It’s now May 1st and I’ve had a nice stay in Walla Walla visiting family, wandering around town and partaking of the many wines available here in the Wine Tasting rooms. I took the kids out again for a goodbye evening.
My son James pretending he's gotten a call from a gurl.
What did she say?
It's a good picture of me! Since you can't really see me.
During the evening my kids met some friends and they invited us over to their place to enjoy a little b’day party.
B'day boy gets a private hip dance.
See the boob? Love the boob! He seems stunned.
Time for a lap dance! Still looks stunned.
A couple days later we get together with sister and BIL for a family dinner at her place.
Sister Terri in her kitchen.
BIL Gary helps out.
JP enjoying a little sports on the telly while Mush enjoys a good book.
Daughter Mush decides to help cook.
A couple days later and I take the last picture of my RV at my favorite RV campground in WW.
This campground is off Military Road. It’s about 5 miles from downtown, it’s quiet, the rates are good, and there’s lots of flowering trees. Not the dripping kind but flowering. I did have to pick pedals out of the RV for weeks afterward but it was worth it.
The next morning, May 6th, I head North to Oroville, Washington. It’s on the boarder with Canada and I plan on spending a week or more there to check the town out. Here’s a few pictures from the road and at Dry Falls.
There are some lonely roads in eastern Washington, this one is north of Pasco.
I wanted to visit Dry Falls again, they are along this route north. I haven’t been there since I brought Maria six years ago. She had terminal brain cancer and I took her on a road trip to help get her mind off her troubles for a while and as a thank you for being our friend for so many years. We made a big circuit in the RV around eastern Washington. Even stayed at Fishtrap Lake outside of Spokane. We, I still miss her allot. A beautiful woman in every way.
A little countryside south of dry falls. This was filled with water.
And here are (were) the falls. Ten times bigger then Niagra.
Go here for a Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_Falls
And another article: http://www.gonorthwest.com/Washington/northeast/Dry_Falls.htm
Check out this map, I came up north on WA-17. The dry falls are a few miles south of the ‘T’ with US-2. When I left the falls to head on up to Oroville, I took a left at the ‘T’, and got back on WA-17 a few miles west. Dry Falls Lake is right at the base of the ancient falls: http://ncwportal.com/grant/cities/dry_falls_junction/map
The view easterly from the interpretive center.
Looking at the ancient river channel. Southerly.
Looking northerly. That's part of Coulee City in the distance.
A few minutes later and the sky was semi-overcast. Gives a milky look to the following pictures.
Still a pretty good sized body of water here.
I've been told the fishing is pretty good here.
Imagine what roar the water would have made. The overlook would have been dry so this shot would have been a boiling mass of 65mph water with huge chunks of ice in it.
And a final look south.
I moved a little north to get this shot of the precipice. Four hundred feet high.
This little block house is used by the Park Rangers.
Back on the road heading north. Still early in the day, around 12pm, not very far from Walla Walla at this point. And it took me about an hour to find fuel in Pasco when I’d passed through earlier. Then off in the distance I see scattered rain coming down.
Passing some of the 10's of thousands of acres of wheat in this area.
Lots of farm land and a few scattered towns astride the highway.
Rufus - Woods Lake, by WA-17. This is Chief Joseph dam.
It got cloudy quickly and then started to rain. I got onto US-97 heading due north after the dam.
Crossing the river at Chief Joseph...don't know the name.
Arrived at the RV park in Oroville. Right on the river.
I got into Oroville around 4:40pm. This campground is just 4 blocks west of downtown. Not very old, lots of nice large spaces. And right on the river. Big problem was the lack of WiFi. They had it when they first opened but decided it was to expensive to continue. I had to ride a couple blocks over to the library whenever I needed to do my on-line stuff. But I rode my bike every day so it wasn’t to much hassle. No cable either, and no off the air TV stations. So I’d have to ride over to a bar to watch games. But since it was early May, wasn’t much happening on TV either. Daily price was a little high, considering the lack of WiFi and TV, but it was convenient.
Park like setting right behind my space.
Looking westerly down the river.
Very swift, and cold.
So, now (May 6th, 2010) I’m in Oroville. I’d planned on coming here six years ago but never made it. There was a bar for sale right downtown then and I was considering putting my money into that. I’m glad I didn’t because it didn’t have enough parking, facilities were a little rough from what I could see through the windows, as it had closed down, and they had two other competitors within two blocks. Probably why they were trying to sell. Back then the price for the business was pretty good though. What turned out to be my favorite bar in town was just across the street.
I stayed in Oroville for over 3 weeks so next time I’ll have more pictures. After a week, I did decide to head up the road to another RV park where it was only $7 per day. Just electric with a dump station and water available but it helped save me some money over the $150 per week I’d paid at the first place I’d stayed. It’s just north of town near a big box local chain store. That was handy ’cause I could go shopping, then it was only 100 yards from my RV. The bike ride into town was 2-3 miles but I really needed the exercise anyway. Met a nice gal at the bar in town so we hung around a bit and had some fun talking every once in a while. But still no WiFi! Apparently the people here that own the RV parks haven’t gotten the word that RV’ers are really interested in having it. Don’t even mind paying a little extra.
See you next time, thanks for reading!