We rolled out from Skagit Valley RV Park around 10:15am Monday morning. We’d decided to head back over Stevens Pass on US2 to Wenatchee, then go south toward Walla Walla. We were off to a slow start as it took a while to get through the towns of Monroe and Sultan. The climb over 4,064 foot high Stevens Pass is a tough slog – I think it’s a steeper climb going west-to-east than the westbound trip was.

We lost more time in the tourist town of Leavenworth and had a slow go through Wenatchee. Donna found a Corps of Engineers (COE) park near Tri-Cities and we programmed it into the GPS. The Tri-Cities of Washington are the adjoining towns of Kennewick, Pasco and Richland. The COE park we headed for was Charbonneau Park on the east bank of the Snake River outside of Pasco.

It turned out to be a long day as the 300-mile trip took over six hours. We checked in around 4:45pm and were assigned to site 27, a long pull-through with a view of the water. It has 50-amp electric service but no fresh water or sewer at the site. With my America the Beautiful Senior Multi-Agency pass, we paid just $12/night.

Downstream from the park is the Ice Harbor Dam. The river at the park is really a reservoir called Sacajawea Lake. The reservoir is 30 miles long, but it seems more like a wide area of the Snake River rather than a lake.

We saw some traffic on the river – Monday night a riverboat came upstream, presumably through the Ice Harbor Lock, and cruised past us in the dark.

Tuesday morning we saw a barge transporting grain down the river. The Snake River is the largest tributary of the Columbia River. It originates in Wyoming and extends from Yellowstone National Park to the Tri-Cities where it completes its 1,087-mile journey converging with the Columbia River.

Snake River barges are much smaller than the tows we saw on the Mississippi River – I wrote about them here. A typical Snake River towbarge is a tow boat and four barges joined together. There are eight ports along the river where grain from farms in Wyoming, Idaho and Washington is loaded onto the barges. The barge holds the equivalent amount of grain as 140 railcars or 538 semi-trucks. It’s the most efficient way to transport the grain to deep-water ports on the Columbia River where it’s off-loaded onto ocean-going ships for export.

We took a drive Tuesday to explore around the area. Our first stop was the Ice Harbor Dam. The visitor center was closed but we stopped at the Indian Memorial overlook. The dam was completed in 1962, 15 years after the project started. There were many delays over environmental concerns. Vessels enter a lock on the west side of the dam – it’s 86 feet wide and 675 feet long.

Once the dam was built and the river began to flood, it covered a native American burial site. Representatives of the Yakima, Warm Springs, Nez Perce, Umatilla and Colville tribes agreed to have a single memorial built rather than relocate graves.

Then we drove through Pasco – where we were delayed for 30 minutes by train traffic near the railyard – to Kennewick. We did a little shopping at the Winco Foods there, then stopped for lunch at Thai Garden. Donna really enjoyed her lunch dish of swimming rama – sauteed spinach, chicken and Thai peanut sauce. I had pad thai and it was average at best.

We didn’t spend too much time out and about. Donna wanted to hike along the river and I wanted to practice guitar – I hadn’t played for a few days. Donna practiced clarinet after her hike.

It was very hot when we arrived on Monday – around 100 degrees. We had the generator running and both roof air conditioners on for the last couple of hours of our drive. When we arrive at a new site, Donna usually keeps dinner preparation simple. Monday night she took leftover green chile turkey burgers and made them into tacos. Very simple, quick preparation and they were good! We each had the last of the fresh corn on the cob from the Conway, WA area.

Yesterday’s high temperature was a comfortable 78 degrees. Today we should reach the low 80s and might even see 90 degrees tomorrow. As you can see in some of the photos, the sky was hazy with wildfire smoke on Tuesday. We have clearer skies today but there’s still some smoke in the air.

This campground isn’t available to us after tomorrow, so in the morning we’ll move a few miles down the road to Hood Park which is another COE park downstream from the dam near US12. On Friday, we’ll continue south into Oregon.

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