Chaos Leaves Town

While I was in Fairview, I wanted to get my VA medicines refilled so I called the local Gresham VA clinic. They told me that they couldn’t fill the prescription I’d gotten from the clinic in Alaska and that I’d have to go to the downtown VA hospital emergency room for that. Huh? Well, I wanted to go downtown anyway so I planned a bus trip. I wanted to take the cool tram up to the hospital too. Trimet has an interactive route planner that is very well done. I had a great time using that resource and planning my trip. Caught the bus right outside the RV park. The buses are comfortable and it was a pleasure getting a good view of many of my old haunts on the trip to the tram. I’d lived in the Portland area for 33 years so naturally, I’d been everywhere.

The bus let me off about a block from the tram and I got aboard ready for a nice ride over the hill side neighborhoods.

Lower tram station.

Local color.

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Back on the road after a month in Arlington, Oregon. Had a good time there but was looking forward to moving on.

Heading West on I-5 towards Portland. Next to the Mighty Columbia.

As you can see the weather was a little gloomy but I’m use to it having lived in Portland suburbs for 33 years. Once I got to Cascade Locks, I pulled off the freeway and stopped at one of my favorite restaurants, the Char Burger. It’s a buffet with a kitchen where you can get most anything hot off the grill.  The view from the dining room is spectacular. The legend of the Bridge of the Gods is very interesting.

Sorry about the pink overcast, my camera does this every once in a while for some reason.

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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).

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The next morning, I head on south to Walla Walla where my kids are living. I usually stay at the Four Seasons RV Resort while I’m there for it’s convenience to the kids, shopping, and because it’s nice and quiet. My RV is old and grungy with 156,000 miles on it but though I could be turned away from many RV parks, simply because it’s over 10 years old, this park has never asked. ( I just checked reviews of this park and one of them said they won’t let you stay if your RV is over 10 years old. I’ve stayed there 3 times and like I said, they’ve never asked. And I’ve always parked right outside the office when I drive in). I paid $192 bucks for a week. They let me move my RV up closer to the office when I had trouble getting a good Internet WiFi connection.

On the road in Washington...

There’s the good old Snake river outside of Pasco, Washington. The surrounding area is dry here this time of year (Sept.)

Took the kids out for dinner...Mexican place, great food.

James always keeps his eyes closed, just in case someone is throwing something at him. Mush reminds him it doesn’t happen that often.

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It was a pleasure to be back in the US with it’s majority of good roads, even better freeways, and no worries about my CC or DC being frozen at the capricious whim of the fraud company that chooses to do so on my cards as though they don’t even think about it, like they’re using some stupid software algorithm and then never using their brains to connect the dots as I travel. This time I’d called my CU a couple days before we left Alaska and also sent an email. But I still felt relieved that I hadn’t been cut off, since they’d done it before, even with those preemptive warnings. But it seems they always have shut off my cards when I’m either in or very near a large city. Where I can get on-line and/or use a phone to get in touch with them. Anyway, enough about those idiots for now. No, I don’t want to change banks because they have such great & inexpensive policies about everything else. Like 5 free overdrafts per month, no CC charges for zero balance and the like.

So, where were we? Right across the US border in Oroville, Washington. As we passed through customs the evening before, they had all sorts of questions for me, like how long had I known Kenny, why was my drivers license from Oregon but the plates on my RV from Alaska? (That’s because when I checked getting new tags from Oregon a couple months before, it would have cost $362 for two years, and I hadn’t driven it for 9 months. No resetting of the clock, so I’d have lost 9 months. In Alaska, it was $125 for two years, would start at the date I bought the tags, and there is a one time senior discount of $100. So plates in Alaska only cost me $25). Did we bring any contraband (why would we tell them if we did?)? And of course since Kenny and I weren’t related, why were we traveling together. Once I explained his Dad was dying of cancer and we were rushing back so Kenny could spend some quality time with him, they seemed to back off and not be so confrontational, or nosy. They did inspect the RV inside,  and had a dog sniff outside, but didn’t ask me to open any of the compartments and only did a cursory inside inspection. I figured that they would have completely emptied my RV, inside and out,  because of our circumstances, but I guess they understood.

That lake in Oroville...Osoyoos.

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After fueling and getting money in Whitehorse, we headed due East to catch Highway 37 South to Prince George. On the way, around 11:30AM, we stopped for brunch at a little RV park at Johnson’s Crossing. The gal that ran the place is an accomplished baker, and a damn good cook too. I’d originally thought we’d be spending the 2nd night here but we had made such good time that it was just too early in the day to stay there the night. But we had a delicious brunch and grabbed a few of her excellent, fresh, local fruit, turnovers. Next trip up I’m going to try to spend the night there. Since Kenny was sharing the driving chores, we felt that driving 12 hours per day wasn’t going to be that tiring. And Kenny was in a hurry to get back to visit his dad before it was too late.

Just a random road shot in Yukon Territory. Approaching Whitehorse.

Outside of Whitehorse heading East.

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It’s now Sept. 2011 (in blog time, Dec. ’11 in real time) and I took a couple weeks off to get ready to get back on the road and head for the lower 48  (The Outside as they call it up here). I’d been advertising on Craig’s List for 3-4 weeks by this time for a co-driver that wanted to avoid flying back Outside and had 2-3 nibbles but no bites. It was a bitch because I didn’t have WiFi where I was parked so I’d have to drag my laptop down to the Big I tavern 2-3 times a week to check my emails, communicate with FB friends, and do my banking. My laptop is so slow I didn’t even try to work on the blog.

Got some comments from the Ice Alaska office manager when she’d spot my car down there at 10AM. But I don’t drink that early in the day so I was always innocent.  All things in moderation I always say (except love).

Anyway, 2 weeks before I left, one of my bar friends mentioned he might need a ride to Spokane. His dad had been diagnosed with end stage cancer and he wanted to get back home. Problem was he had a freaky cat that had saved his life when it woke him after a fire started in his apartment and he was fearful that the plane ride would really do the cat harm. Then he had all his belongings that would need to be shipped. Not inexpensive from Fairbanks, Alaska to Spokane, Washington. Since I was passing right by Spokane, and had room for his stuff (after he trimmed it a bit), and don’t mind cats, we struck a deal. Got everything arranged to leave by Sept. 16th.

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It was time to get some of the other buildings from the old site to the new site and I ran over there to get some pictures of the setup planning/execution. This first picture is of the new road the Rail Road was building to facilitate the moving of the one 2-story section of our building. They were really taking their time. Perhaps they had to rush off on an emergency call somewhere…they never told us…because they just stopped working on it. After a couple weeks of waiting, our mover finally gave up on them and this road and choose his own route to move the building.

The new road.

These were the only sections of the building left on this property. They housed the main offices for Ice Alaska and upstairs had a couple of apartments. The CEO & his wife used one of them occasionally, and during the ice carving events, continuously in order to be close to the action. With so much to do, and thousands of decisions needing to be made, it made sense for them to be right there on the property.

Waiting...

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First building to make it to the new site...

You can see my RV way off in the distance there to the left of that water truck. Shows you how big this property is. I wasn’t working in that building in the foreground but at the house in the woods behind where I took this shot. It’s was around Aug. 19th or so and they were gutting out the house for remodeling. They already had some of the new ceiling sheet rock installed before they bothered to ask me to help with the wiring. I wandered over to check it out and had them stop the installation so I could get to the wiring. Kind of disorganized. They originally planned on building on an extension to the house then after I got started on the electrical job changed their minds (too much money). But by that time I’d gotten to far along with the wiring and the panel was dropped down into the basement and mounted to a frame built onto the basement stairs. The stairs were suppose to go away in the original plan.

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I was settled in at the new Ice Alaska property and Allison decided to come visit my new camping spot. You’ll see from the photos that I had a very nice cement pad to park on, with room for the RV and my Subaru as well. It’s Aug. 4th, 2011 and you’ll note that coats are needed. We didn’t really have much of a summer up in Fairbanks this year. Only got to use my recently repaired car A/C three or four times.

Allison enjoying a beverage.

Relaxing after a hard days work.

Sunset is creeping up on us.

Off to the Southwest. You can't see Russia from here.

All the trucks around along with the tarp covered piles, are building materials we’re bringing to this new site from the leased park we’re vacating. Took weeks to get it all over here. I had been parked at a different pad closer to a building with electric but they had me move since they changed plans and decided to build a huge, and I mean huge, garage/shop building. I helped wire that and I also did a bunch of electrical remodeling in one of the houses on the property. I’ll have some pictures of that soon.