Awake: 5:50am Temp 47 Mostly sunny Overnight @ Cheney, Washington
Nice looking weather for our travels today…except for the Southwest wind,
it’s a little blustery & will probably be a cornering headwind.
Tight turns on leaving the Klink’s Williams Lake Resort @ 10:30 but Kathy
walks ahead & watches closely as I maneuver toward the exit area. She had
to move a garbage can, otherwise we were fine. It’s a good time to leave
as this weekend they are expecting a full campground for the 1st day of
the fishing competition here @ Williams Lake.
Our destination today depends on “what’s happening.” As we roll along on
I-90 Westbound, Kathy makes her 1st call to Frank & Kay in Royal City….Kay
answers & tells us they are motoring in their Newell to a rally in Port
Angeles, WA as we speak. We were thinking we might pay them a short visit
en route today….but not now. Next, Kathy calls Nancy & Joe in Sequim,
WA…they are building a new house &, at the moment, the guys are trying to
dig out the foundation & the rain is being very competitive. Nancy reports
some heavy rain on the West side of the WA Cascades with reports of hail
in the Kirkland area. “That does it” I say, we’ll be finding a campground
on the East side of the Cascades for the night.
When we visited Joe & Nancy in East Mesa, AZ in February 05, we talked
about a rendezvous in Sequim late spring….now it looks like we can do it!
While I’m driving, I ask Kathy to search for a reasonable campground just
east of the Cascade Mountains. This takes awhile as she has 4 books to
peruse. Then we discuss our options & she makes another call to our
potential destination for the night. The campground owner suggests that we
make a reservation if we want a pull thru site which we do & she does.
At the next rest stop, we take a quick pause where I reprogram the GPS for
the Cle Elum, WA campground. Maybe an hr later down the road, this semi
carrying a load of huge, heavy looking sliced boulders slowly overtakes us
on a slight downhill grade. He couldn’t have been more than 200 ft ahead
of us in the left lane when, suddenly, one of his left rear trailer tires
literally blew apart, making a loud explosive noise…chunks & pieces of
shredded tire flying everywhere. I swerved, braked & somehow managed to
avoid running over any huge chunks of his debris. He was slowing down &
moving into our lane as I was eagerly getting into the left lane & ahead
of his unit since his tire was still tossing pieces of rubber. It got our
undivided attention as we had not seen anything like this happen so close
before.
Looking ahead, we can easily see the dark clouds looming over the
Cascades….then a few drops of rain, then a steady drizzle. We did make it
to our campground without a fresh shower so those dark clouds obviously
moved further north.
As we drive into the Whispering Pines RV Park @ 2:50pm in Cle Elum, WA.,
there is a motor home already parked in the check-in lane. Turns out those
people only want a pull thru for the night but we had reserved the only
one left. Good thing Kathy made the reservation. This campground is small
but very clean, neat, quite adequate, close to the Interstate & almost big
rig friendly. We wouldn’t hesitate staying here again.
Today’s travel: 4+10 hrs 180.5 miles 23.62 gal 7.64 mpg 50 avg speed
After parking & setting up, we take a walk for exercise along the Yakima
River (45 min). Toward the end of our walk, I call my cousin Andrea in
Indiana, PA….we talk for 20 min. Then we call Melissa for her 31st
birthday….hardly seems possible: she’s 31 already? She has Matthew in his
plastic pool outside in Anchorage as we talk. Gosh, it must be reasonably
warm up there.
7:10 Dinner: Leftover tuna casserole, asparagus in a cream sauce, fresh
spinach salad + toast.
Some cable TV watching late evening.
Today’s high travel temp=65 Lights out: 10:58pm
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