Have yet to stumble upon that magical fun time social distancing group here in M-F. This area is home to a stanch and bullheaded cadre of scofflaws. Just today there was an ad in the local ‘uncensored’ FB page asking for people to come join them in downtown Pendleton to protest the lock down. Without masks of course. Dumbass people. It’s now at a point where 1,000 US citizens are dying every day. It’s expected to top 300,000 deaths in early December. And then the millions who end up hospitalized that survive and spend the rest of their lives trying to pay for it. Not a fun time.
I had a scare just two days ago, I’ve been going to the store just once per week to keep my exposure down, wearing a mask of course. Last Tuesday went shopping like normal and I ended up going to 3 new to me stores just to break up the monotony. So then on Friday, 72 hours later, I felt warm as I prepared my car for a detailing. Didn’t think much of it, it did seem to be fairly warm that day.
So my sister and BIL came and picked me up at the detailer’s and I hung out with them for the 3.5 hours while I waited for my car. Felt fine. Wore my mask most of the time and perhaps 85% of the time at their place. And then I picked up the car…$140! and headed home. Loaded up all the junk back into the trunk and back seat I usually carry and sat down to rest. And BOOM a bad ass cold hit me. Hard. Whoa, I could feel it struggling to overtake/overpower my immune system. Scratchy sore throat, dry cough, mild headache. Didn’t measure my temp, I should have, but it was likely just slightly above normal. Before it turned out that I couldn’t move much, grabbed a Lipton Chicken Soup packet and made some soup. Aww, that felt better. But the cold or whatever it was was still tugging on my health, and at 9:30 pm I couldn’t hardly see straight so I had a big swallow of Nyquil and went to bed. Was asleep within 5 minutes. Didn’t wake up until 8 am the next morning. And didn’t feel too bad except for the lingering effects of a bad cold. Over the next several hours got better and better. Em’ed my sister and BIL to let them know.
So that was a scare I could have done without. Sorry to have bored my readers but it’s getting pretty bad here in the land of not doing what you can to protect your neighbors I guess because, fuk em. I guess I’m guilty of that too now because I should have kept my mask on the whole time I was at my sisters place.
Anyway, back to normal and time to post another travel article. Though I’m not traveling much because of Covid-19 I do plan to head back to Pahrump in a week or so.
Meanwhile, here’s a pig!
Someone walked through the RV park with this pig on a leash. Didn’t see where they came from or where they went. Rare enough occurrence that I took a couple pictures. Never saw that couple before and never after. It is a fine looking pig isn’t it?
And then I just swung the camera around and took some shots, mainly of the weather. 
Yeah we had several days of rain. My RV did fine, no leaks. Happy about that.
And then two days later, a cold snap, this:
I haven’t camped in snow for several years. Pretty happy how warm my RV stayed with the heat pump and the 5 electric heaters I have scattered around the RV. Simple matter every night to set my termo to 68F, leave a couple of the electrics on and next morning it would still be halfway comfortable. Crank up the heat pump and the heaters and it would be warm and toasty a short time later.
Nothing else to do so I drove south towards Pendleton just for a look around. When I left the house, the ground was clear of snow, but once up in the hills, it looked like this.
A light dusting of snow. This area gets it like that several times during the season, and once or twice a year a heavy snowfall that sticks around for several days but usually not longer than 2 weeks. One of the pleasures of living in the Walla Walla valley as an adult, not so much fun when you’re a kid though.
And here is the northern approach to Pendleton. 
No more snow. It’s only a 30 mile drive from M-F and this shows that Pendleton is in a valley…which can present some scorching summer temps. What looks like water in the distance is actually low hanging clouds. I did come down here with an errand to run. Needed to stop at the WM and pick up a RV sewer hose. It was only $20 from them and $25 and up everywhere else. Plus I could go get it and get out of the house. When I got there, I’d never done a pick up at a WM store before and just followed the signs. There was a buzzer on the wall in the first hallway into the store, and some seats. I buzzed, the guy came out, gave him my name, and seconds later, had my product. Wasn’t until I got out of the store I realized he didn’t give me a receipt. Mentioned that to the greeter and she just waved me on by. I could have walked out with $100 worth of stuff if I were a crook. I wanted and felt a need to travel so going that far to pick something up was beneficial.
And here are a few shots of the town. Really not my favorite place as there are too many phony cowboys chased by phony cowgurls. It’s exhausting trying to find someone genuine in this town. So I’ll always just be a visitor here, doubt I’ll ever stay here in my RV.
Standard country town, it’s claim to fame is the Pendleton Roundup (which has protests because of the animal cruelty), AND the Pendleton Woolen Mills. Their blankets, shirts, coats, and pants are really well made. Problem for me is my natural heat engine. I put one of their shirts on, and 20 minutes later I am sweating up a storm. No way I could wear one of their coats for very long, even in a snow storm. Nice stuff though, if you have a normal, what is it, hypothalamus system that regulates body temps? Mine works too well or not well enough. I’ve always been on the ‘warm’ side.
You can visit here in normal times, it’s kind of interesting.
After that visit and product pick up, I headed north again but a few miles out of town, I turned towards the Umatilla reservation. Nearby town is named Mission. It’s where the ‘Indian Agency’ was or still is maybe? The sign on the highway says there’s a casino with RV park and I wanted to check that out.
First stopped in here, because I thought this was the casino but turned out it was the Indian government buildings. The casino was further on.
There’s some big agency buildings here. Reservation must be fairly large. 
Oh, here it is, around 4 miles on. Big hotel casino setup. The RV park is behind it.
Still had some snow on the ground here.
Nice park. I wouldn’t mind staying here. Maybe next spring on my way back.
Then on the way back towards M-F, I went over and visited the Mission township. Mostly just drove through it. The place doesn’t really look like a town but I may have turned back too early during my visit. That place really looked like it was an old settlement though the buildings looked newer. I did try to find some picture worthy stuff but there wasn’t much. Nothing really noteworthy. Maybe I’ll check it out more thoroughly my next visit to the area.
Anyway, that’s all for today. Thanks for reading!
Thanks for taking “Me” out of the house…I usually stop at the Safeway store in Pendelton for gas and foodstuffs when heading that direction..
I also bought one of my laptops at the Walmart to save me the 10% sales tax Washington nails us with, among too many others…
I think snow is forecast today or tomorrow, not much tho…
It does have some old west history I give it that. So as a destination for an RV’er that’s interested in that stuff, Pendleton is recommended for sure. I just grew up around here (in general – Walla Walla mostly) and have family that lived in Pilot Rock so maybe hung out in to many seedy dives.
Yeah the sales tax is 9.8% up in Walla Walla now, or maybe 8.9% I forget. Pretty steep. I try to avoid it when I can.
Getting pretty cold here in M-F, so I’m heading to Pahrump next week.
If you ever get East, Delaware has no sales tax- 0. Lots of not too bright people everywhere. The large turnout for the election mystified me until I heard the results. Duh.
I do go east on occasion. I tend to enjoy the wide open spaces of the huge desert like areas over here in the west, and mostly travel the eastern corridor from Canada to Ecuador. That corridor before (west of) the Rockies. I tend to stay over here. I like being able to see for miles in all directions. Probably because I spent my youth in Eastern Washington, with it’s desert like areas.
You talked about camping in the cold. It hasn’t been cold enough for snow in SE Pa. yet. That Cardinal RV in the picture was skirted around the bottom as far as we could see they may be cold ready.
Now that a major storm has blown through, SE Pa has a foot of snow, I’d wager (Dec. 16th). Yeah, many of the RVs here in this park have the skirting. I’m surprised at how few have 100 gallon propane tanks. Maybe because there’s a mostly mild winter here and they tough it out? Dunno.
Casino camping. Looks interesting. But the virus is really messing the year up.
We’d traveled to Woody’s Crab house in Md. yesterday to eat there maybe the last time for a while. Then S-I-L said they’d closed today until further notice. An employee had the virus. Facebook notice. I phoned and that was their message.
I have my favorite places too, and yep, they’re not all open. Which is a good thing really. Have to get this Covid thing under control. The US has the most deaths per capita in the entire world right now. Because of many bad attitudes about it.
You had your Saturn detailed. I cleaned my Rogue’s interior before we left for Woody’s. My ’90 Silverado is a mess. And full of things after selling my RVs.
My Saturn is not quite full up with stuff yet but it’s heading that way. Heh.
You bought a sewer hose at Wally’s. I bought a Valterra SS01 sewer solution while I had the TT. ~$100 at Wally’s. Haven’t used it. And maybe I’ll just tent camp. Build a shack on my Az. desert land? There’s a couple moved in the plot North of mine. They have an address so it was surveyed. I’m thinking of having my plot surveyed. For an address.
Sometimes it’s hit or miss finding what you need at WM. They didn’t have what I wanted at the Walla Walla store so getting the opportunity to get out of the house and drive to Pendleton was great! Happy that WM had what I needed.
Hey, how often do you get to visit your land in AZ? And yes, an address is needed for sure. Be sure to check it, I’ve been places where they were off by a mile on their coordinates.
Take care. Stay safe and away from the protestors. I learned that in the service- avoid protests.
I will, and you take care too! Thanks for reading my stuff.