Campground Notes

We've been internetless the last few days so we've got some catching up to do. 

We're at Salt Creek Recreation Area west of Port Angeles, WA, on the northern side of the Olympic Peninsula. It’s a county campground with wonderful views of Strait of Juan de Fuca.  The international border between the US and Canada runs down the middle of the strait, which is the entrance to the Puget Sound from the Pacific Ocean. We're paying $27 a night for full hook ups. 

Before Salt Creek, we spent one night in Olympia, WA, at the old but charming Olympia Campground about six miles south of Olympia.  Huge trees, and some very private camping spots.  $36 a night with taxes and no discounts.

We also recently stayed at the Columbia Sun RV Resort in Kennewick, WA. It was expensive at $44.50 a night (although not as expensive as the place we stayed in Coeur d'Alene) -- but we got a “Passport America” discount where you get two nights for half price. Like most private parks, they charge less if your stay for a week or a month. If you need to be in the Tri Cities area of WA for a while it could be a good choice as it’s new, clean, well cared for, and the staff was great. 

We’ve stayed at a lot more private RV campgrounds this trip. Usually we camp at state parks, national parks and military bases. But other than the Grand Tetons, Glacier, Yakima, and where we are right now -- Salt Creek Recreation Area west of Port Angeles, Washington -- we’ve parked our RV at private places.  After the Tetons and Glacier, we were ready for full utilities (electricity/water/sewer) which those parks didn’t have.  Then in Livingston, Bozeman, Missoula, Coeur d’Alene, and Kennewick we wanted to do more “city stuff” and be as close to town as possible, so we stayed in nearby private RV parks. Yakima has a convenient state park practically in the middle of town, so that’s where we chose to stay when in that town.

All in all, we like being out in the “boonies” where we can hike, kayak, have great views and explore.  Our two solar panels provide enough juice to run our lights, and we have an inverter we can use to charge our computer and phones and grind our coffee beans.  

But sometimes it’s just plain nice to have access to the microwave.  Here at Salt Creek we have both the microwave and the view.

Where we are right now: Salt Creek Recreation area west of Port Angeles, WA.  That's the Strait of Juan de Fuca behind us.  The park has forests, rocky bluffs, tide pools, and amazing views.  We've had great neighbors:  Dave and Dora from Colorado who are camping in a small Casita trailer, plus full timers from Coos Bay, OR, who had portable kayaks.

This is the Olympia Campground just south of Olympia, Washington.  It's an older but lovely campground in the middle of huge Douglas fir trees.

The Columbia Sun RV Resort in Kennewick, WA, is the newest local, private RV campground and owned by some folks who are long-time local residents. Since it's new and the trees are small, it probably can get windy and hot -- but it was a pristine campground with very nice staff.

Washington Rendezvous

Oh dear.  We laughed a lot in Kennewick and Yakima, Washington, visiting Jim's high school friends Buddy and Pat and their respective spouses Nancy and Cindy.  The guys graduated from Davis High School in Yakima and have known each other for what ... 50 years? How can that be? The four locals stay in close touch and have celebrated New Years Eve together for many years.

First we met Buddy and Nancy at our Kennewick RV park (wish we'd taken some photos), then the six of us had lunch at Shakeys Pizza Parlor in Kennewick, then Jim and Bev met up with Pat and Cindy in Yakima. Thanks for your hospitality Buddy/Nancy/Pat/Cindy!

Bev,  Nancy and Cindy outside of Shakey's Pizza Parlor in Kennewick. 

Bev and Jim at the Bale Breaker Brewing Company in Yakima, where we had dinner, brews, and listened to a Bellingham, WA band called the Yogoman Burning Band.  Pat and Cindy drove us back to our park, but  park was closed, but someone let us in, then Jim almost fell in a pond ...  it's a long story.  Alls well that ends well.

Jim photo bombs Cindy and Pat at the Bale Breaker Brewery while holding an actual hop.   The great grand parents of the current brewery owners planted hops in the Yakima Valley in 1932, the year before prohibition ended. Today the brewery is surrounded by the family's hops fields. Bev had never seen hops close up before and thought they smelled minty.

As the guys tell it, Buddy was not the wild child in high school that Pat and Jim were.  Buddy is now making up for it; Pat seems nonplussed and Jim is oblivious. Maybe you had to be there, but this photo made the six of us laugh very, very hard.  Cindy is using it as her screen saver. 

It was bound to happen sooner or later

During the three years we've been on this RV adventure, our tow car has had two flat tires. But we've never had a flat on our motor home. Until yesterday.

We were driving south on US 395 in Washington State, when all of a sudden the metal grill on our cook top started rattling like crazy. That grill is the noisiest part of of motor home when we're on the move; for the most part, however, we've figured out how to silence it. But it went nuts.

Jim also heard a quick "thump, thump, thump" and said "I think we've got a flat."  He slowed  way down, hoping the road was just rough. Going slow didn't help. The thump thump just got slower.

While Jim was still driving I walked to the back of the rig to check the tow car. It looked good and so did the tow car's tires, so we pulled to the side of US 395.  A quick glance at the rig's tires told us the passenger-side outside dual was not happy.

We slowly limped about three miles to the nearby town of Eltopia, Washington, and Bev called our RV insurance company which includes road service. This is the first time we've used Foremost Insurance's road service and they were great. The agent stayed with me on the phone while we got to a safe place, immediately texted what road service company would help us and the time they would arrive, and checked back to make sure assistance appeared as promised.

The guy who showed up (in just 30 minutes) was great, too, but rather ill prepared. He didn't have an assortment of lug nut wrenches to remove the tire, he didn't have tools needed to remove a dual, and he didn't have air in case our spare was low.  But he stuck with it and after a lot of kicking, maneuvering, jerry rigging, and help from Jim, he got the flat off and the new tire on -- and fortunately our four-year old spare had air.

Next stop was Les Schwab in Kennewick, WA, where we got a new tire because the old one is toast.  

Last year when we traveled south on US-395, our tow car battery died as we got to Connell, WA, the first town north of Eltopia.  We are now calling this area the Connell-Eltopia Triangle.

Jim pulling the spare out of our storage compartment.  It was buried beneath lawn chairs, tire covers, a rug and sundry other items that are now in our tow car.  

Waiting to be swapped: Spare to the left, flat to the right.  The flat does not look that bad because it's being held up by the inside dual tire.

Waiting for road service:  While waiting, the white car to the left pulled in and parked next to us, then another car parked in front of us.  It was creepy and Bev told Jim to get the bear spray -- but apparently both drivers were picking up people who had car pooled to work.

Road service guy and Jim work to get the tire off.  Jim was rolling the spare into the flat to try to dislodge the bad tire. 

The cause of the flat.  Obviously we hit road debris, although we didn't feel the hit.  

Poking around Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

We had a good time wandering around Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. 

With 44,000 people, Coeur d'Alene has the second largest metropolitan area population in Idaho. Named by French trappers for a tribe of Native Americans, Coeur d'Alene literally means "heart of the awl" which, per Wikipedia, might mean shrewd and could reflect the trappers' perceptions that the Native Americans were tough business people. It has a busy, touristy downtown with lots of shops and restaurants, shade-tree-filled neighborhoods, and lots of walking/hiking/biking paths. Plus a cemetery with trees the size of ones we saw in Glacier National Park.

Very pretty town, but most of my photos were taken at a brew pub. Figures. Like I said, we had a good time.

The motor home park where we stayed in Coeur d'Alene --Blackwell Island RV Park -- had pretty water lilies so I again experimented with the water color setting on my camera.

The Coeur d'Alene Resort takes up a hunk of downtown.  It has a marina, convention facilities, spa, floating boardwalk and a golf course with a "floating green" accessed via shuttle boat. Pretty fancy.

Koi in the Coeur d'Alene Resort's 32-foot long fish tank.  Compare the size of the fish to the size of the people on the other side of the tank.  Or maybe those people were inside the tank, too.  I can't remember. But the fish were at least 18 inches long.

This beer looks bigger than my head, and my head is huge.  Actually, its a ten-ounce pour of Anderson Valley Imperial Stout that I got at Crafted Tap House and Kitchen in downtown Coeur d'Alene.  Jim had Maiden the Shade IPA.

Crafted Tap House and Kitchen had maybe 50 beers on tap.  An iPad-type tablet with details of all the offerings was at each table.

Whoops, I cut off Jim's head. But here's the very prettily presented food we had at Crafted:  Garbanzo bean patties (foreground) for Bev and shrimp patties for Jim. 

So what do you do out there in your kayaks?

Jim and I are at Blackwell Island RV Resort in Couer d'Alene, ID.  The south end of Blackwell Island touches Lake Couer d'Alene.  The rest of the island is surrounded by the Spokane River.

It's been windy, but today we got a chance to paddle around the island. As we were taking the boats off our car, a man walked over from a nearby RV.  "I have to ask you a question," he said. "So what do you do out there in your kayaks?"

We told the man we like to hike, but that kayaking gives you a different perspective on nature.  We told him about seeing herons flying low and right over our heads, about squirrels that jumped to floppy branches just inches from our elbows, about being in the middle of dozens of black coots that run along the water before they lift into the air.

Guess that wasn't productive enough.  "So do you fish?" he asked.

No we don't. We just paddle and look, paddle and look, paddle and look. Take some photos.   Paddle and look. Later -- long after the man had returned to his RV and we'd completed our paddle -- Jim and I started joking about what we could do while kayaking, but don't.  Listen to the radio. Knit.  Read. Drink beer. Throw fire crackers. The options are endless.

Jim about to go under US-95 on the Spokane River.

Along the river were lots of little inlets and lots of big greenery.  Near here we saw a couple with dogs; one of the dogs ran out in the water and chased Bev.  First time that's happened.

On the Spokane River:  Ducks to the left, Jim to the right.

We paddled through some boat slips.  Jim and his kayak look pretty tiny to the right of this yacht.

I (Bev) kept trying to take a photo that would show how the choppy water was on the lake -- but I had a hard time controlling my boat with hands on the camera instead of the paddle, so this little wave is the best I could get.  The Spokane River section of our paddle was more protected from the wind and mostly calm.

Blackwell Island Resort as seen from the water.  It has water access, is close to town, has lots of spaces -- but was completely full Friday night -- and cost more than any place we've stayed other than when we were in New Orleans:  $51 a night including tax.  No Good Sam, no Triple A discounts, although they do give 5  percent off if you pay in cash.  The location was right and it was Labor Day weekend, so we bit the bullet and paid.

As we were taking out our boats we saw these folks and Bev later talked with them.  They have a large Class A motor home with a matching trailer; the trailer can haul both the blue truck and the red boat behind it. A lift in the trailer raises the boat so the truck can be backed in underneath.  Ho. Ly. Cow.