Daily Archives: July 9, 2011
On to Leavenworth . . . No, not that one
This morning, after a somewhat tearful goodbye with Nick and Terry Russell, we headed out for Leavenworth, WA about 175 miles away. We probably won’t see them again until sometime toward the end of September, so I guess I’ll just have to depend on Bad Nick to keep my blood pumping, instead of the real thing. And of course, we’ll definitely miss Miss Terry’s great cooking.
Funny thing about this trip is that it took us 94 miles and two hours just to get out of Seattle. More than half the trip!
We didn’t have any problems. It’s just that we had to come down one side of Puget Sound from Bremerton, around the bottom, and then back up the eastern side by Tacoma and Seattle before getting on US-2 to finally start heading east.
And then it took another 45 minutes to go the next 10 miles.
We started to regret our decision to take US-2 this time instead of I-90. In the past we’ve always taken the Interstate passing through here, but Nick suggested we try US-2 this time. I think the real reason is that he wants us to be the guinea pigs to check it out for him first.
45 minutes later, when we had finally inched our way along the 10 miles from Monroe, where we got on US-2, to Sultan, we found out what caused the delay.
It was the Sultan Shindig, whatever the heck that was.
It looked to be some sort of flea market/carnival/county fair, and because everyone in Seattle had apparently decided to attend, then got there and found no place to park, we lost 45 minutes of our lives that we can never get back, backed up in 10 miles of bumper to bumper traffic.
And of course, just as the traffic was freeing up through Sultan, they had one of those electronic signs that says “Slow Traffic This Weekend – The Sultan Shindig.”
Now they tell us!
But finally getting through Sultan, our delay was somewhat redeemed by the beautiful countryside, and the great photos Jan took along the way.
We got into the Leavenworth Thousand Trails Park about 2:30, unhitched the truck, parked the RV in a temporary area, and drove around to pick out a site. We finally found one we liked, and went back and got the rig, got parked and set up.
This Thousand Trails is heavily wooded like the Bend/Sunriver TT, but the sites are closer together. I thought I had a site picked out that would let us get satellite TV, but it didn’t work out. I picked a site with an opening in the trees that should have let me get a signal with my new dish, but I never could get it to lock on. Of course no one around me can get it either so it just may not be possible.
Either the trees are just too tall, or it may be that the dish can’t find any of the other satellites it needs to find first, before it can find the one I want.
As soon as I dumped our waste tanks, Jan started doing 8 days of accumulated laundry, since we couldn’t use our washer in Bremerton.
Then about 5 pm we headed over to the town of Leavenworth about 20 miles away to have dinner and see the area.
And it turns out, that instead of the expected ‘prison’ motif, the town is done up as a Bavarian Alpine village, complete with ‘haus’ this and ‘strasse’ that.
And boy was the place packed. It was just wall-to-wall people and cars. Every hotel and motel seemed to have a ‘No Vacancy’ sign. It looks like during the winter, Leavenworth is a ski resort, and during the summer, it’s tubing and raft rides down the rapids of the Wenatchee River that winds in and out through the town.
And some of these rapids are definitely 4’s and 5’s.
We ended up having dinner at Kristall’s, a faux-German Inn with pretty good food. We got there just in time, because when we left, the place was packed.
Leaving town and heading home, we noticed even the “Wells Fargo” bank gets in the act. I think it must be a zoning thing. We never saw one normal sign the whole time we were there.
Getting back to the rig, I played with the satellite until it got too dark. Still no luck.
Tomorrow I’m going to install the plugs and receptacles on my transfer switch bypass so I can easily switch back and forth between the generator and shore power.
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Thought for the Day:
I thought I was indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.
gsdfg
