Friday, May 27, 2022; Pendleton OR to Oak Harbor- a final dash home.

Friday, May 27, 2022; Pendleton OR to Oak Harbor- a final dash home.

Janet had wanted to make it home for Ciara’s 28th birthday, which is on May 28.  This apparently makes it a “Golden” birthday.  Ciara has a party planned with her friends today in Seattle, and her boyfriend Tom is visiting.  

From Pendleton, Oregon, we decided to make a bee-line for home, heading diagonally across Oregon and Washington, rather than making stops in Portland and Onalaska as our original itinerary outlined.  Staying extra days in Tennessee, Missouri and Minnesota meant we had some serious catching up to make it home in time for Ciara’s birthday.  

Fortunately, the weather cooperated.  We did have some thundershowers last night, but the temperatures had dropped to the upper 60’s overnight, so we were comfortable without needing either air conditioning or the furnace.  We got up relatively early and stopped at the Arrowhead travel center to use the bathrooms and pick up breakfast at McDonalds.  We then began our sprint home.

We took turns behind the wheel driving through the agricultural fields of Northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington, refueling in Thorp, WA taking on 15.735 gal @$5.389gal with 27171 miles on the odometer (12.3mpg). 

After crossing the summit of Snoqualmie Pass, where the pavement was bare and dry, and where we noticed that Lake Kachess was filled to the brim, we allowed ourselves a sightseeing stop at Snoqualmie Falls. 

The falls are quite impressive with the recent rains.  It is interesting to see how the first power generation station was drilled out of the bedrock at the base of the falls.  They don’t have tours of that underground power generation station, but the pictures are fascinating.  

Our next stop was lunch at Chiang’s Gourmet on Lake City Way, north of the University of Washington.  We have been there so many times in our RV that we have a special parking spot between their sign and Lake City Way where it is easy to get into and out of.  

We then stopped at nephew Alex’s newly acquired house in Everett.  He works at Boeing.  We had never been in this cute residential neighborhood with older homes before. 

It is very conveniently located for getting on and off I-5.  The house is on a narrow but long lot with street frontage and an alley at the rear.  The house has ample off street parking off the alley, which is a big plus.  The house itself is a mish-mash.  Much of what is in the back of the house appears to be an enclosed former garage and storage spaces of very generous size.  The main house up front is dated with authentic mid century appliances and countertops.  It will make a great project house for Alex with endless opportunities for remodeling and upgrades.  The front yard is beautifully landscaped with flowers and shrubs, as well as a pair of mature rhubarb plants ready for the picking. 

We dropped off a BB-8 star wars pillow that we picked up from his mom Eileen in Los Altos.  That droid traveled nearly 10,000 miles to get from his Mom’s house to him via our RV.  

We made our customary stop at the Smoky Point Rest Area to use their trailer dump facility, but were aghast to find that the rest top’s truck and trailer parking had been taken over by a large homeless encampment that had obviously been there for some time. 

There was hardly any parking for travelers or for truckers who depend on these rest areas for safe operation of their essential rigs.  The state patrol should really enforce limits on stays to less than 12 hours so that travelers and truckers can use these areas to get needed rest to be able to drive safely.  We were able to use the trailer dump facilities, but we’re afraid the state will end up shutting the rest stop down entirely rather than deal with the homeless encampment.  

We refueled at the Angel of the Winds Casino taking on 10.505gal @$5.499/gal with 27329 miles on the odometer (15.0mpg).  We also stopped at our local John Deere dealership in Mt. Vernon to pick up a replacement mower deck for our riding mower.  It had suffered a fractured deck just before we left on our RV trip.  Fortunately, they had one in stock, and it could fit on the rear cargo carrier of the RV.  

We stopped at the Burlington Costco to shop for groceries and met with Price in the parking lot. 

He had just gotten off work, and was on his way down to Seattle to give Ciara some home baked cookies with real gold leaf decorations.  

We got home and found that the house was still standing and the lawn was mowed, but every square inch of the kitchen countertops and kitchen island were covered with pots, pans, cooking ingredients and miscellaneous objects. 

But it was good to be back in our real home after 7-1/2 weeks on the road in the RV.  

We ended the trip with 27282 miles on the odometer. We started with 14938 miles so we logged 12,344 miles on our coast to coast RV trip.  We managed to endure the consequences of a Haboob, broken valve stem, and rodent attack on our propane system during this grand road trip, and have one good scar on the right side of the RV as a souvenir of our tight quarters in Delaware.  We also lost the cap to our kitchen vent fan somewhere between Minnesota and South Dakota.  But through it all, we did have a great adventure and got to visit lots of relatives and friends all around the country.  We are grateful for having missed the tornados and hailstorms in the midwest, and to have avoided any large animal encounters on the roads as well.  

It will take some time to get the RV unpacked and get back into the rhythms of our Oak Harbor summer time routines, but we can certainly see ourselves packing off in the RV for the 2024 solar eclipse, and perhaps even a winter RV trip to get out of the rain and wind for a while.