Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Vancouver to Spokane and What We’ve Been Doing While in Spokane

After leaving the Vancouver Elks, we drove a short distance to the Fred Meyer to take on diesel using our discount card.  We headed south on I-5 to the next exit and then started our trip heading east on Hwy 12.  It was Saturday on Memorial Day weekend and we soon found out that there was a bicycle ride also heading east that added to the congestion on the narrow and winding highway.

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We drove along the north side of the Columbia River enjoying the scenery.

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We passed many spots with numerous boats fishing either in the river or in the small lakes on the north side of the road.

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We drove through several tunnels.

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This bridge crosses the river as a connection between Washington and Oregon.

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Usually on a nice day you can see several wind surfers out in the river in this area, but we only saw a couple as we passed by.

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We took a short break at the former site of Celilo Falls which is now under water due to the many dams built along the Columbia in the 1950’s.

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There is also a lot of train traffic along this route.

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When we got to Hwy 82, we turned north toward the Tri Cities area.  In Pasco, we stopped at a popular market with truck and RV parking for a lunch break.  We have been stopping at this location several times over the years and have seen it grow from a small roadside produce market to it’s present large building complete with restaurant.  Back on the road we continued driving north and at I-90, we drove east to Spokane.  This photo shows us approaching downtown Spokane.

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We continued to the Spokane Valley and are now parked at the Spokane Elks lodge which is Ken’s home lodge and our summer base when not traveling.  Last year there weren’t any marmots to be seen as I recall…something had driven them off.  This year is a different story and there are large amounts of them and we really need to watch where we walk as their homes in the rocks apparently don’t have indoor plumbing.

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On Memorial Day we spent the afternoon at our daughter’s home visiting and having barbecued chicken for dinner.  We spent a portion of the day last Tuesday checking our the different RV repair facilities so that we could make arrangements for the repair of our HWH jack and airbag suspension system.  We decided to make the appointment with RV’s Northwest at Barker Rd and I-90, but they can’t get us in until June 22nd.

Demetrius is the grandson who will be graduating on June 8th at the Opera House in Spokane and he’s having a busy week.  He was a part of the cast of a play called “The Vain and the Heartless” at his school Monday night.  He is a natural at acting and we were very impressed.

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Felts Field is somewhat close to the Elks lodge and we had several flyovers in the last week by bi-planes.

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Ken has been trying to find out the problem with our household refrigerator since the icemaker quit making ice.  It was lodged quite tightly into the woodwork and the wood probably expanded since it’s installation as we moved from AZ to the more humid northwest.  He finally got the refrigerator pulled out enough to see behind it and find that the problem was a hose came out of it’s fitting most likely due to a problem with the water pressure.  He reinstalled the hose making sure it was tighter, turned the water on to the icemaker again.  We’re still waiting and it looks like we may have to call for a service technician to take a look at it.  To be continued.

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We are getting a cold spell here in Spokane.  The temperatures have been into the low 40’s overnight and it’s only supposed to be in the 50’s for the next few days.  We’re patiently waiting for some warmer weather.

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