was overcast as it often is on the coast but it was not very cold. The beach there is reached by walking along a trail over the sand that at first goes through grasses and other plants that can grow in the sand. It is about a quarter of a mile down there and the walking is not bad but it is not a wheelchair accessible path. In Washington State you are allowed to drive vehicles on the beach at some places, one of which is the main beach at Ocean Shores, so at that location a person in a chair can get right out there.


This first photo shows Pat at a place near the start of the trail, with another couple ahead who are also heading to the beach. You can see the trail markers standing u alongside the trail farther along.


Here are the two trail markers viewed from a different direction. There really is an ocean out there but we are standing a bit above it so you can't see it beyond the grass.


Pat is approaching the first of the two trail markers. People have a lot of fun adding things they have found along the shore to these trail markers so they are changing all of the time.


Ah, there is it! Yes there really is an ocean out there. The beach here is quite flat and the sand is very fine grained. When there is a strong wind that sand can actually blow in the wind. I'd rather not take my car down to the beach under those conditions. My paint job doesn't need to be sand blasted!


Pat likes to send photos from her cell phone to her daughters. We had a good strong cell phone signal on the beach so it was easy to send them but the overcast lighting didn't offer a lot of contrast so those small photos didn't really show much. The bigger cameras do a better job.


We walked down there in the afternoon so the sun was fairly low in the sky behind the clouds. I guess that is what makes this look almost like a sunset. You can also see that there is a pretty good surf down there and surfing is a popular sport, although they all do it in a dry suit as the water here in the north Pacific is pretty cold. My younger son doesn't surf on a surf board but he likes to come down here and use his boogie board. And you really should be a good swimmer to venture out there as the rip tides are very strong at times.


I don't know what these little shore birds were but they made an interesting photo with their reflections in the wet sand. They all move in mass farther up the beach as that big 7th wave breaks and comes up far enough to reach them. Notice the seagull flying toward us near the left side of the photo.


Here a group of seagulls are flying along the beach in mass. You can also see a fishing boat on the horizon about a third of the way into the photo from the left side. That pounding surf is pretty loud when you are this close but it is kind of a soothing background noise from up in the campground. Good night music.


A closeup view of a flock of seagulls flying along the beach. Notice how everything is gray and white without much in the way of color.


Now we introduce a bit of color. A father & his daughter are digging in the sand a short distance away from us. Beaches are a fascinating place for kids.


Here is the young girl with her Mom as they were racing up the beach toward the trail. The girl beat Mom to the top!


And here's the beach trail from the beach end of it, showing the RVs in the background. Ours is just across the street from one of those near the left side of the photo. And you are getting a closer view of one of the trail markers. Things like that bright orange boat float help to see this thing on these gray days. Some of these photos lacked color so much that I tried changing one of them to a black & white image in Photoshop. Can you tell which one it was?

These photos make it look kind of cold and almost foggy down there. It wasn't bad and was never cold during our trip. There was almost no rain while we were there. Right on the beach there really isn't very much color. Notice how much brighter the photos look when people are introduced, or those farther up the beach where the grass and other plant life is. I have some other landscapes from other places along the beach farther north and I'll probably post them next. These were all taken right at the resort.

EDITED:
I tried editing some of the photos that I had uploaded to Flickr and this post got all messed up. I am just finishing redoing it, will save and then check it out. I hope it will be okay. If you came by during the interim while I have been working on it, I am sorry about the missing middle part.

Labels: Pat and I, Photos, RVing, Trips to see things, Weather

We got away a bit after 11am on Monday, Aug. 11th and drove south on I-5 through Seattle (slow traffic even at that time of the day) to Olympia where we turned west toward the ocean beaches. Across the Black Hills to Elma where we stopped for a late lunch at the Rusty Tractor Restaurant. From there it was just about an hour on out to our destination, Ocean Mist Resort at Ocean City, WA. We arrived about 16:00 and were able to check into space B-108 which is one of the spaces in the outer part of the park, nearest to the ocean. I got us hooked up and we hopped in the car to run over to Ocean Shores for a stop at the grocery store for a few things that we forgot to bring along. I'll break this down into multiple posts about various parts of the trip, with this first part being about the Resort itself.


The sign along the highway is the first thing you see. This park is one of nine that are in the group owned by my membership park, K/M Resorts. Ocean Mist is one of the original four they owned when I first joined the group in June, 1998. I haven't yet been to all of them but have been back to this one many times as it is a favorite, but this was Pat's first time here.


The park is made up of two parts, the original front part and the newer back part which is across a bridge over a creek and right out on the beach. This photo is of the clubhouse which located in the older part. There are a volleyball court, horse shoes, children's play toys, a fire pit and lots of grass outside plus large TV, kitchen, puzzles, book exchange, etc. inside. These membership parks have events going on all of the time, especially during the summer. We didn't partake in any of them as I am not a poker player and most things happen on the weekends. We are retired so usually go camping during the week, leaving the facilities for those still working on the weekends.


There is no swimming pool here but there is a hot tub, located beside the men's showers & restroom, across from the clubhouse. For those who really want to swim, there is the ocean, but it is cold and there is a lot of surf.


The outer part of the Resort is across this bridge that goes over Conner Creek. This bridge looks a bit imposing but I don't find it any problem to drive over. It is no problem in the RV which is pretty large but in a car you can feel like you are about to drop the wheels on one side of your car off the side into the center part. The walkway on the right side is fairly new, having been added since I was last here in 2002. When I was first here in 1998, the outer area had not yet been developed.


This photo was taken from the bridge, looking north along Conner Creek. You can see the next bridge beyond ours. I think the water here is fresh water and it never seems to go up and down, so I'd guess it isn't affected by tides.


This is a view of the outer row of RVs. Ours is the one you can see the front of just beyond the blue pickup and it's trailer in about the center of the photo.


Here is our rig in it's space. Our electric jacks did not want to work on the right side so I ended up using the plastic blocks to raise that side to level the RV. You want to be as level as you can both for the benefit of the refrigerator and to help the slide out work smoothly. We will have to have the jacks checked and they should still be covered on warantee as I recall they were to be covered for two or three years. There were three nice groups of pampas grass just outside the door of our RV.


This view shows my favorite lady walking ahead of me as we were walking toward the bridge to go check out the clubhouse. Just beyond Pat is the building here in the outer part of the campground that contains the laundromat (there are two- one at the clubhouse) and both men's and women's showers & restrooms. Straight ahead is the bridge and it really isn't as far as it looks to be in this picture as this was taken with a fairly wide angel lens (18mm.) You can see her cell phone hooked to her belt. We had good cell phone connections all along the beach.


Ever since the outer area was opened there have been a couple of rental trailers available for members to rent. It used to be that you would get the space beside the trailer for your RV, the idea being that non-RVer friends or relatives would stay there while the member had their own rig close by. Now they have added a couple of what look to be park model RVs in those spaces.


The trail to the beach is just to the right of the right hand park model RV shown in the previous photo. The beach is about a quarter of a mile walk along a sand path through the tall grass. This part of the beach is always above the high tide line, although some areas here might get some salt water at high tide along with strong winds, like sometimes happens in the winter. And you do want to heed that warning sign about the tides. These beaches are notorious for rip tides. Some people drown every summer on the Washington beaches from not understanding how they work and being sucked out to sea. The open ocean is not a good place for people who are just learning to swim to practice. I'll show you some photos later of the waves that break on shore. This is the open Pacific Ocean. The next big land mass to the west is Asia.

We spent three nights here and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was 192 miles down there from home or 384 round trip. Our RV gets 8 miles to a gallon of gas which cost $3.919/gallon when we filled up, or about $188 for the trip. The campground cost nothing beyond my $280 plus tax dues for each year. $188 would not have covered three nights in motels down there and we ate all meals except lunches at the RV rather than paying restaurant prices. So, I think that even for a short trip like this one, it was cheaper to take the RV than it would have been with the car. And besides, I like being off in the RV. More soon.

Labels: Pat and I, Photos, RVing, Trips to see things