Category Archives: Washington

Graduate

It’s summertime here – just like it is in the rest of the northern hemisphere. But, here being central Arizona, summertime has extra significance. It can get hot, very hot! We’re playing tennis three days a week from 7am to 8:30 am. Starting tomorrow we’ll move the start time a half hour earlier.

We escaped the heat for a few days when we flew up to western Washington on June 12th for our granddaughter’s high school graduation. Donna had us booked through Trusted Housesitters to housesit in Arlington only a few miles away from Kevin and Alana’s place. My other daughters, Jamie and Shauna, showed up with some of their family members as well. It was nice to have everyone together all at once.

Alana is my oldest daughter and she has two daughters, Lainey and Gabriella (Gabi). Gabi is the younger of the two and she was graduating from Arlington High School. The graduation ceremony was held in a hockey arena in Everett. It was a nice venue and Kevin and Alana secured box seats for family and friends. This was a deluxe accommodation with a private room, snacks and beverages – including adult beverages. I found it a little funny to have drinks served at a high school graduation – they were available to private box suite attendees only. I can’t even get a beer at a college football game!

We were definitely out of the heat in Washington. In fact, Donna and I were downright cold! Our first couple of days were very pleasant with afternoon temperatures in the low 70s. But it was down in the 50s Thursday evening and never got past 60 degrees again for the duration of our stay. It also drizzled rain on and off. Typical for this time of year in western Washington.

The property we were housesitting was on four or five acres and was very nice. I wish I could’ve packed my camera along as one morning about a dozen band-tailed pigeons came into the bird feeder in the back yard. I’ve never seen band-tailed pigeons at low elevation – I’ve only found them above 3,000 feet above sea level and higher. They’re only found in parts of the west coast and some higher elevation areas of the soutwest and Mexico. They are the largest north American pigeons.

We also had deer traipsing through the yard.

Kevin and Alana had a house full of guests most of the time and always had plenty of food and drink on hand. They also set up games in the yard. Our youngest granddaughter, Petra, daughter of my youngest daughter Shauna had fun with all of the attention.

Somewhere along the way, Donna picked up a bug and stayed behind to rest on Sunday. She felt better on Monday and we hung out with the crew then caught a ride to the Paine Field airport in Everett to fly home. We never warmed up until we got back to Phoenix.

Last week the bug caught up with me and I’ve been off of my game for a week. I rarely catch a cold or any other bugs, but it got me.

Tomorrow we’ll be packing up the Jeep for a trip to Prescott early Tuesday morning. We’ll be housesitting there until the following Monday. The high temperatures here will be triple digits – 102 to 108 degrees. Prescott will be 10 to 15 degrees cooler. I plan to pack my AT115 EDT telescope although I haven’t settled on an astrophotography target. I plan to also take my camera bag.

I’ll close with a dinner plate from earlier this month. Donna came up with something new – crawfish scampi. She served it with cheesy grits and green beans.

Voila Walla Walla

As planned, we left Charbonneau Park Thursday morning and made a short drive a few miles downriver to Hood Park. Check-out time at Charbonneau was noon, so we took our time getting ready to roll and pulled out just after 11:30am. At Hood Park, we weren’t allowed to check in until 2pm. I used the downtime to dump the gray water tank at their dumpstation, then we parked in the lower lot to have lunch and kill some time.

Across the Snake River from Hood Park is the Tri-Cities Grain Company. Trucks offload wheat there where it’s transferred to barges. They had an unbelievable pile of grain out in the open alongside the grain elevators. It was by far the largest pile of grain I’ve ever seen. I’m curious as to why it’s piled up out in the open like that.

Huge pile of wheat to the right of the grain elevators at Tri-City Grain

We checked in promptly at 2pm and drove to site 20. Donna was driving the Nissan Frontier and following me – I didn’t bother hooking up the tow bar for such a short journey. We didn’t have the view we had at Charbonneau, but we had a spacious, quiet site.

Lots of space at most of the sites at Hood Park

This is another Corps of Engineers park, just like Charbonneau and again I paid $12/night for 50-amp electrical service. There are a few other COE parks nearby along the Snake River. We were only staying for one night, we had reservations in Walla Walla, Washington next where we would be on full hook-ups.

There were more pleasure boats on this section of the Snake River than were out above the Ice Harbor Lock and Dam. I also saw a few barges heading upriver that had to stage and wait for the locks to open and lift them up to the next water level behind the dam. After offloading grain, the barges carry fertilizers and fuels back upriver. There’s always conflict between environmentalists that want to do away with dams, locks and barges and farmers and merchants that rely on the barge system to move goods.

The dams create hydro-electric power for the regions and also keep the shipping lanes at a minimum of 14 feet deep. The barges can draft about 10 feet fully loaded. Without the barge system, a lot more trucks would have to be on the road and railroad infrastructure would require a lot of upgrading. I don’t see it going away anytime soon.

We had another leisurely morning on Friday. Our destination, Blue Valley RV Park in Walla Walla, was only 52 miles away and wouldn’t take much over an hour to reach. We pulled out of Hood Park around 11:30am and went back upriver on WA124 which took us northeast, then east through farmland. As we moved away from the river, we left the fruit growers behind and saw nothing but wheat fields for miles.

At the junction with WA125, we turned south and WA125 took us into Walla Walla. As we approached town from the north, we drove right past the Washington State Penitentiary – also known as Walla Walla State Penitentiary. It houses over 2,400 prisoners including some of the most notorious in the northwest. The Hillside Strangler, Kenneth Bianchi, is there and also Gary Ridgeway, a mass murderer of women known as the Green River Killer. There are many more dangerous mass murders serving life sentences there.

We found the RV park next to the Veterans Memorial Golf Course. The park is paved and has well-kept landscaping. The sites are all back-in only, but have plenty of room. We’re in site 8 which was easy to navigate. The only downside to this end of the park is it backs up against a dairy distributor. Late yesterday afternoon, a truck dropped a refrigerated trailer that I think is filled with ice cream in the lot. The reefer unit runs almost constantly – you can hear the generator run at full power for several seconds – at times maybe up to a minute – then it drops to idle speed for no more than a second before it revs up again. It became annoying in the night.

We took a drive through town and bought a few things at the Walmart which is west of Walla Walla and actually in a town called College Place. You wouldn’t know it’s a different town as the neighborhoods run together. Donna picked up a ribeye steak and I grilled it for dinner. She served it covered in sauteed mushrooms with patty pan squash sauteed with onions, garlic and rosemary and a spud on the side. A simple, delicious meal for less than $10/plate.

We woke up to rain this morning. It rained sporadically until about 10 am, then it quit. The skies remained overcast and it was only about 63 degrees outside. I put on jeans and boots – I’ve worn nothing but shorts and filp-flops on all but a few occasions this summer. We drove downtown to the farmers’ market on Main Street.

We found some excellent locally grown produce there.

Colorful peppers, cucumbers and eggplants

One of the things we’ve really come to like this summer are donut peaches. Donut peaches have many names – most common are donut, flat peach and saturn peach. They originated in China but were introduced to the US. Most of the commercially available donut peaches are grown in California, but they are fairly common in the northwest. They are easy to break in half to remove the pit. I like to cut it into thin slices and add them to cereal. They are great in cottage cheese as well. The name donut or flat peach comes from the flattened shape.

After shopping the market, we took a walk through downtown on five blocks of Main Street. There were a number of eateries with street-side dining and boutique shops. Many local wineries were represented with tasting rooms, shops and even restaurants. Most of the winery shops were on the north side of Main Street.

Historical Walla Walla photos on the wall of the Odd Fellows Temple

We may head back to town and check out some of the wines this afternoon.

Today’s high temperature should be in the mid-70s. Tomorrow we can expect it to be a little warmer. We’ll pull out of here tomorrow and head south into Oregon. Where we’ll stop next is undecided at this point, but we’ll figure it out.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

River or Lake?

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.

Petroglyphs on rock at the Indian Memorial

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.

Fast Times in Mount Vernon

Today is our last full day in Mount Vernon. Two weeks have flown by and we’ll leave western Washington tomorrow. Our days here have been pretty full. On Monday, we went to Hillcrest Park for pickleball. It was very busy, but well organized. I played in the 3.5 group while Donna went into the 3.0 pool. We found their ratings here to be higher than what we’re used to in Arizona – the 3.5 group seemed more like 3.0 to me and likewise, Donna felt the level of play in the 3.0 was on the low side, so she stepped up for the last few games.

Pickleball courts at Hillcrest Park (That’s Donna in the peach jacket)

When we arrived at the park, there were players on all six courts and over 40 players waiting to get on! It moved quickly though with a four-off and four-on format. After an hour or so, the crowd thinned out – many people had arrived at 8am and we didn’t show up until 9:30am or so.

Tuesday we had dental appointments for check-ups and cleaning at Dr. Westford’s office in Everett. We both really like this dental office. The people are friendly, the hygenists are very competent and thorough and Dr. Westbrook is a first-class dentist.

As usual, I had a couple of areas that required attention. The enamel on my teeth is damaged due to head and neck radiation treatment for cancer. The radiation damage seems to never go away. I made another appointment for Thursday at 8am to fill a couple of areas where teeth had cracked and crumbled a bit.

Wednesday we went back for more pickleball and found only a handful of people at the park. We played six or seven games and had a good time. Mondays and Thursdays are the crowded days as the play is organized by the local pickleball club. Other days are just pick-up games and open play.

In the afternoon, we drove down to Kevin and Alana’s place. Kevin had tomatos, peppers, onion and a whole bulb of garlic on the Traeger for salsa he made for us. The salsa is very good! Alana wanted me to show her how I make Japanese fried rice. My method is time-consuming and laborious, but you can’t argue with the result. Everyone really liked the fried rice.

For some reason, Donna and I both slept fitfully Wednesday night. Maybe we were a little dehydrated from the morning of pickleball – it was hot with the temperature reaching 88 degrees on Wednesday. Thursday morning I was up before 6am to have breakfast and coffee before heading down to Everett for my 8am dental appointment. I wanted to hit the road by 7am, not knowing for sure what the traffic on I-5 would be like. Typically it slows down once you pass the SR529 exit and can be very slow from there.

The drive was easy and I chose to exit on SR529 and drive right through Everett to the dental office. I made it there in about 35 minutes and had to wait awhile for them to open. Originally our plan was for Donna to ride her bike to Hillcrest Park for pickleball and I would join her on my way back from the dentist. Donna opted out – she was feeling a bit off after a poor night’s sleep. I was very tired as well and came straight back. We spent the rest of the day reading and lounging around.

Friday we met Kevin and Alana and Kevin’s mother Donetta in La Conner. La Conner is a small waterfront town about 10 miles from Mount Vernon. It’s located on the Swinomish Channel which looks like a river, but it’s a channel connecting Padilla Bay and Skagit Bay. The town has a population of only about 1,000 people, but it has many attractions such as waterfront dining, breweries and tourist shops.

We met at the aptly named La Conner Waterfront Cafe and dined al fresco on their deck.

View of Swinomish Channel from the Waterfront Cafe

La Conner is a cool place, but parking can be problematic. We all had to park blocks away from the restaurant as their small lot was full and street parking was also full all through the waterfront area.

We made plans to meet again the following afternoon – I had purchased tickets for the Brewfest on the Skagit. This event was organized by, and benefitted, the Lincoln Theater in Mount Vernon. It was held at Edgewater Park in Mount Vernon just a couple of miles from Skagit Valley RV Park. The Lincoln Theater is an old, historic vaudeville and silent movie theater in Mount Vernon built in 1926. Currently they have concerts as well as some movies and plays there. They host community events and work with local school districts to put on music workshops and also have traveling musicians teach there.

The Brewfest had a line up of more than 30 local breweries and four bands scheduled to play. Tickets for the event were $25 and included six coupons for 4-ounce beer samples. In reality, most of the breweries weren’t collecting coupons and the small samples were practically limitless.

Brewfest at Edgewater Park looking toward the Skagit River

Another view of the stage with jumbo video screen

The video screen showing close-up shots of the musicians was a nice touch. We saw all four bands and were there from around 3:30pm to 8pm. As you can see in the background of the photos, the air quality wasn’t great as wildfire smoke imported from fires in Canada filled the sky.

Lainey, Alana, Kevin and Donna at Brewfest

Alana bought a fifth ticket and our granddaughter Lainey joined us. It was a fun afternoon. Earlier in the day, Kevin golfed in a tournament and finished the day in third place on the leaderboard. He’s golfing again today as the tournament continues.

Saturday morning Donna took a bike ride and stopped at a few farm vegetable stands she discovered along the way. She also stopped at the farmer’s market for donut peaches and picked wild blackberries on the way home. On Thursday, after lunch in La Conner, we bought fresh corn in Conway that was superb. It was so good that Donna had to cook the remaining two ears of corn after we each had one for dinner – seconds were definitely in order. We’ll get more today.

I spent Saturday morning dismantling my Buddipole Versatee vertical HF ham radio antenna and packing it away. Then I broke out the compressor and set the tire pressures on the coach and also the Nissan Frontier in preparation for the road tomorrow. I’ve always been a stickler for proper tire inflation and over the last eight years, it’s served us well.

I still haven’t decided our route or even our destination tomorrow. It looks like it’s too hot and smoky to consider eastern Washington or the Idaho panhandle. I’m thinking maybe we’ll head down through Yakima and on to Bend, Oregon or maybe head to Walla Walla and down through eastern Oregon. In any case, we’ll meander southward and end up back in Mesa, Arizona around the 15th of September, giving us a month to get there.

Cool August Day

We’ve had a fairly quiet week here at Skagit Valley RV Park. The park is full and it seems like there are a number of long-term residents of the place. I’m curious about the fifth-wheel trailer next to our site. I haven’t seen anyone there and the trailer is covered with cob webs. There’s a Dodge Ram pickup truck parked in the site, but I haven’t seen it move. There are current Washington license plates on the rigs but the lack of activity seems strange.

We got together with my oldest daughter, Alana and her husband, Kevin at Farmstrong Brewing on Wednesday and our granddaughter Lainey joined us. The brewery is only a quarter of the mile from the RV park, so Donna and I walked there.

On Thursday, we met them at the Skagit Golf and Country Club where they’re members. Alana texted us and advised when she thought they would be coming off the 18th hole. We arrived a little after 3pm and saw them on the 18th green. We watched them putt, then went to the clubhouse for a drink and early dinner. Kevin’s son Nick was also there. I don’t know why I didn’t take any photos!

It’s always nice to get together with my daughters and we’ll get to see Alana’s family again tomorrow for Sunday dinner. Other than that, it’s been mostly our usual activities. Donna went out for a couple of bike rides and she practices clarinet every other day or so. I do the same with my guitar.

Speaking of the guitar, I use pedals to alter the sound of my electric guitar. I especially need them with the small practice amp to get an over-driven tube sound and I almost always run some reverb and delay. For the past ten years or so, I’ve used an Hermida Audio reverb pedal which is pretty subtle. It adds a little ambience, like your amp is set up in an empty room with wood floors. I thought I might like something that had a little more flair than that.

I did some research and thought the Omni pedal designed by Robert Keeley would be the one. I found a good deal on one with free shipping and bought it. It’s smaller than the Hermida Audio pedal and fits nicely on my board, but it packs a lot more sound than the Hermida! It has three base settings – room – spring – plate. Each one of these settings can be adjusted for the intensity of the effect. In the room setting, it can be subtle. The spring setting gives a little more oomph for the surf guitar sound and the plate setting can get really wild. I’m liking this pedal.

My pedal board – the signal runs from right to left

I have my pedal board set up with the guitar plugged into a TC Electronic tuner on the right. This pedal will cut the signal from the guitar and display the note being played and whether it’s flat or sharp, allowing me to quickly tune the guitar without any sound coming from the amp. Next in line is a MXR Modified OverDrive pedal. This boosts the guitar signal and can drive the amp into distortion – great for rock songs. The next pedal is the Keeley Omni reverb unit and last is a MXR Carbon Copy delay. I use a very conservative setting on the delay as it can easily get out of control and oscillate. Set carefully, it can create sounds like U2’s guitarist, the Edge. That’s my simple pedal board set-up.

I also have my Buddipole Versatee vertical high frequency ham radio antenna set up. I had a hard time getting it to tune – the closest I could come to resonance was a standing wave ratio (SWR) of about 1.5:1. A lot of guys would be happy with that, but I’m used to this antenna tuning to a SWR of 1.1:1 or less. The higher the SWR, the more loss of signal going out. Higher SWR can also force the output stage to reduce power to prevent damage. It’s a vicious cycle. To compound the issue, the 20-meter HF band conditions have been poor. Yesterday I futzed around with the antenna again, resetting the coil and counterpoise and got the SWR below 1.25:1. Better, but not perfect.

It rained off and on overnight and we had a couple of showers this morning. We didn’t let that stop us from going to the farmers’ market at the Skagit River Walk park. I told Donna if you stayed inside every time it rained in western Washington, you wouldn’t be out much! Of course, July and August are typically the driest months of the year, but they still average 1.2 and 1.3 inches of rain respectively. At least we don’t have any smoke now.

Cloudy, dreary day at the farmers’ market

We’ll probably have a few more showers through tomorrow morning. Today’s high is only 68 degrees. Tomorrow should be a little warmer and dry by late morning – early afternoon. As I mentioned, we plan to go to Kevin and Alana’s for a cookout.

The forecast for the week ahead has the warmer weather returning with temperatures in the 80s and maybe even 90 degrees by the end of the week. We’ll be here until the 16th and we don’t have a clue where we’re heading next. We’ll have to look at weather, fire and road condition reports and decide in about a week.

By the way, after her walk today, Donna stopped in the RV park office to find out if we should be worried about our neighbor. Apparently, he doesn’t get around too well and that’s why we haven’t seen him. But the gal in the office appreciated our concern.

Miles of Wildfire Smoke

Donna spoke to the Elk’s Lodge camp host and arranged a late checkout for us on Saturday. We wanted to stay connected to the electric service as long as possible to cool the interior of the coach. Saturday’s forecast for Coeur d’Alene called for triple digit heat. Just before we pulled out at 1pm, I fired up the Onan Quiet Diesel generator and disconnected the power cord.

Our first stop was the dump station next to the Kootenai County Fairgrounds. Then we were westbound on I-90. We had a short drive – under an hour – to Northern Quest Casino in Airway Heights near the Spokane airport northwest of the city. They have a parking lot designated for trucks and RVs. We parked along the south edge of the lot where a couple of other RVs were located rather than parking in the marked stalls where truckers were parked.

I kept the generator running and both air conditioners on until we locked up and drove to Dick and Roxy’s place at 4:30pm. We found their house in the South Hill neighborhood of Spokane. We had a great visit and talked over dinner – Roxy had seasoned flank steak with a prime rib rub and Dick grilled it on his Traeger. Roxy also made a Mediterranean quinoa salad and a side with cucumber, tomatoes and other ingredients – perfect on a hot day.

We left a little past eight o’clock – we needed to get back and fire up the generator to start cooling the coach again. I didn’t want to leave the generator running while we were away. We had the generator and air conditioners on past midnight. One of the neighboring RVs had their generator on all night.

I didn’t mention the smoke. When we left the Elk’s Lodge and drove through Spokane, the smoke was thicker than ever. The wind had shifted and smoke from the fires to the north was coming down to us. My throat and eyes were irritated.

Sunday morning we woke to the sound of raindrops. I hoped it would knock the smoke down, but it didn’t rain very hard. We hit the road a little after 9am and the scenery on westbound US2 was surreal. The combination of smoke and light rain made it feel like we were driving through a Scottish moor. But it wasn’t foggy, it just had the appearance of fog.

We drove across US2 through Coulee City and had an uneventful but somewhat eerie day. We dropped into the Columbia Gorge at Orondo and went north on WA97. We found the Lone Pine Fruit Company. Donna had researched dry camping there. They were closed on Sunday, so we found a level area and set up for the night.

Boondocking at Lone Pine Fruit Company lot

In the photo above, you can see the smoke hanging over the Columbia River. Across the highway, the ridgetops would disappear at times due to the thick smoke.

Monday morning Donna bought some fresh fruit before we hit the road again. We went south to Wenatchee and followed US2 west up and over Stevens Pass. The pass topped out at 4,064 feet above sea level. I think Wenatchee is about 700 feet above sea level.

Once you drive past the ski area westbound, there is a long 6% grade descending the other side of the pass. I’m familiar with this road and knew to keep my speed in check. At the bottom of the grade, there is a 180-degree narrow single-lane turn. You need to be below 40mph in a big rig for that turn. I used the Jacobs Engineering engine compression brake to keep us at 45-50 mph the whole way down.

About a quarter of the way down we saw two RVs ahead in a turnout on the side of the road – a gasoline powered class A and a smaller class C. They pulled out ahead of us and quickly pulled away. A few minutes later we came around a bend, still descending steeply toward the big turn and saw them stopped in a turnout again. This time the class A motorhome had smoke billowing out of his front brakes. We could smell the burning brake pads as we drove by. They were obviously descending too fast and had to brake hard or maybe he was riding the brakes all the way – I do know they were going much faster than we were.

When we had a gasoline-powered coach, I didn’t have the luxury of a Jake brake. To make a steep descent, I would slow down, gear down and figure my target speed. If I wanted to target 50 mph, I would brake to 40-45 mph, then release the brakes and allow them to cool. As my speed crept up past 50 mph, I would brake again under my target speed, release the brake for cooling and let my speed slowly increase again. Repeating this procedure all the way down a long grade avoids overheating the brakes.

We stopped in Arlington at the Pilot/Flying J travel center near the intersection of I-5 and WA530. I topped up our tank with about 60 gallons of diesel at $3.58/gallon. I paid over $200 – last year I would have paid around $135!

We found our way to the Skagit Valley RV Park on the south bank of the Skagit River in Mount Vernon. We were checked in quickly and directed to site 53 with full hookups and 50-amp service. The elevation is about 50 feet above sea level. I was surprised at the amount of smoke in the air here. I thought we would leave the smoke behind once we crested the Cascade Mountains. We’ve traveled through more than 700 miles of wildfire smoke!

This morning Donna fixed a nice surprise for me. One of my favorite breakfast dishes is Eggs Benedict. I usually only get it when we go out for breakfast. Donna had all of the ingredients, so she made it for me this morning!

We’ll spend the next two weeks here. We’re looking forward to spending some time with Kevin and Alana and the grandkids. We had a cool, comfortable night and the temperature this morning is in the mid-60s. We’ll have daily highs around 80 degrees. The forecast calls for cooler weather ahead – low 70s by Friday.

Code Talkers

We had cooler weather for our final days in Winthrop. The temperature topped out at 77 degrees on Wednesday and was slightly warmer on Thursday. We took a drive in Midget-San up to Twin Lakes on Wednesday. We wanted to look at the Big Twin RV Park. It looks like a nice place – spacious and right on Big Twin Lake. The lake is stocked with trout and has easy access for the kayak. We’ll keep this place in mind for the future.

We like Pine Near RV Park in Winthrop, but really the main reason was the easy access to town. It’s on Castle Street, on a bluff overlooking Riverside Avenue (WA20) which is the main street in town. In the past we were able to walk through the Shaefer Museum property and take the stairs in back down to Riverside Avenue. With the pandemic, Shaefer Museum is closed and the entrance is locked.

Donna and I took a walk through Pine Near and checked out one of the teepees they rent. They have three teepees and a couple of rental cabins.

The sign in front of one teepee said “Come on in” the other one said “Do not disturb.” So we looked inside the one with the welcoming sign.

There were three futons inside. It’s an interesting idea and maybe it would be fun for camping with children – not really my cup of tea though.

Donna prepared fish poached in tomatoes, saffron and white wine for dinner. She bought wild Alaskan cod at the Skagit Valley Food Co-op in Mount Vernon and it was delicious. It must have been cut from a large cod because the meat consisted of large flakes.

Thursday we drove to Twisp and took a look around. As expected, most of it was closed. We also checked out another RV park called Riverbend RV Park. This park is located right on the Methow (met-HOW) River. Most of the sites are meant to be pulled into nose first with a view of the river. They had a few sites that would be long enough for us without dropping the trailer. It’s another place we’ll keep in mind for the next time we’re up this way.

Donna took a bicycle ride Thursday and did a loop. She went out on West Chewuch Road – it’s west of the Chewuch River. This is another interesting and hard to pronounce name. It was once spelled Chewak – from 1904 to 1960. Then the official spelling was changed to Chewack. In 1987, the spelling changed again to Chewuch. The second syllable doesn’t have a ch sound like the word “such”. It’s more of an “ack” sound.

She crossed the river well north of town and hit Eastside Chewuch Road.

Her route back to town took her past Pearrygin State Park. She stopped and shot a photo of a doe and her fawn.

I played around with my ham radio – I’m really enjoying the 20-meter band. I’ve made several long distance contacts – Alaska, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Ohio, New York, Michigan and on Thursday evening, I picked up on a conversation between a ham operator in Costa Rica and a guy in Alaska. My signal wasn’t strong enough to reach the guy in Costa Rica, but he had a powerful transmitter and I could clearly hear him!

I had a conversation with a guy in the Navajo Nation. He had a special event call sign of N7C. The event he was promoting was National Code Talkers Day. The Code Talkers of World War Two were vital to the US in the Pacific theater. They devised a code that couldn’t be broken. They were all Navajo and used their language as the basis for their code.

The way it worked was, they used a Navajo word that would be translated to English. The first letter of the English word would represent the letter of the code. For eample, if they wanted to say the letter “A”, they had three ways to do it. They could say wol-la-chee which translates to ant, or they could say be-la-sana which translates to apple, or they could say tse-nil which translates to axe. Any one of these three words would represent the letter “A”.

So, this guy – his name was Herb – was in the Navajo Nation, west of Shiprock, New Mexico. I think he was near Teec Nos Pos which is just west of the Arizona-New Mexico border. He was trying get as many contacts as he could to direct people to a special website for the event. I won’t include a link because I don’t think it’ll exist after this weekend – it’s on the QRZ ham site.

We left Winthrop Friday morning. We drove east on WA20 past Twisp, then headed down WA153 which brought us to the Columbia River at Pateros where we hit US97. We were following our bread crumbs from our trip coming west, but this time I didn’t follow WA174 to Grand Coulee. Instead, I followed WA17 south to Coulee City. This is a little longer than going through Grand Coulee, but it avoids the steep climbs and descents and it’s a much easier drive – both on me and on the coach.

We’re back at the Elk’s Lodge in Coeur d’Alene. After getting set up, we walked east on Prairie Avenue about a quarter of a mile to a paved lot with food trucks. We saw this place – Prairie Street Eats – a few weeks ago when we were here and wanted to try it out. They had a wide variety of food served from more than half a dozen trucks and trailers. I went for a wet shredded beef burrito that was tasty and Donna opted for Indian cuisine – a chicken curry that she was craving.

I had my antennas set up and programmed a few repeaters for the area. There wasn’t much activity on the VHF and UHF frequencies, so I switched to HF 20-meter band. I made several contacts and had a couple of nice conversations. The first one was with a guy in Boyne City, Michigan. He was surprised to find I knew where Boyne City was. I knew about Boyne City from my good friend and former colleague, Keith Burk. Keith would take his fast boat to Boyne City for an event called Boyne Thunder. By fast boat, I mean an offshore racer type boat that could speed at more than 80 miles per hour on the water!

The other guy I talked to was a real nice fella in Texas. He had a ranch outside of Witchita Falls, northwest of Dallas. He’s retired and with all of the coronavirus stuff he said he hasn’t been traveling and only goes to Witchita Falls when necessary. Ham radio is his contact with the world.

We picked a hot time to return to Coeur d’Alene. The high yesterday was 82 degrees, but the forecast calls for 91 degrees today and upper 90s through the middle of next week.

Bottom Third

In my last post, I mentioned putting up the MFJ Big Ear antenna and trying to make contacts on the 20-meter band without success. Thinking about that, I wondered about the set-up. The Big Ear antenna is a multi-band antenna. For different frequency bands, you need to alter the antenna to tune it. To do this, you shorten the length of the antenna whips for higher frequencies or pull the whips all the way out for lower frequencies.

For 20 meters, you pull the whips all the way out. For 30 or 40 meters you need to electrically lengthen the antenna by tuning a coil at the bottom of one of the whips. The instructions say to short the coil with the whips fully extended for 20 meters. I figured that shorting the coil meant putting the alligator clip on the jumper wire on the top of the coil, thus taking the coil out of the electrical path. The problem was, the jumper wire was too short to reach the top of the coil, so I guessed they intended it to go on the last coil at the bottom. The instructions were less than clear.

After giving it more thought, I realized that this couldn’t be right. Maybe I was so far out of resonance, I couldn’t pick up a signal. I e-mailed MFJ’s support and received a two-word reply to my question of where to place the alligator clip. The reply was “bottom third.” This made no sense to me. The coil has about 34 turns, so they were telling me to put it somewhere on the bottom 11 turns. Nonsense. I know some conditions can make the placement change by a coil or two, but not 11. I decided to experiment.

I attached a short section of wire to the top of the coil and insulated it with heat shrink tubing. Then I attached the alligator clip to the wire to “short” or bypass the coil. I hooked everything back up and tried the 20-meter band again. Right away, I could hear someone transmitting. He was transmitting from the USS Midway in San Diego Bay! Apparently a San Diego Ham Club has access to the radio room on the USS Midway on the second Saturday of each month. With their antenna high above the bridge of the aircraft carrier, their signal has a great reach. I was picking it up loud and clear from over 1,300 miles away.

Although I could pick up their signal, my output was too weak to reach them. Later, I made contact with a guy in Alaska. He was loud and clear. He said he could hear me, but my signal was weak and a little noisy. He told me he was transmitting with 1,000 watts of output. Wow – that’s 10 times the 100 watts I have. I thought maybe I needed more power.

Then I heard from a guy in Texas – he also had 100 watts like me, but had a strong, clear signal. He said his antenna was on a 150-foot tall tower! I don’t need more power – I need to get my antenna higher! These contacts were over-the-air station-to-station with no repeaters or landlines involved.

Sunday was our last full day in Mount Vernon. Donna started the day with a long bicycle ride. She rode to La Conner and made a 27-mile loop. Here are a few of the photos she took on her ride.

Flower pots on the dock – Rainbow Bridge in the background

Later, we drove over to Alana and Kevin’s place. We visited in the backyard – I also watched the Moto GP race and the Formula One race they recorded on their DVR for me. Kevin grilled shrimp for tacos and made a great pineapple salsa to go with it.

A blacktail doe with two fawns came into the backyard and fed on leaves at the edge of the woods – they didn’t pay much attention to us. Around 9pm, we said our goodbyes until next time. It’s always a little sad because we don’t really know when next time will be.

On Monday morning, we hit the road. I drove south on I-5 to WA530 – the Arlington exit. There’s a Pilot-Flying J travel center there and I wanted to fill up before we headed east. There won’t be many places to fuel up until we reach Idaho and we would be low on fuel by then. I don’t like to run the tank low – you never know what might come up.

From there, our route took us through Darrington, then we hit WA20 – the North Cascades Highway at Rockport. The road closure and detour we encountered on our way west had been cleared the previous Friday, so no detour this time. We climbed up Rainy Pass then Washington Pass before the downhill run to Winthrop. In Mount Vernon, we were at an elevation of 31 feet above sea level. Donna said she thought Washington Pass was over 5,000 feet above sea level. I thought it was closer to 4,000 feet. Later I looked it up. It’s more than 5,400 feet above sea level, so Donna was right. I love it when she’s right.

We checked in at Pine Near RV Park in Winthrop around 2:30 pm. We’re in site seven – the same site we had three weeks ago. Awhile later, I set up my Comet GP6 antenna – this one is for 2-meter (VHF) and 70cm (UHF) frequencies which are line-of-sight frequencies. I tried the repeater here in town and got a report back that I had a good signal. The guy asked where I was, then he told me I could see the repeater from where we were.

My ham shack-in-a-box on the picnic table – the repeater is on the water tank on the hill in the background

Then I tried the repeater in Twisp – about eight miles away as the crow flies. This repeater is linked via a network to other repeaters. A guy in Republic, WA said I had a clear signal. After that, I found that the hams over here aren’t very talkative, especially with an outsider. Today, I plan to take down the Comet and put up the Big Ear to see if I can make contact outside of the area.

Donna put the leftover tri-tip to good use. She made beef stroganoff for Monday night’s dinner with kale fettucini she bought at a farm stand on her last bike ride.

This morning we found pickleball. We played here before, a couple of years ago at the outdoor ice skating rink. When we went there this morning, the rink was closed. We came back home and Donna looked at another resource. We found out they play at the tennis courts on the west side of town. We went there and played for a couple of hours and had a good time.

We’re at an elevation of a little over 1,800 feet above sea level here. The weather has been hot and dry. It was 90 degrees on Monday afternoon and 86 degrees yesterday. Today is cooler with a forecast high of 80 degrees. Tomorrow should be about the same and we’ll pull out of here on Friday.

Tri-tip Delight

Kevin and Alana came by on Thursday afternoon and we went into town to District Brewing on the corner of Main Street and Myrtle Street – across from the park where the farmers’ market is held. The brewery had a variety of good IPAs on tap, but only one amber or red ale and one porter.

We found a table on the upper level overlooking the park and Skagit River. After a round of ales, we moved to an outside table so Alana’s chihuahua, Chico, could join us. I ordered a wood-fired pizza to go and Donna and I enjoyed it back at home.

Friday was mostly uneventful – Donna went out for a bike ride. I went to Lowes and bought supplies to build a new antenna mast. I received an MFJ-2289 Big Ear dipole antenna from Ham Radio Outlet the day before. This monster looks kind of like an old “rabbit ear” TV antenna on steroids. The collapsible whips are 17 feet long! I built a mast and mounted it on a sturdy tripod about 10 feet above the ground. The idea is to get on the 20-meter band and see if I can make some distant single-side-band contacts over the air. I haven’t been successful yet.

As I was messing with the radio yesterday afternoon, I could see clouds thickening and could feel rain coming. I took everything down and put the radio away. Meanwhile, I had a tri-tip on the Traeger wood-fired smoker-grill.

I bought the tri-tip at Winco Foods on Wednesday. It was untrimmed, so I trimmed the fat cap and seasoned it Thursday night. Tri-tip is an interesting cut of beef and has some folklore behind it. The tri-tip cut is the bottom of the sirloin – the tensor fasciae latae muscle in front of a cow’s hip. It’s a curved cut usually about eight or nine inches long and three inches thick in the center, tapering on the ends.

This portion of meat was once used only for ground beef or maybe stew meat. The story goes like this – in the 1950s a butcher named Bob Schutz at Safeway in Santa Maria, California was overstocked on ground beef. So he took a bottom sirloin cut that would normally be ground and spiced it, then put it on a rotisserie. The results were surprising. Everyone found the meat to be flavorful and hearty. With a few tweaks, he perfected the method of grilling over coals and began marketing the “tri-tip” as he called it, as a barbecue cut.

This barbecue meat became quite popular in Santa Maria, which is located in a valley known for growing wine grapes, midway between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. Today, a tri-tip that has been barbecued is known as “Santa Maria Tri-Tip.” It’s mostly a west coast thing, but I’ve heard it has grown in popularity throughout the country. The traditional method uses a simple dry rub of equal parts salt, pepper and garlic powder. I used a commercially prepared rub called “Pappy’s Choice” which has a high salt content. After trimming the tri-tip, I rubbed it, wrapped it in cling-wrap and put it in the refrigerator.

Friday afternoon, I pulled the Traeger out of the trailer and set the temperature at about 220 degrees. I did this by setting the controller to 180 degrees, then adjusting the P-setting to P0. This had the pellets feeding for 15 seconds, then idling for 45 seconds and held it at the temperature I desired.

After two hours in the Traeger, I checked the internal temperature and found it at 130 degrees. I fired up the Weber Q and heated it to 400 degrees. I took the tri-tip out of the Traeger and put it in the Weber for three minutes per side. This seared the meat and toughened the bark resulting from the rub and smoking. This is called a reverse sear technique as most searing methods start with the sear first.

The last trick to serving tri-tip is to cut it correctly. It’s a lot like cutting brisket. You must cut across the grain and pay attention as the grain direction changes. For our dinner, I sliced the tri-tip in 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick slices.

Donna made whole wheat spaghetti with pesto, sun dried tomatoes and asparagus on the side and she also had fresh corn on the cob which she bought at the vegetable stand near here on her bike ride. I pulled the tri-tip off the Weber at about 5:20 pm, just as it started raining. Perfect timing. I let it rest on a cutting board for 15 minutes before slicing. You need a cutting board with channel cut in the outer perimeter – this is one juicy hunk of beef.

That’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about tri-tip. The one I smoked was rather large – about three pounds before smoking. So, we have leftovers and that’s great. I had some with eggs over-easy for a poor man’s steak and eggs breakfast this morning. Donna sliced the remainder into thin slices that’ll be just right for tri-tip sandwiches or topping for a salad.

The rain fell off and on overnight and it’s raining lightly this morning. It should clear up by early afternoon. The thermometer reached 73 yesterday and should be about the same today. Tomorrow and Monday are predicted to be sunny and warmer. I’ll start organizing the trailer today. Tomorrow we plan to visit with Kevin and Alana and our granddaughter, Gabi, and Kevin’s boys, Nick and Kyle. On Monday, we’ll pull out of here and head over the North Cascades to Winthrop.

Cedar Hats

We went to Alana and Kevin’s place Sunday afternoon for a visit. We didn’t really “visit” much – they’re in the middle of a large project. They’re repainting their house and had a hydraulic lift they rented to reach the second story and roof trim of the house. This large lift was an expensive rental and they were making the most of it and we didn’t want to interrupt their progress.

I was able to watch the Formula One race from Silverstone, England they had recorded for me on their DVR – thank you very much. Donna brought her clarinet and some sheet music and practiced outdoors in the back yard.

Earlier in the day Donna, went out for a nice bike ride. She rode to La Conner and went across the Swinomish Channel on the Rainbow Bridge.

View south of the bridge – two kayaks on the water

Once she crossed the bridge, she was on Swinomish Indian tribal land. She found a small park with covered pavilions called Cedar Hats.

Monday was my middle daughter, Jamie’s, birthday. I talked to her briefly on the telephone but she was at work so we had to cut it short. Other than that, I didn’t accomplish much beyond making a few ham radio contacts. I know some people wonder what the big deal is about ham radio.

For me, it comes down to two main ideas. I can make contact with people that are great distances away from. Okay, so what – a cell phone does that and is easier. But, would I make contact with a random person in Alaska or Australia or even Japan? I did that over the last few days. Anyone can hail anyone else on the radio and start a conversation. The conversation I had with the guy in Melbourne, Australia was a hoot. After awhile, he told me he had to go because his wife “had brekkie on.” Aussies and Brits often refer to breakfast as brekkie. Although it was Monday afternoon for me, it was Tuesday morning in Australia.

The other thing is emergency contacts. We know from experience with natural or un-natural disasters, like hurricanes or the huge explosion in Beirut, infrastructure goes down. Phone lines, cell towers and Internet are useless in these situations. Many ham operators volunteer for emergency service through Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) or Amateur Radio Civil Emergency Service (RACES). Ham radio doesn’t require Internet or phone service – in many cases, just a battery and antenna for the radio will suffice.

Donna ordered a new carrier (crate) for Ozark the cat. The old one was fine when Ozark was a kitten, but it was a little cramped for a long day on the road now. Donna found a collapsible/expandable carrier and Ozark loves it. She goes in it just to relax on her own volition.

Donna came up with a couple of new dishes this week. She made corn fritters to go with honey/sriracha glazed chicken thighs and baby squash from the farmers’ market. The corn fritters were made with fresh corn cut from the cob.

Honey/sriracha glazed chicken with corn fritters and baby squash

It was excellent. Last night she made lamb rib chops with a rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper marinade. We bought these rib chops at the farmers’ market in Dolores, Colorado and kept them frozen.

Lamb rib chops are tender and very tasty, but you don’t get a lot of meat off of them. We had mashed potato and green beans to go with the chops.

I woke this morning to the sound of rain drops hitting the roof of the coach. Here in western Washington, it’s inevitable – we’ve been here for two and half weeks. If it didn’t rain in the next few days, people around here would be wringing their hands over a drought. The forecast calls for a high of 66 degrees today. It should be dry with temperatures in the mid to upper 70s through the weekend. We plan to pull out of here on Monday. We’ll be retracing our route with a four-night stay in Winthrop before going back to Coeur d’Alene.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Washington

Graduate

Voila Walla Walla

River or Lake?

Fast Times in Mount Vernon

Cool August Day

Miles of Wildfire Smoke

Code Talkers

Bottom Third

Tri-tip Delight

Cedar Hats

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