Chehalis and Mount Saint Helens

Parked in Chehalis

As I've said before, not all Thousand Trails parks are created equal. One of our eye-openers this month has been the reality that we always... ALWAYS ...have to check two things:  sewer and 50 amp service. Nothing can be assumed.

We arrived in Chehalis on Sunday afternoon, and had a heck of a time finding a suitable camp site. They don't assign spots, they only reserve "a spot"-- we have to go and find the one we want when we arrive. This Thousand Trails park is one of the oldest in the T.T. network, as a matter of fact, it's the very first. And its age is showing. There were zero available sites with sewer, an absolute must for stays over three days, and most of the sites have only 30 amp service. There's only a handful with 50 amp. If you like rustic, this is it.

Just to get our rig out of the roadway, we chose a less than desirable spot, then got in our car and drove around looking for exit dates on campers in the few spots with sewer that were leaving the next day. We found two. One of them was already claimed by another camper, so we claimed the other one (by moving our trailer there) and then moved the motorhome the following day.

The Chehalis week was more or less a restorative week, winding down from our busy time with the family. But we were hoping to visit Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens while there. At first we decided not to bother, since the smoky air made viewing practically impossible, but for something to do, we drove the one hour trip to the Mt. St. Helens National Monument anyway and made the best of it. Smoke or no smoke, it was worth the trip.

Mt. St. Helens from the National Monument
observation deck

There is a small cost to get into the monument site, which is like a little museum of the event, but there are free viewing sights along the road up to the monument.  And if you have a National Parks pass, entry is free.

Viewing the mountain brought back memories of the day. I and my little family were living in Post Falls, Idaho, at the time. We were celebrating Doreen's birthday (my sister who lived in the same town). The sky went dark in the middle of the afternoon, and soon thereafter ash began to fall. We turned on the TV and spent the rest of the day watching the news. We were on the edge of the fallout path, so we only got a quarter inch or so on the ground. Nevertheless, the caution was to stay put for a couple days. Driving cars was not recommended. Schools and businesses closed down and nobody went anywhere. Nine months later, Katie was born. The hospital was more crowded than it had ever been...and everybody was naming their babies something with "Ash" in it. Well, except us. Sorry, Katie. I couldn't bear to name you Ashley-- though it would have been a good story to tell for the rest of your life. :-)

Bridge at the edge of the blast zone

Mt. St. Helens reminds us of the power of the earth. Mankind is of no consequence when compared to it. Man-made global warming? Please! God's overarching power is revealed in every volcano, every hurricane, every earthquake, every tornado, every thunderstorm...in the unseen depths of the ocean, in the immense vastness of the atmosphere. And we're not even talking about what lies beyond this little "insignificant" planet-- what seems to us like an infinite universe. I think sometimes God feels inclined to remind us of who's in charge. This modern event also provided an example to the world showing that what scientists have always thought takes millions of years to achieve can be done in a day. It's as though He's saying, "Let me show you how it's done...since you seem to be confused."

Anyway, back to Chehalis...

When we arrived at our second site, the pad was sloped so much Mark had to go out and buy some wood planks to raise the rear of the coach. Our plastic blocks work okay on the front, but the back of the coach is just too heavy. Even after raising it six inches, we were still walking downhill to the bedroom.

But the worst problem was the electrical. Every time we plugged in our power cable, the surge protector would kick off. This happened at the first site as well.

After messing around with it for half an hour or so, and trying to brainstorm what the problem might be, Mark called the park office and they sent out someone from maintenance to look at it. He right away found a frayed wire in the outlet and replaced it, but the surge protector still refused to allow power to the motorhome. He read the voltage at the power pole and at the end of our power cord where it connects to the motorhome. Both registered 138 volts (way to high), but his final diagnosis was that the problem resided inside our RV.

Well, Mark is not an electrician, so he called our 'go to' service provider, Leisure Coach Works in Fontana California. They thought we should look at the Automatic power Transfer Switch. So we called a local mobile RV service to come out and try to fix what we thought was the problem. After checking the power at the inverter, he decided it was above his pay grade. The ATS is located behind the breaker panels and he was not willing to venture into an unknown. He recommended a more experienced RV electrician, who happened to be located in Lincoln City (about an hour and a half south on Hwy 101). Now we had to switch up our plans and book a spot in Pacific City to be close enough for the RV tech to do a house call.

In the meantime, our only power source was the generator, and that was limited because we neglected to fill up on diesel before we parked...because who needs to run the generator when we have shore power?

New plan:  Hope for the best; plan for the worst.

Fortunately, with judicious use of the generator (i.e., we only started it in the morning long enough to make a bunch of coffee, and in the evening to charge up the inverter), our fuel lasted until we left Chehalis on Sunday morning.

And here's "The Rest of the Story"... we arrived at Seaside RV Resort and plugged into full 50 amp service. Wa-La! Our power problem disappeared.

We are bypassing Pacific City altogether, since we didn't really like the park last time we were there. We have also checked on all the rest of the Thousand Trails parks we had previously booked to find out if they had sewer and 50 amp service. In the process, we cancelled a few bookings and extended our stay at Yosemite.

The Seaside, Oregon, Thousand Trails park is a lovely campground-- mostly. Others must agree because it's packed out. Maybe next time through we'll stay here longer. I started a spreadsheet of all the campgrounds we've stayed at and -- sorry Chehalis, but you're a "do not return!" At least not until you level the parking slabs and upgrade with sewer hookups. On the bright side, the place is loaded with blackberries...and we picked them every day. Well, Mark picked them.

Blackberries galore

Winding Up Our 2018 Spokane Visit

Our three weeks in Spokane, that turned out actually to be two weeks, came and went before I knew it, and before I could get in enough time with everyone. Somehow, that's how it usually goes. But the time we had was sweet.

My granddaughter, Leah, got most of my attention this time. She came to stay with us for a few days the first and last week of our visit. We swam in the pool, put together puzzles in the family activity center, and watched movies (Harry Potter...again). We also practiced our crocheting. Leah has taken a surprising interest in learning to crochet. She can do a beautiful chain so far. If you're reading this, Leah, keep practicing. You'll figure out single crochets in time-- don't give up!

Somebody else brought out our
food, so I handed my plate to Liz
and made her hold it while I took
her picture. Ha!

Savannah slept over one night and got in some jigsaw puzzle action, but her little sixteen-year-old life is busy these days, and her pre-existing plans got in the way of staying with us any longer than that. She's sort of interested in crocheting, too, but when you're sixteen, too many other things push out such homely activities as crochet. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if she picks it up as an adult and turns out some beautiful work. Anyway, she and Haylee stopped by for a little while on our last evening and at least we got to hang out a couple hours.

Liz finally got a day off of work last Tuesday, so we planned a get-together for that day. Liz is working her little buns off serving up food to strangers at the Outback restaurant in Spokane Valley. Mark and I decided to critique her work by going to dinner there on our last week. We have determined that she is an excellent server. If you ever have an opportunity to eat there, ask to be seated in Liz's section. And then leave her a nice big tip!

Everyone but Haylee (she had to work) came out to our campsite for our Tuesday cookout, and Chris (Liz's beau) cooked steak and chicken on a charcoal grill the size of my frying pan. We ate in shifts. It was delicious! The only down side was the yellow jacket problem. However, Mark was standing by with his bee catcher...

Mark & his bee catcher.
He actually caught four of them.

Haircut at House of Pop, Spokane

While I was there, I also took advantage of Haylee, the hairstylist. I was able to book into her very busy schedule at House of Pop for a much needed haircut-- the first since making the decision to grow it out. She did a lovely job. I'd been having trouble deciding on bangs or no-bangs. Haylee settled this question for me with her professional opinion.

As ever, I am sad to leave my Spokane kiddos (and grand-kiddos). But we're off to California now.

Stuck in the vineyard

Our next stop was an overnight dry camp at a Harvest Host winery in Yakima - Wilridge Vineyards. This little misadventure has more or less sealed our decision to drop Harvest Hosts as a camping alternative. In every case so far, we've found the roads in and out, as well as parking once we're there, to be difficult. This one was no exception. When we arrived, the staff recommended we drive through the vineyard to a spot "with a view." We probably misunderstood how far up the dirt road to drive and where to turn, but we ended up in the middle of the vineyard, caught in an impossible spot. The only way to get out of it was to disconnect the car and trailer, and back the coach up to the previous intersection. In the end, we parked in the parking lot, which was surprisingly level, bought a flight of wine each and took them out on their beautiful grassy lawn. Afterward, we headed back to our air-conditioned house for leftover pot roast and a movie.

Enjoying a flight of wine on the lawn.

The west coast fires have turned the air into a smoky fog as far out as Spokane. Yakima was the worst we've seen so far. The air was so dense, the sun looked like a harvest moon the morning we left. Our drive through the Cascades was disappointing, since we couldn't see any real scenery through the smoke. There was actually an active fire fairly near Highway 12, the route we took, and fire crews had set up a command center at White Pass, where there were facilities like a store and gas station,etc. The area on both sides of the road were dotted with pup tents that firefighters used for sleeping. The news is reporting a lot on the California fires, but there are hundreds of fires burning up and down the west coast, from California all the way up to Canada.

Pray for rain.


Our next stop was Chehalis, Washington, where we are now. I'll share our time here in my next post.

Stay tuned.


More pictures ...

Liz & Chris

Josh & Nicole

Leah & Savannah

Before my haircut

Morning sun through the smoke at Yakima winery

Going through the Cascades on Hwy 12

Smoke in the Cascades

A Week Here And A Week There

Yes, I'm still alive. We've been chillin' in Spokane these past two weeks.

It always dregs up memories driving through Idaho and Washington. Three of my four children were born in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and I lived there, in Post Falls, and in Spokane for many years before moving to California in 1981.

But...I digress.

Our first week was in an RPI park, right off I-90, north of Cheney, Washington, called Ponderosa Falls RV Campground. It's not a bad place, and we'll be returning for another week on Saturday. It's fairly close to the kids, who live practically downtown Spokane on the west side of the city-- a fifteen minute drive. But I'm a little bummed we couldn't stay in the same park for our full three week stay.

It's difficult to find an affordable park in this area, for some reason I haven't figured out yet. I just priced out a KOA park east of the city, and their summer rate is about $85 a night! Who can afford that?! We could get a motel room for less money. The thing is, with the RPI network, we can only stay one week at the reduced rate for which we pay an annual fee to enjoy, and then we have to go somewhere else for a week before we can return for another week at the reduced rate. The closest Thousand Trails park is in Newport, Washington, about an hour's drive northeast of Spokane. And that's were we are this week, with the bees, doing more or less nothing.

Missing a piece

It was good to see Liz and Josh and their families again. We stopped by their respective houses for a short visit the Sunday after we arrived. Then I came down sick with a cold. Ick! We had made arrangements for Leah to come stay with us a couple days on Wednesday & Thursday, and I was expecting that plan to fall through because of my sudden illness, but Leah is a trouper. She came anyway. And as far as I know, she didn't catch my germs, thankfully. We had a lovely time. We checked out the family activity room, tried a little ping-pong (which immediately turned into a game of chase-the-ping-pong-ball-around-the-activity-room), a little table hockey, and some Foosball (which neither of us could get the hang of). In the end, we pulled out a jigsaw puzzle and spent some time putting it together. Of course we also made use of the swimming pool. It was smallish and somewhat less than pristine, but the water was cool and we had the pool to ourselves most of the time. We have a date for another sleepover next week when we're back in Cheney. Savannah will join us too.

The view out your window

Here in Newport, we're at the Little Diamond "Resort," which is a split park-- part of it is KOA, and part is Thousand Trails. Amenities are shared. The pool is much too small. Power is 30 amp only, and there is no sewer at any of the sites. (I'm such a complainer!) But, it didn't cost us anything except the price of a visit from a "honeywagon," which came on Tuesday and emptied our tanks for us. It was worth it not to have to pull up jacks and go dump.

To top things off, there is a yellow jacket problem in the area. It seems that the dryer than usual winter has led to the worst bee infestation in fifteen years. Fortunately, although they are everywhere, they don't seem to be aggressive. Nobody's been stung. Yet. And we've managed to keep them out of the house.

The days have been pretty warm, but the nights are in the upper 50s to low 60s, making very comfortable sleeping weather. It cools off pretty quickly once the sun goes down, and then we open up the windows and enjoy the night air.

There's not too much to do here, but we took a drive into Newport and visited their local museum - Pend Oreille Historical Museum, a quaint but interesting establishment. Many of the items on display were things I remember seeing in my parents' or grandparents' homes as a child. Now they're in museums. (Does that make me old?)

On Saturday, we return to Cheney for our last week in Spokane, and we'll get as much visiting in as we can before we head west. Two weeks just isn't enough time when you see family only once a year. I'll just have to factor that into next year's plan. Maybe we can get a monthly rate somewhere. Yeah...I'll make a note of it.