This trip actually sort of started when Tom left early Tuesday morning from PHL for SEA – he was visiting our friend Mike Chapman early to dust out the cobwebs from Khan and Polo and to help Mike with a few two-man chores on his house in Duval.
The time was needed. Though we thought that we drained the water fully on Khan, there was water trapped in the water filter canister and in the shower wand (we could have solved the wand problem by opening the shutoff button on the wand – which was probably in the instructions from Winnebago we didn’t read.) Freezing temperatures broke both. Tom and Mike replaced the filter canister – discovering that neither Winnebago nor La Mesa had bothered to put a filter in it – and Tom wrapped the crack in the shower wand in electrical tape for now.
When Tom and Mike got Khan started, it displayed a “check engine light” for a while, but that went away after driving it a bit. However, poor Polo’s battery was fried from 7 months without power and had to be replaced. It now has no display on the radio/backup camera display, something we plan to work on tomorrow. There is a chance we can revive it – otherwise that problem may be expensive and time consuming.
After a fine breakfast with Mike and his delightful wife Patricia, we departed for Lake Moses, WA and the Lakefront RV Park.
The drive – with a route recommended by Mike and Patricia, was full of beautiful and varied scenery. Before we crossed the Cascade mountains, there was dense rainforest-like vegetation and streams swollen with melting snow crashing over rocks. On the other side of the mountains we first passed through the apple-growing region, which quickly gave way to mainly arid rolling plains and mesas. This area reminded us of much of the Southwest. Then, near Coulee, irrigation from the Columbia Basin Project turns that desert into lush farmland.
Along the way, we both came to the realization that on the last leg we were both employed full-time, but this time, having retired in November, we’re now old retired white guys. VideoRay was sold in November, but we are both continuing our run under BlueHalo working as contractor consultants. Another tidbit of Information is that, as of May 1st, BlueHalo was formally acquired by Aerovironment, which is now just “AV,” and VideoRay was moved under the AV umbrella parallel with BlueHalo.
While driving through Waterville, WA on the way to Lakefront we ended up driving on a portion of the famous Tour De Bloom bike race. Our first notification was several young girls in short shorts waving Stop and Slow signs and gesturing us to move to the side of the road and park. We wondered why the girls were not in school, but realized it was probably an after-school project of some kind. Then we saw groups of serious mountain-bike riders go by. We waited for 10 minutes or so and were permitted to resume our journey – we looked up the race afterwards and realized it was actually a pretty big deal with professional bike riders.
For this first leg of the trip the Chapmans recommended that we take the scenic route and go through Coulee City. In particular, we should eat at Couleegan’s , where the friendly waitress was also the cook. We of course took their advice.
We were surprised to see that Couleegans was on the main street surrounded by several other bars, one of which was apparently open at 4PM on a Friday. Couleegan’s had 4 gentleman eating at the bar, and we placed our order and was served good burger and French Dip by the server/cook.
We arrived at the Lakefront RV Park in Moses Lake, WA, at 6 PM and the outside temperature is 82 degrees! When registering, they only required a deposit, but when we proceeded to check in the office was closed. A call to the emergency number, and the hostess said she would stop by soon to check us in. There was no Wi-Fi and the bathrooms were double locked. The Lakefront RV Park has well-deserved lousy reviews on Yelp, but it is on the water and we’re only here for one night before we move on so it should be bearable. Tom offered to let Scott do the planning, but he quipped, “I prefer my role as chief complainer.” It was getting late and the hostess had not yet stopped by so we retired to bed.
