We got off to a little bit of a late start this morning, especially for having gained an hour by crossing into the Pacific time zone. But we got hooked up and on the road by about 10:30, I think. Couer d'Alene is a lovely lake and town, we might have to stop back here sometime.
 |
| Lake Couer d'Alene, Idaho |
 |
| One of many dust devils in Washington. |
 |
| Painting on the road. Watercolor of the Morning Glory Pool from Y'stone. |
 |
| Washington scenery. I thought it would be greener. |
We were in Washington pretty quickly and after passing through Spokane, the landscape got very boring again. It looks a lot like South Dakota and most of Montana. Brown and repetitive. We did see a lot of these funnel, dust devils, I guess? I've never seen anything like it. There would be 4 or 5 across the fields as we drove by. The sky was clear. It didn't seem particularly windy, but there they were, little mini dust tornadoes. That was pretty much the highlight until we got into the Columbia River Gorge and the scenery got nicer. We passed a few dams, very cool.
We got into the RV park we are staying at, Portland Fairview RV Park, around 5:30. This wasn't our first choice, but it seems ok. Noisy from planes passing nearby and quite a bit of traffic noise, but from the reviews we read, that's the case with most of the RV places in Portland.
 |
| This place looked so neat. Everything around it was brown, then there was this green oasis. It reminded me of an Italian vineyard. |
We had a little drama when we hooked up. The electricity didn't seem to be working right, the lights were very dim. The Camp Host came and checked on it and said everything on their end was working. Then the kids discovered that there was electricity coming through some of the metal parts on the outside of the RV and shocking them. Uh oh. Camp Host thought it might be a problem with our converter. That sounded complicated, but we do have a warranty service. A phone call to the company and they got a technician on the phone, even at 6:30 PST. He walked us through a few things and we discovered that the wiring from the main plug must have come loose and the wires got crossed, which melted them and was causing us to lose ground and mess everything up. A little scary that it didn't flip a circuit breaker or something. But it was an easy fix, without needing a service call. So we have power and AC again. Whew.
 |
| The Dalles dam |
 |
| The Dalles |
After a quick swim and dinner, everyone is ready for bed. Tomorrow we are heading to downtown Portland. It keeps coming up as one of our top places to live, so expectations are high. haha.
I want to know if Portland is still as awesome as it was when I was a teen. It's on my list of places to retire. Based on info from 20 years ago.
ReplyDeleteReally glad the wiring issue was resolved easily. Is Washington in a drought, too? I didn't know that. When we went oh-so-long ago (over 20yrs), I remember it being ridiculously green and wet. We drove up from Cali.
ReplyDeleteApprently, Easter Washington is just always that dry. I read last night that Pasco, Wash., only averages 6" of rain a year. Wow!
DeleteI've lived in the Portland area for over 40 years and can't imagine living anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in eastern Washington, and yes that part of the state is high desert. It doesn't green up until you are halfway to the coast. The Yakima Valley is fairly green due to irrigation. Eastern Oregon is somewhat the same.
Hub and I have talked about spending several months (years?)travelling around the country. One of the first places I want to visit is Julie's.