Monday, July 3, 2017

Jello Plans

We left Spokane headed for the Olympic Peninsula, planning to take a two-lane route and split it up into two days. We stopped in Ritzville to see what was so special about a highly favorited cache. The last visitor hadn't found the log but we did.

It was a neat stop with lots of welded art. I think my favorite was this gal on her bicycle.

Typically, we'd schedule a stop at Glory Farm on our way across state, but this year they were crazy busy with 2nd Son's university graduation celebration so we hung a left at Ritzville, headed eventually for Chinook pass.

I will admit that one of the reasons we went this way was because the Hatton Coulee Rest Area featured not only dump stations for humans but also for RVs. Nothing beats a clean, well designed, FREE dump station. On the other hand, maybe that goes in the TMI category.

We also visited a handful of other caches that were supposed to be interesting, and an Earth cache was actually was interesting. Our intent was to take Chinook Pass over the NE shoulder of Mt. Rainer, in part because I don't recall ever driving that road. Turns out they were a couple weeks late in opening because of some late storms so we'll have to save that for another time.

We re-routed via White Pass to the south of Mt. Rainer and spent the night at Indian Creek - a national forest campground on Rimrock Lake. Nice campground that was nearly empty, but didn't have any usable connectivity or solar potential.

It did, however, have easy access to the lake. Would have been a fun spot with the kayaks.

Like most Northwest campgrounds, some of the trees were impressive.

Day two started in the rain that continued most of the day. We even stopped at a couple 'viewpoints' for nice views of the fog. Never did see a good view of Mt. Rainer but it's out there somewhere...

We stopped at the Post Office in La Grande (Washington) to drop off a trackable in the nearby cache. Yet another town I never knew existed.
After another fun day of two lanes, we arrived at the Escapees' Evergreen Coho RV Park to spend a few days letting the webs between our toes re-hydrate. Like our visit last year, we find this place to be both friendly and relaxing.

We're not the biggest rig in town, but this year we weren't the smallest, either. Evergreen served as a great base to visit Port Townsend, Port Hadlock, Sequim, etc. With the laundry done, the bugs temporarily washed off the front of the trailer, and a few new places visited, it will soon be time to hit the road again.

8 comments:

  1. I always stop at the Hatton rest area on my travels from West to East and back....All rest areas should have an RV dump..YEAR ROUND!..Amazing that they close many of them in the winter..What?.. Our RV's don't have to poo in the winter?
    Guess the powers that be don't have R.V.s
    Upriver

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  2. Olympic Peninsula is a good choice! We adore its national park

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    1. We didn't even get as far as the park this trip. Lots of time in Port Townsend.

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  3. Replies
    1. Missed you guys, too! Looks like you have your hands full with little squirmy ones right now!

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    2. They are darling right now and low maintenance. Trying hard not to fall in love with any of them, but might be losing.

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  4. It's a lot cooler on the coast than inland for sure..And now the fires have kicked up...Did you see that I-90 was closed at Vantage today?..Just the beginning I'm afraid, I can't leave my home by Chelan and go for a trip..
    Last year or the year before I had to race home from Montana because of the fires in my neighborhood. When I got home there were 11 firetrucks with crews from New Zealand and Australia protecting our homes..It was fun talking to them, they want to come back and enjoy the Pacific NW..W/O the fires I'm sure..

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