8/3/07

Well, instead of heading up to Grand Coulee Dam, we're sitting at the Walmart in Moses Lake in the middle of Washington, with a dead battery. The voltage gauge started dropping this afternoon, and when we stopped for gas, it almost didn't start. Scott checked the connections & everything was OK; he figures it's the alternator. We just barely made it here. I called a mobile repair place & left a message, he called a auto parts store to find an alternator. After a while the guy from the mobile service called back. He doesn't do chassis work, but he told Scott how to use jumper cables to hook up the house battery to the car battery, and as long as we run the generator, it'll charge the car battery. And tomorrow morning, Scott is going to get up & pull out the alternator, call the auto parts store & they're going to run the alternator over here for us.

If that fixes it, we're headed for home. I've had enough.

8/1/07 Photos

Mt. St. Helens


Beach Pictures

8/1/07

I was hoping to get my blog updated with photos, but the campsite's wifi doesn't work with Macs. Would have been nice to be told that when I asked for a site close to the wifi antenna...
So I'm trying to upload photos via my cell phone Internet connection, which is slow.

Today we started out at Neah Bay, a small fishing village in the NW corner of Washington, on the Makah Indian reservation. Last night we drove up to Cape Flattery, the farthest North and West you can go on the continental U.S. By the time we got there, it was too late to walk the trail to the beach, though. But the drive was pretty neat, on a (sometimes) 2 lane road winding up and down and around, with trees overhanging the road.

This morning when I got up, the air was so cool and fresh. I walked down to the beach in Neah Bay and watched bald eagles and listened to sea lions. What a wonderful memory.

We heard late this afternoon about the bridge collapse in the Cities. What a horrible, horrible thing to happen. I've been on that bridge! That happening is one of my biggest fears, and to think that that's why I wouldn't drive over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. And here it happens in Minneapolis!! I pray that these horrible things will soon come to an end, and we can all live in peace and security and happiness.

7/30/07

It's been a pleasant few days, now that we're over the Cascades. Mt. Hood was very impressive, but Mt. St. Helens beats it. We were lucky this time, it was clear weather and we could see the steam coming up from the volcano. Wow!
The next mornin was cloudy, so I decided to head to the beach instead of Mt. Rainier. It is so nice and cool along the ocean, with a cool breeze coming off the ocean. I can see why people lay in the sun on the beach.
Today we headed up to Olympic National Park, and tonight we're camped in a national forest campground, with the generator on and watching Raymond for a while. Tomorrow we'll be as far west as we can go, and will have to head back east. I'm kind of ready to come home, but sad too. And I'm NOT looking forward to having to head back into the heat wave...

7/26/07

What a day! We started out in Idaho, went to the town of Weiser (Scott wasn't too impressed) and had lunch by the city park. They sure do grow a lot of onions around here. Then we went on to Oregon and jumped onto the freeway. It was hot and got hotter. Even at 5 p.m. it was still 96°. And then we got to where the freeway parallels the Columbia River. I like mountains, although, I do admit, the drop offs scare me a little; I am afraid of driving by or over water, and when the wind is strong, it bounces the RV around. Combine all three, and you describe my day: nerve wracking!!!! I was doing 35 mph on the freeway, hanging onto the steering wheel with a death grip, going along (sometimes 20-30 feet above and right next to a river 4-5 times the width of the Mississippi in Elk River, getting bounced back and forth by gusts of wind. And I still have to drive over that river, but it's not going to be tomorrow! I decided we're going to go to Mt. Hood tomorrow and then go to the coast and spend a day or so, at least hopefully until it's a bit less windy.