After I’d been in Randle a couple days, my son drove over from Walla Walla where he lives to join me and the family at the Big Bottom Festival. He was early as I’m the only family in town at the moment. And when he dove into the park, he lets me know that now the park has a big Southern surrender flag the Stars & Bars proudly displayed right at the entrance to the park. As I said last time, they have a big one already attached to the owners/managers trailer. WTF? I’m surrounded by racist bigots I guess. I’d already paid for two nights and like I said last time, there’s not much choice in the small town of Randle for RVs so I stayed put.
James and I roamed around Randle, checking things out, visited the best bar in town, had dinner at the most popular restaurant in town, that sort of thing. Also stopped into the other RV park in town and that one is a membership only park where you have to buy in to be able to park at a reasonable rate. Since I didn’t expect to every be in Randle again, it wasn’t a bargain. They did have Wifi though, but I was told it sucked.
As you can see, James and Hunter were enjoying their vacation.
Lots of very nice pine trees here at the RV park. Since we’re up in the mountains, shade wasn’t that important this year here as it was mild, but they are appreciated none the less. 
Looking west towards Randle town. 
We decided to head east and see if that field I saw might be where the Big Bottom Festival might have their venue and we did see that big field with some RVs in it and we were pretty sure that’s where it would be. Turned out we were wrong.
Found a hillside road to explore but it didn’t turn out to be very interesting and there weren’t any views to speak of, ‘cus of the trees. 
So we went back down to the main highway and over to that place we thought might be the festival venue, and found a back road that traveled alongside the river. Stopped a place or two for pictures. Right were I was standing I discovered the bank was undercut. And the drop was 15 to 20 feet down to the water. Yikes. Slowly backed up and had James get the dog back from the edge too. Could have been a bad day.
Then we tried to find another sign or something in that place where we’d found a sign indicating that the Big Bottom Festival venue was nearby, up near the main highway. No signs other than that first one. None. No arrows or anything. Here’s the big field where I thought the RVs would park. Very much a no. The venue was over a mile away from here. 
Didn’t see any signs indicating the venue location so we were still in the dark about it. Had our suspicions but that’s it. 
Took a little side trip when we saw a sign for a lake. Riffe Lake is the name. Pretty big. Several (2-3?) RVs snuggled around the area near the shoreline. 
We stopped to check it out. There’s one of the RVs. 
As we were leaving, there was a port-a-potty that I used that had a citizen posted notice that this park on state land was now the ONLY park in the state that had free RV camping. WTH? That is not cool at all.
Nice lake though, but soon we were back at my RV and just hung out. After 2 days of just hanging out came the afternoon when my nephew and his son, and his dad, (my brother), were suppose to arrive. So I parked at a little used driveway next to the RV park and waited. Nose pointed towards the highway. You’d have to be blind to not see my RV. And there, off in the distance, I saw my brothers RV heading straight for me. I’d talked to both my brother and nephew about where I’d be, parked along the road at the RV park and for them to slow and let me merge behind them so I could follow them when they saw me.
And they zoomed right by me at 65 MPH. Paul didn’t even glance in my direction. Fuk’head. BTW, I’d told them my phone didn’t work here in Randle so to be sure to watch for me. They didn’t bother. WTF!!?? Jeese, relatives. Anyway, I zipped out onto the highway after them as quickly as I could with them ignoring my frantic Air Horn ooogahs. Takes forever for my 60 foot rig to get up to speed so I soon lost them. Plus they were highballing it like teenagers. Eventually, they slowed to make the turn at the venue and I closed some of the distance. And then I could see them taking a circuitous route well past the area I thought the RVs would be parking. Back into the brush, turn after turn. And they got to as far as James and I had checked the day before when we’d stopped to take some pictures of the river and then turned right where we thought the road ended and had turned back ourselves. Not a fun road for a big RV. Anyway, I’m still following where I think they went but pull over because I got to a ‘T’ in the road, but there were no signs to the venue and I couldn’t see Dan’s RV anymore. And my son pulled up behind me. Whew. He’d been shopping in town when he saw them pass but finished his shopping before trying to catch us.
Anyway, his phone worked so he called them and they were already parked and half way settled so my brother came out to give us directions. Got all turned around himself and ended up sending us to the wrong side of the venue. Only way I could turn around was to cross country across plowed farm fields. Once that was straightened out, he pointed me to a dry camping spot right next to the tall weeds and maybe 100 yards from the festival proper. Well, no biggie, I can use the exercise. So we finally made it, no help from my relations.
This is extra (optimistically or ironically) overflow parking for the festival that I’m parked right next to. 
This festival has been around for years I guess but it’s a private thing…by invitation only. Seems that years ago it was more of wham bam thank you mam sort of place that morphed into a kid friendly fest. Before my brother and nephew arrived, I’d asked a couple bartenders in Randle about it, and they’d never heard of it. Even though it had been a ‘thing’ for 10 years. 
This was my main path into the festival area. 
And here’s the Cowlitz River. It’s what created the big bottom land area. 
One of the permanent structures here. Tiny one room with loft forest home. 
And my brothers RV all set up. The roads are too narrow and the RV spaces are too small for me to have parked in this area. I’m content where I am. Especially, I thought, if it rained. I wouldn’t be trapped by muddy roads. 
One of the helpful signs. Place was giving me a hippy vibe. Which is fine by me. 
This is the main street through the middle of the venue. They set up tents to sell stuff. Kinda cool but didn’t find anything to buy myself. My brothers RV would be right behind me.
And looking the other direction on the same street. We’re here fairly early as the place wouldn’t get packed for a few more hours as people arrived in their RVs. 
One of the older shelters that didn’t really weather the last few storms. It’s private property and probably former festival lovers but they didn’t show up this time. Probably aged out of it. 
Unstable river bank someone sometime put up a warning tape. 
Old trailer hidden back behind some trees. 
And a Vanagon! Wouldn’t be a rock festival without an orange Vanagon. 
After that walk about, back to brothers RV. Hmm. Nobody here. OK, I’ll head over to the stage. 
No one here either. 
Ran into James. We picked up my brother and headed downtown to sample some of the microbrews they have on tap in Randle. 
Hunter got to come along. 
Had a snack too, beer and a snack. Good company. Nice. 
And back at the festival, just after my nephew Paul got finished setting up the equipment for his band. 
Had a few hours to kill before the festival started so back to my RV. Fired up the genset and tried to reach free Wifi in the area. None available. James offered his phone for tethering as he has unlimited data so we did web surfing for a while. 
Weather was toasty. 
Well, there’s few more festival goers arriving. 
Here’s the early gang waiting for music. Gotta get a good seat. 
And a 5th wheel made it back here. Hmm. If he could make it I could have too, I thought. Then I checked both routes and they both had big ol’ tree branches that would definitely scratch my paint. I don’t think this guy cared. 
We got a couple neighbors. They slept in hammocks tied to that tree there. 
I swear there were lots of people here but each time I wandered around taking pics, this particular area would be empty or nearly so. 
Thought I’d like a look at the little building and the owner was kind enough to let me go inside for a couple shots. Really not much to it, but it would be fun hanging out here along the river with your loved one.
And my brother mindful of his phone and ignoring Hunter who looks like he’s thinking, “You should play with me, yeah, play, run, jump, bark at stuff”. 
And after this interlude, off towards the stage we could hear the band striking up so I headed over there. And found that the crew was short an electrical repair item. I loaned them mine as it was an emergency repair to a beer keg cooler.
And than Paul tracked me down and asked me to video record his bands entire set. So with my camera and tripod I recorded the whole set. I would post a few minutes of that but for some reason, WordPress now objects to the mov file size…where it didn’t in the past. So for now, no movies.
The bands played on into the night, the next morning, after 3 days of festival fun, it all started to break up and everyone scattered to the winds. I’ll tell you that it was no fun trying to get my big RV back up on the road and off the plowed (in the far past) and weedy field I was parked in. The whipsaw action started flinging stuff out of the cupboards before I finally reached a road. No, I couldn’t just back up from where I was, just had to cross country for a while to get to the graded dirt road…which also wasn’t the best. We had time on our hands and needed showers so we headed back east just a few miles to Packwood, Washington. There’s a nice big RV park there.
And that’s where we’ll pick up next time. Thanks for visiting and reading.