On Saturday morning we drove from Monroe to Puyallup, WA. The state fair was in progress in Puyallup so we did have some heavy traffic to get to our destination.
We were also delayed at a train crossing.
We set up the RV at the Puyallup Elks lodge and drove to Federal Way to spend the afternoon with Ken’s cousin Barb and her husband Neil. After dinner, we drove back to Puyallup and caught this view of Mt Rainier.
We met the nieces and nephew for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Snohomish. On the left: Lisa and James. On the right (back to front): Tammy, Gabrielle (hidden by Thomas), Robyn and Jeff.
Tammy says “cheers” while Gabrielle and Thomas are busy playing games on a smart phone and Robyn is finishing her dinner.
On Friday night, I didn’t take any photos, but we met my brother Carl and his wife Barb and my sister Cris for dinner at the Blazing Onion in Snohomish. It was quite similar to Red Robin, but with a more varied menu. We had a good meal and visit and returned to the RV to get ready for our departure on Saturday morning.
We left Max and Jane’s house and before heading west on I-90, we topped of the fuel tank at the Shell station in town. Once on the freeway, we once again traveled through smoke for the fires to the north.
There were several photo opportunities for old barns along our route.
Once again the new thermostat was doing it’s job and we had no overheating problems as we approached the summit of Snoqualamie Pass.
We traveled through the small town of Snoqualamie as we continued to Monroe.
This old train has been sitting here along the road forever.
This bridge crosses the road at Snoqualamie Falls.
We continued to the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe for our 3 day visit to Monroe and Snohomish while visiting family.
It was going to be just a short drive today, so we took our time getting on the road and headed west to Kittitas for a stop to see Ken’s cousin Max and his new wife Jane.
Yes…there really is a George, Washington.
And his wife Martha runs the local café.
Before going down the hill to cross the Columbia River to Vantage, there is a wild horse monument on the hillside. We didn’t stop at the viewpoint, so my photo didn’t come out too good.
And it’s still pretty smoky as we cross the Columbia River to the Vantage side. The hill heading west out of Vantage will be the first real test of how well the new thermostat in the RV works.
And up the hill we go…no overheating!!!
We drive under this railroad trestle about ten miles east of Kittitas.
After we got set up at Max and Jane’s house, we headed into Ellensburg for lunch and to see a Roadside America attraction called Dick & Jane’s. Here are a couple of photos from Dick and Jane’s. It’s a private home that a husband and wife team of artists used to display their creativity. It’s quite unique to say the least.
Back at Max and Jane’s, we met Jane for the first time and had a nice visit with her. When Max got home for work, we joined them for dinner and more visiting. They both had to work early the next day, so we called it an early evening, but not before Max asked us to help ourselves to some elk meat out of the freezer before leaving in the morning. We are more than happy to oblige them!
The RV went into the shop at Cummins Coach Care early. First Ken rode with the technician for a test drive to see if the engine heating problem would occur. As luck would have it, this one of the first cooler days Spokane area has seen in a long time so the engine didn’t heat up. After much discussion, the technician determined that our problem was most likely the thermostat and he went to work to replace it. The repair was completed before noon and we were on the road before noon fighting the wind as we headed west to Moses Lake. We went through a lot of areas of smoke from the forest fires north of I-90.
We arrived at the Columbia Basin Elks (Moses Lake, WA) and set up for the night. Ken called friends Karen and Wayne and we were invited to their place for dinner. We spent the afternoon running a few errands and just driving around town to see what was new. Ken attended schools here from 5th grade through his junior year. Later at Wayne and Karen’s, they barbecued steaks and we had a great meal and visit with them before heading back to the RV for the night.
It was another week of no photos, but we were on the go quite a bit.
On Monday 9/3, we met RV friends Bryan and Susan for lunch at Hu Hot and catching up with them. We didn’t have enough time to talk while at Hu Hot, so we drove up to Dairy Queen for some ice cream and more chatting.
September 4th was Demetrius’ 19th birthday and he was busy with friends so we didn’t get to see him that day.
Wednesday morning 9/5, we made preparations to take the RV to RVs Northwest as we’re still having a problem with the HWH leveling system. Before leaving the Elks, Ken discovered that the tire we had repaired last week had lost about 20 pounds of pressure. After talking to the technician at the RV shop, we decided to order a new touchpad for the HWH system and they agreed to pay overnight shipping since our original problem could have been misdiagnosed. From there we headed back to Preedy’s in downtown Spokane arriving there at about 11am only to find that they couldn’t work on the tire until 1pm. Since I had followed in the truck, we used the spare time to meet Ken’s brother Ron and his wife MaryAnn and their grandson Eric for lunch. We returned to the tire shop where they had already started working to find the problem. We ended up having to get another valve stem extension and it was close to 4pm before we got back to camp…another long day without getting much accomplished.
We attended the monthly meeting and potluck for the Wheelin’ Elks on Thursday evening.
Friday was the start of another project I’ve been meaning to get to: cleaning the windows in the RV. I decided to try a product that Home Depot had recommended while we were in Arizona for cleaning the house windows. It’s called Unger Pro Formula Window Cleaner and it’s a concentrate where you use for capfuls to one gallon of water. It does a fantastic job and is something we’ll continue to use in the future. I used it again on Saturday morning to clean the inside windows and we can see clearly now! The inside front window and driver side window still need to be completed, but they always seem to be facing the sun.
We went to out daughter Laura’s house for dinner on Saturday night. Our youngest grandson Dominique now has mono in addition to his broken ankle. That poor kid is getting a bad start to the school year.
This morning, we followed Gene and Cathy to the Spokane Valley Eagles for breakfast. It was a good meal and we had a very good, outgoing waitress. They also had a membership special going on for $25, so Ken filled out an application to rejoin the Eagles. On our return to the Elks lodge, we finished packing things up and drove to the Cummins Coach Care in Cheney. They’ll be looking into the problem we’re having with the engine overheating. Hopefully it will be a relatively inexpensive fix and we’ll be able to get on the road again Monday afternoon.
We didn’t get a photo of the blue moon last night, so here’s one of a full moon on the 1st of September.
Back to Thursday, we took the motorhome into the tire shop we use while in Spokane to take care of a slow leak problem we’d been having on an inside dually. It turned out to be a problem with the valve stem, so that was replaced. From there we went to a radiator shop on Trent to have them take a look as we’ve been having a problem with overheating going over mountain passes. At that shop the repairman looked at the back of the radiator with a flashlight and told us our radiator was just fine and suggested we look into a possible problem with the thermostat.
We have pretty much been sticking around the RV although we did make a trip to Walmart on Friday to get some things stocked up so that we wouldn’t need to be in a store over the holiday weekend. Today (Saturday) we briefly thought about a trip to downtown Spokane to attend Pig Out at the Park, but decided we weren’t into doing crowds and chose to stay home for the day. We did attend the dinner at the Elks lodge tonight and are now watching tv (Ken) and reading and/or on the computer (Jan and Ken). The American Legion in Post Falls has a breakfast on Sunday we’ll be following Gene and Cathy there tomorrow.
