Hit the Road – Easy

Got every thing sold or given away at the house by the 21st of August and got on the road around noon. Went down to Flying J and filled up the tank, headed east on I-84. Four hours later I’m in Walla Walla and it’s getting dark so I stop at the only RV place in Walla Walla. Not bad but over priced for not having wireless internet. Cost was $25 per night.

Made some calls and went over to see Maria the next day. She is interested in going for a little drive about but can’t go for a whole week like I wanted. We settle on 3-4 days. The next day is all about waiting for her nurse to get the prescriptions she needs and order them in little envelopes so she can take them at the right times. Maria has brain cancer that has spread so she’s on a treatment regime that requires all the pills. Since it’s taking so long, I end up in the Wal-Mart parking lot for the night. Comfy.

We get on the road Monday at about 2pm and head northish. Four hours later we pull into the camping spot at Fishtrap lake outside of Spokane. Built in the ’30’s, the buildings are showing their age but the lake is still a beautiful & peaceful place. Steep walled canyon, volcanic, with a lake in it (duh…) of about 3 miles by 2 miles. The owner raises buffalo on the rim so we bought T-bone steaks for dinner. Yummy. That night and into the next morning is rains like crazy, so no fishing.

Next day we head for the Grand Coulee Dam. The weather clears up some but it’s cloudy and cool…just how I like it. Not much to say about the dam, it’s huge but basically uninteresting. Hit the road and headed for Dry Falls, which was the worlds largest falls 16,000 years ago but is dry now. Now this was interesting, so we spent about 2-3 hours going over the exhibit and looking at the view. Really neat stuff.

Next we headed for Moses Lake and points south. Traveled along a river for a while, can’t remember it’s name. Stopped south of Moses Lake and spent the night in a camp ground. Not much happening there but there was a lot of long-term stay overs at the park that had really dug into the place. Even had their own lawn mowers and yard tools. Didn’t get a chance to ask any why they seemed to like the place so much…must be contractors.

The following day we head back towards Pasco and Walla Walla. Some interesting ground to see and we did find a roadside farm fruit stand that had delicious apples and stuff. Back on the road, I start wiping the apple off on my pants and Maria says, “You should wash that”. I don’t want to stop the rig for that so I just wipe. Later that day, I see the lead article in the paper is that local farmers have been using a banned spray on their apples despite the ban, because it works so well to stop a fungus…the spray is also known to cause lung cancer. Other then that not much to much excitement or things to see.

We get into Walla Walla late in the day, and go visit Maria’s mother on the family farm. They have a 50 year old fuel tank on the property that has about 100 gallons of gas buried underground that hasn’t been touched in 30 years. The fuel is rotten, smells like turpentine. And the tank is 100 yards from an artesian well and 100 feet from a neighbor’s pumped well. So the next day I call and leave a message for the EPA. They call me back and say, “There are no local or national laws that cover that. It would be hard to get a loan on the property when they sell, oh, and they could be sued by their neighbors if the tank leaks, but no laws to worry about”. Hmmm.

I spent the next 4 days up at Gordon’s above lake Billie Chinook. Now I’m in Gresham.