Limping along…

with a leaking differential. I left Walla Walla and headed West towards Richland, Washington. Around an hours drive away. I’d planned on just heading straight over there to hole up in a RV park just 3.5 miles from the venue where my daughter would be having her and her bands CD Release Party. Place called Dax’s.

I was a day early trip wise and on the way there, it was around noonish, I decided to just drop in on that little RV park next to the Walla Walla river I’d passed hundreds of times and never stopped at. Pierce’s Green Valley R.V. Park and Campground is located between Wallula & Walla Walla. I always just pass by because their sign doesn’t say anything about WiFi, and I really like to have it.

Well, it’s a pretty nice park, 60 spaces, with older owners who happen to be running a farm. The RV park is mature and kind of has a ’60ish look.  They host lots of bikers that pass through the area. The owner was right there as I pulled in and knows nothing about WiFi, or so she said; what it is, why people might want it, nothing. Kind of out of the loop. I explained as best I could but she didn’t seem much interested in ever having it.

Mature trees, pull through sites, long and wide, 30Amp power, water at the site, hiking, playground for kids, badminton net, benches to sit on while enjoying the river, fishing. But it doesn’t have a laundry room, sewer at the sites or dump station. You can get a pump out if you’re staying long.  I enjoyed my afternoon, evening & night there. I’d asked her about the water and she mentioned they’d just had it checked and it passed with flying colors but sometimes had a slight sulfurous odor. Sure enough, the next morning, when I filled my coffee pot, it did have a slight odor. I just ran it a few seconds and it cleared up. Sulfur isn’t that bad for you anyway. All in all, I think I’ll stay there again. And it’s only $20/nite. I did try to talk her into getting WiFi someday since they have phone service to their farmhouse…DSL should be inexpensive these days in that area, so would a WiFi installation. Nice line of sight setup.

Next morning, Friday, I got back on the road and headed towards Wright’s Desert Gold RV in Richland. They do have sewer, water, & WiFi, but they’re also $30/nite, even with a GoodSam discount. Pull through sites on blacktop. Before I arrived I got some fuel, did some shopping, visited Columbia Park. Then I thought, hell, it’s still so early in the day, why not visit the Bridgeview tavern? Where my dad had been bartender 62 years before. Might be a free beer in it. Well, no, it no longer exists. Disappointed, I just headed out to Wright’s. They have a hill, so I had to put my front jack down so I wouldn’t end up in a serious situation if it rolled away (remember the burned out parking brake?).

(Some of the above may sound familiar as it’s a reprise of an earlier post, but the following has new stuff and pictures).

Saturday evening I took a cab over to Dax’s, had a nice burger for dinner, and waited for the daughter. She showed up at 7ish and tells me she found my camera…it was in the glove compartment of my son’s truck…but she’d forgotten to bring it. They played very well, she sang beautifully, had a nice, appreciative crowd, and sold a bunch of CD’s. I got mine free! Even danced with a cutie. Got to meet and talk to another gorgeous woman. Found a friend of my daughters that gave me a ride home. All in all a great night.

I stayed for three nights at Wright’s so I could watch the Seahawks game on Sunday (they lost!). Unfortunately, the damn Fox station on cable kept dropping out all during the game. It would just go to a black screen every 10 or so minutes, and stay black for 1-2 minutes.  I switched to the local on-air Fox station, but that was dropping out too. Anyway, since I’d paid for the spot, wasn’t worth it to leave.

Next morning, I headed off to visit my friend TJ in Arlington, Oregon. Her bf is a steel worker and works installing wind generators. He’s done hundreds of them here in the Columbia River Basin. She’s staying in their newer toy hauler in a filled up RV park, so my choice was one a few blocks away. It’s just over an hours drive from Richland to Arlington and I stopped on the way in Umatilla, Oregon to grocery shop. After finding some real nice specials on breakfast sausages, steak,  veggies, etc., I was wheeling the cart  back to the RV and spotted a small puddle of oil underneath. Damn, the differential ‘seep’ had turned into a ‘drip’. Since I’d just topped it the day before, I just crossed my fingers and continued on to Arlington. Taking it easy on the fine roads in that area.

Oct. 12 Update: My daughter did finally ship the camera so I should have it tomorrow or the next day. Got it!

When I arrived in Arlington, I stayed here: http://www.rvparking.com/or/arlington/columbia-river-rv-resort-rv-park

They call themselves a resort, but that’s simply not the case. It’s just a trailer park with some available RV spots. The electrical equipment is on the older side, the water isn’t that good, and the sewer connection for my spot was in a difficult position. But the price and location suited me so I settled in.

Parked in my space in Arlington.

This park is pretty old, and the construction workers I’ve been hanging around with have a lot of gossip about the permanent residents being drug users but I didn’t see anything unusual in the month I stayed here. Other then a couple trailers that had their windows covered with aluminum foil.

I would see teenagers wandering though the park once in a while but there was a high school just up the road too. Funny how places will have one or two bad apples and give a park a bad local reputation.

TJ and I had a great time, getting together almost every other or every 3rd day to hang out. Drove into Hermiston for shopping, I had a throbbing tooth that I thought was cracked so she drove me to the dentist (turned out he couldn’t find anything wrong at all, a couple days later the pain just went away).

We even drove to outside of Pendleton to a casino on an Indian reservation to try our luck.  Didn’t really have much. Sort of left our money there, but I suppose that’s the point. On the way back home we stopped at the neatest bar in downtown Pendleton. It is a national historic site and the inside is all ornate and 1890’s looking and even has the actual tellers cage that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed. They make their own wines, sell crap to tourists, and have some really nice paintings of naked women in the men’s room and naked men in the ladies.

When we weren’t out gallivanting around out of town, we’d head to downtown Arlington (pop. 3,000 or so), and hang out at Happy Canyon Pizza. It’s also got a bar but the owner thought he was making enough money so he was only open from 4pm to 10pm and closed on weekends. We kept teasing him that it WAS a bar, but he’d just laugh and insist he wasn’t going to stay open any longer then 10pm. The pizza and other items on the menu were GREAT. And the company was pretty cool too. TJ and I would go down when they opened and wait for her boyfriend Lee to get off work and come join us. Then sometimes, we’d hang out at my house for talks and lots of Whipped Cream Vodka. That stuff is subtle, you don’t even notice how whacked you are until it’s too late.

Worked on my differential problem a few hours and took bike rides downtown (2 miles away from the RV park) once in a while. Had a nice cable TV selection so I didn’t miss any of my favorite shows…of course they were all in reruns.

Lots of leaves have already fallen.

The weather was to my liking, cool but dry. The nights were getting very chilly so coats were in order. During the day, there was almost always a coolish wind from the gorge that bespoke of winter being on its way.

One morning after a particularly cold night, I was working at the computer and heard a sudden shower of thumps on my roof. The tree right next to my RV decided that this was the day to let all of it’s seeds and excess branches fall. The downfall went on nearly all day. I couldn’t tell what the difference between the day before and this day was, but apparently the tree could. The day after this event it had stopped and I climbed up on the roof to clean it off. Must have been a hundred pounds of tree flotsam up there.

Windmills up on the hill outside of Arlington.

TJ’s boyfriend installed these windmills. Next to I-5 and the Columbia River on the Oregon side.

TJ with her 'What ya takin' my picture for anyway?' look.

So I took a picture of the store.

Then she says, 'Hey, at least take one when I'm smiling!'. So I did.

I didn’t tell her I’d be posting both of them. Hah!

We were having lots of fun in Arlington so I stayed an entire month. But, it came time leave, mostly because I wanted to get to Portland to visit my other friends. Headed up the gorge to Portland.