Olympic Peninsula

Our first view of the Olympic Peninsula mountain range as we disebmarked the ferry at Kingston, WA. This has been a rare clear day on our trip, but we are not going to look a gift horse in the mouth....even with the sun out the temp only got to 45 today. We left Coupeville around 9:40am this morning and headed south on HWY 20 to Clinton where we would "hop" on the ferry to Mukilteo, and then south to Edmonds where we would catch a second ferry to Kingston. All together we only covered about 110 miles. Amazingly we arrived at Clinton just 10 minutes before the ferry was to depart. We made it down to Edmonds around 11:30am, but needed to get some diesel before we hit the Peninsula as it would cost way more there...we found a small Union 76 station where we took on 126 gallons of diesel at $2.85 per gallon....on the Peninsula it is over $3.10. We then headed down to the Edmonds ferry, and were astounded to arrive there just as they were loading the last vehicles for the 12:05pm ferry....we were the last large vehicle on....that was the way our day went.....everything just fell into place today with NO planning.

This was the view that greated us on arrival in Port Angeles at the local KOA....just as the sun was setting in the west behind the Olympics. I pulled out the BBQ for the first time on this trip and cooked up a couple of filet mignons....what a great end to a great day.

Crossing Hood Canal bridge........

Waiting in line at the Clinton Ferry......



Onboard the Clinton Ferry.......

Port Gamble...established around 1859.....

Coupeville, Whidbey Island, WA

We awoke at 6am as Elaine had some "work" stuff to get done while she had a fast WiFi signal at Mt. Vernon RV Park. By the time we got underway the rain had started, and it rained steadily all the way to Coupeville, but hey, we have a Newell, so no worries. We stopped in Oak Harbor at the local Safeway supermarket to stock up on wine, and some shrimp for dinner tonight at our friend's home. Right now we are courtesy parked behind our friend's home. Had to drive down a 200 foot dirt/gravel road to the concrete slab where we are courtesy parked now.

On our way south on Whidbey Island we crossed over the famous Deception Pass bridge....which is really two bridges, and are they ever narrow!

The rain has stopped, and we are getting ready to put steaks on the BBQ.......life is good, even if it is 45 degrees outside.

Heading west....

Sunday, November 29th, dawned clear again....the weather reports for the next few days show partly cloudy skies, with no significant rainfall, or snow predicted! Great! A perfect day to escape the amazing food vortex we found ourselves trapped in the past 5+ days. Originally, we had planned to take I-90 west to I-5 and then take the Bremerton Ferry over to Bainbridge Island and then across the Olympic Peninsula. However, we found out our good friends from our College days would be home afterall. They live near Coupeville, WA on

Whidbey Island. We normally visit them once a year, but hadn't been able to carve out the time the last 18 months, so we were thrilled they would be home. So, we decided to take US Highway 2 west to Everett, WA and north on I-5 to Anacortes, and then south on 20 to Coupeville.

What a great choice! This is a wonderfully maintained highway, although mostly 2 way traffic, it is very driveable, and uncrowded. The terrain was quite varied as we journied westward. We would go from vast farmland, to volcanic range land, then back to farm land, then into mountains, then river valleys, etc. This is a great secondary east/west road to explore such little towns as Coulee City (just south of Grand Coulee Dam), Chelan Lake, and many other quaint towns with large antique stores, and great restaurants.

We stopped in the little town of Cashmere, WA where we ate lunch at a great 50's diner called "Studebaker Diner". The portions were enormous.....we should have split the Bleu Cheese/Bacon Burger, but I ate the whole thing myself. The Diner is attached to this enormous antique mall that must encompass 10,000 square feet. We spent the better part of an hour after our late lunch sifting through the 1,000's of items. I have no purchases to report, but would love to revisit this little town that seems to have several of these large antique malls where locals consign their treasures for sale.

Our original plan was to get over Steven's Pass (4,100' elevation) and then find a suitable RV park to overnight in before finishing our jaunt to Coupeville....unfortunately not much presented itself for consideration, and we ended up driving all the way to Mt. Vernon where we found this charming little RV park called.....what else....Mt. Vernon RV Park.

To the left is a view of the highway just to the west of Steven's Pass....there was a lot of snow piled up in the pass. Glad we came through on a day with no snow, or rain!

Elaine is busy finalizing payroll on E-Labor. Once she is finished we will saunter on down to Coupeville where we will spend a couple days with our friends before heading out to the Olympic Peninsual to explore.

The Newell has performed flawlessly. Her heating systems work hard to keep us more than comfortable. The windshield wipers and washer keeps our view clear. Her waste tanks are massive......we just dumped our tanks for the first time in 9 days, and still had room to spare. We are getting a little rain.....I hope it stops before I have to disconnet our sewer and power. The adventure continues....stayed tuned!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving day dawned clear of clouds, rain, fog, etc. As I peared out the salon window I could see my brother-in-law busily preparing the large turkey for insertion into the oven. My sister was preparing various dishes (creamed broccili, sweat potatos, salad, and on it goes.

About mid-morning we took a hike....my sister's home backs up to National Forest.....in the 48 degree weather. Later we got all the adult males outside, plus several of the kids for a game of "H-O-R-S-E" at the basketball hoop across the street. I haven't played basketball in about 20 years, but managed to hang tough for 10 minutes before beling unceremoniously eliminated....my 10 year old niece did better than I....LOL!!

This table is around 90 years old, and can seat even more people if needed by inserting a few more "leaves".

Hmmmmm......how about a "do over".....I can still smell the ubiquitous aromas wafting throughout the home. As we ate each of us took a turn and talked about things we are thankful for.....I am/was thankful for relatives who still want me to visit them....LOL! Most of all, though, I am thankful for a wonderful family that knows how to laugh.

After dessert, we retired to the media room to watch "What's Up Doc?"....a hilarious 1970's era movie produced and directed by Peter Bogdonovich, and starring Barbara Streisand, Ryon O'Neill, Madelene Kahn. If you want non stop funny, rent this DVD! My mouth hurt after laughing continuously for an hour and a half. Great ending to a wonderful day.

Spokane courtesy parking....

At first blush I thought "we are not going to fit this monster into that postage stamp sized place", but my brother-in-law assured me they had measured and there was enough flat space to setup without dislodging the garage roof, or any other part of the home, so I slowly "slid" down into the short narrow space, and what do you know......we did fit and it took very little leveling. When I lowered the left side to come level I didn't realize how close to the ground the left rear of the motorhome would come to the ground. Just to the rear of the coach the driveway incline starts.

Here are pictures showing just how close I came to crunching my exahust pipe and bike rack.

The temperature got up to 50 today....first time we have had temps over 40 since South Jordan, UT. As has been the case in the past, when we get into temps over 40 the right rear suspension rises to the proper height and stays there. Today was a beautifuly sunny day with no wind, so I took a few hours to wash 3 days of slush, mud and rain off the coach. The wax job I had done just before we left sure made the job easy, and she has been restored to her pre-trip glory. Tomorrow is Turkey day, and we have a lot to be thankful for.....1400 miles into our 3 week adventure we have had no mechanicals, and all is well.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of those who have been following our trip so far.

Can you spell...M-I-S-S-O-U-L-A?

It was so overcast this morning that when I looked at the digital clock on the wall I thought I was misreading it....it said 7:15am......what? I usually wake up before 6.....even after 7am, it was still DARK outside. We decided we would forego making breakfast....OK, Elaine she would not make breakfast this morning...we would go to Lowe's first, and then to Starbuck's for a "coffee of the day" and some pastry and then hit the road before 9am. We got on I-90 around 8:40am, so we had that going for us. The cloud cover was very thick, and it sprinkled on an off for the first 20 miles, then it settled in to a steady drizzle, sometimes hard, mostly just drizzle all the way to Coeur d'Alane. We only had a little over 2oo miles to go today, so we got to play with the windshield wipers for a few hours, and the window washer after each semi passed throwing all kinds of gunk on to our windshields. The great thing is the "used" window washer resevoir/pump I had installed last summer, but had never had occasion to really use, worked wonderfully. Another great Ebay purchase!

Our first pass of the day was Lookout Pass at about 4,500'.....a little snow, but mostly rain. The second pass of the day was 4th of July Pass, which was much lower elevation, but we had serious snow for about 10 minutes, when as we descended it turned to steady rain again. Both passes had easy approaches, but Lookout had about 6 miles of 6% grade descending.

We stopped at a place called 50,000 Silver $...so you can guess what they specialize in......right, Buck Knives.....OK, sorry, just messing with you....silver dollars. They had several that were minted in the early 1880's. I didn't know that the last silver dollars minted where in 1935. The ones from the 1880's went for over $250, while the ones minted in 1935 were in the $50 range.

Before we knew it we were passing by Lake Coeur d'Alane to our left. Once through Coeur d'Alane (it sounds nothing like it is spelled), we had to take time to stop at Cabella's right on the Idaho/Washington border.

After browsing through Cabella's for about 30 minutes we decided to get back on the road and finish this leg of the trip. Our GPS program successfuly delivered us to the doorstep of my sister's home just south of Spokane about 1pm. I will post pictures of the home, and our present location courtesy parked in their driveway.

Here Comes the Sun

I woke up several times in the night wondering if the coach would start in the morning at 20 degrees. We turned on the block heater as soon as we leveled out in the Snake River RV Park, so it had been on for 16 hours, but I worry about stuff like that. I shouldn't have, because it fired immediately....not even a hesitation. The picture to the right is what our first 100 miles looked like....snow in every direction, and a lot on the road. However, I get ahead of myself, as usual.

After successful ignition, the second task was to see if I could get the right rear up to near ride height before heading out of the park....I tried raising the right rear while in the "level" mode and was successful in getting it up to almost ride height, but as soon as I would switch to "ride height" it lowered back down so the mud flap was dragging a little. I found that as long as I kept the engine idling at about 1500 rpm's it would stay up, so we just headed out slowly, but at 1500-2000 rpm's. Our first stop was Fred Meyer's for diesel....they had it for $2.79...everyone else was selling it for 10 cents more. I was only at about 1/2 tank, but it will only cost more the rest of the trip so I added 81 gallons at a cost of $225.

Interstate 15 was forboding, yes even forbidding. Snow was everywhere...on the highway, and off to the horizon. A few miles up the road we drove into a cloud bank....OK, I guess low lying clouds are better than zero visiblity and a driving snow storm. It was like driving in a long tunnel with a very low ceiling. On top of that we were heading for a 7,000 foot pass called Monida...all the local Idaho Falls folk spoke with reverence about this pass, but it was quite tame compared to Wolf Creek Pass. The approach from both sides was very gradual so all was good.

We gained the pass around 11am, and as if by magic the clouds vaporized, and we had bright sunshine and dry roads....apparently the snow and clouds are not allowed into Montana....we were at the border.

The rest of the day, which I had not been looking forward to because of the dire weather projections, ended up being a walk in the park. I sat in cruise control for the next 4 hours as we slowly descended to Missoula, MT which is situated at around 3,000' elevation.

We went directly to the local KOA and then called Jennifer Stackpole to let her know we had arrived. She drove over, picked us up and took us over to where her coach is stored (indoors), and we spent about an hour touring her 1987, 40' Newell. She is standing just to the left of the coach door....forgive my bad aim!

After that we returned to our coach and gave her a reciprocal tour, and then went out to dinner for Thai food.....that was a first for me. I have never eaten Thai food before, but it was great, and I am now hooked.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit with Jennifer. She is quite an accomplished person, and has worn many, many professional hats in her life to date.....welder, blacksmith, musician, dancer, natural gas industry, and on it goes.....there are at least 6 other professions in her past, but my brain is full, and I'm sure I'll remember more of them tomorrow. We look forward to returning to Missoula in the near future. Tomorrow, Spokane, WA and lots of Turkey!