Our RV Adventures

I got up about 10 this morning, made coffee, and hit the Internet for a while. Then around noon, Jan heated up the leftover pizza from Bremerton, along with chips and onion dip. Like most Italian food, the pizza got better with age.

I had planned to install the plugs and receptacles on my transfer switch bypass this morning, but got sidetracked when I went outside to shut the shore power off.

I found a bag hanging on the door containing a gift for Jan, a knitted dishcloth, and a note from Jeanne of Jeannie and Eldy asking if we wanted to have dinner tonight. The funny thing was that Jan had just read their blog a little earlier, saw they were here, and said we should get in touch. They mentioned their AT&T cell phones weren’t working too well here, so a little later I drove down to their rig to check in.

Eldy was there and said Jeanne was out hiking with her brother and he’d check with her when she got back about time and place for dinner.

Eldy and I talked RV’ing for a while, and then I came home and got back to work on my wiring job.

Installing the two plugs on the wires going to the circuit breaker panel was easy, well as easy as working with #8 wires that don’t want to bend can be, and it only took a few minutes to install each one.

But the receptacles on the shore power and generator leads were a different story.

I needed to lengthen the wires so I would have enough room to work, but as it turned out I needed more wire than I had anticipated. So I decided to just wire up the shore power and wait until we’re closer to civilization in the next few days, near Spokane.

Finally about 4:30 I had it all wired up and tested with no resultant sparks or smoke. Always a good sign.

About 6 pm we met Jeanne and Eldy at their rig and headed out for pizza at the Headwater’s Pub & Pizza a few miles down the road.

We spent a couple of fun hours talking about traveling, RV’ing, and life in general, and had a really good time.

Leaving Headwater’s we said our goodbyes and goodnights. Hopefully we’ll see them down the road soon.

Before leaving the parking lot, and since I had a good cell phone signal, I put in a call to Nick Russell to see what was up with him and Terry. Looks like they’re going to stay a while longer at the Elk’s Lodge in Bremerton before moving on. They plan to start heading back east some time in early August.

And on a happy note, I’ve been gone two days and Nick still hasn’t broken anything yet.

Good job, Nick.

We got back to the rig a little before 8 pm so I started putting things away outside and getting us ready to travel tomorrow.

We’re moving about 270 miles away to Newport, WA, to the Little Diamond Thousand Trails park, which is about 40 miles north of Spokane. We plan on beginning there for 4 nights before heading over to Glacier National Park for a few days.

Brandi sent this picture of Landon having a Nap Attack. Kids can fall asleep anywhere.

More tomorrow from Little Diamond.

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Thought for the Day:

Doing the right thing isn’t always easy, but it’s ALWAYS right!

afd

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