Friday after a skype
visit with John’s parents we hung around the trailer, waiting for a UPS shipment
from Cochrane. That whole thing was a comedy of errors. We applied for our
medical insurance for our trip south in at the end of September. They sent us email
conformation and we waited for the documents. When they didn’t arrive after
almost a month we called Medipac. They manually address the envelope the
documents are mailed in and missed 1/2 our address. Makes a person wonder about
who they hire for these jobs!!! They corrected their mistake and mailed it out
again. Finally it arrived at our UPS post box in Cochrane, so we arranged with
the fellow who runs the UPS store to courier the documents to us in Creston. We
were provided with a tracking number. We watched our poor little envelope go
from Cochrane to Calgary to Richmond B.C. to Castlegar then to Cranbrook, where
it was finally put on a Purolator truck to be delivered to us. Timeline for this
trip, we were told originally it would arrive on Wednesday – ha! the tracking
service said it would arrive by end of day Friday, but when it arrived in Cranbrook,
the tracking system was updated to say it would arrive on Tuesday, 4 days later.
We figured it could have walked from Cranbrook to Creston in that time. At this
point we called the courier people to see if we would run into Cranbrook and
pick it up. Not possible, as it was already on the truck...lovely. The lady
assured us the tracking system was wrong and we should get our documents by the
end of the day. As it turned out the lady was correct and shortly after lunch
we had our documents in hand. Now we know why we pay so much to send one little
envelope a couple hundred kms. Lesson learned. Should this happen in the
future we will drive back to Cochrane and pick up our mail. That silly envelope
is better traveled than we are.
Saturday we packed up
and headed south. Our target was Peaceful Pines RV park in Cheney Washington.
After an uneventful stop at the border crossing we carried on to Bonners Ferry
for the first ‘cheap’ diesel of this winter. We stopped and replenished our
larder, one of our first stops when we cross the border is always to get fresh
fruit and veg’s, as well as meat and eggs. Of course wine too, as it is much less
costly in the states. We arrived early afternoon at Peaceful Pines. Not a bad
little park, but in need of a refurnishing. We are only here for 2 days so not a
big deal. John was unable to get a satellite signal past the ponderosas, but they have the best
cable TV we have ever seen in a RV park, so not a big deal.
Sunday dawned clear,
but cold. We went to a local grocery store for a box of black box shiraz, then went
for an hour walk in town and then settled in for an afternoon of Nascar
racing.
Monday morning we
left heading for Agate Acres RV park at Plymouth. Plymouth is a small town
located on the Columbia River. Finally a campsite without a tree in sight. John
easily found a satellite signal, and from the top of a hill we a a nice
view of the river valley. We spent Tuesday exploring Umatilla, a small town just across the river in Oregon, so
a short trip. Oregon has a well stocked travel
centre as you enter the state so we were able to get some travel
information. We also went out to the McNary dam and got a view of Wallula Lake
created by the dam. They promised views of locks to allow shipping up and down
the Columbia, but we figured the big signs saying stay out and gates with locks
on them meant that the public was not welcome, despite a sign coming in that said 'Visitors Welcome'. There was a marker on a large concrete tetrahedron that explained that 3271 of these 12 ton blocks were dropped in the river to force the flow over the spillway. This was a unique method of starting the closure of a dam.
We also drove through the even smaller town of Plymouth, and checked out the boat docks at Plymouth Park, operated by the Corps of Engineers.
Wednesday we departed
for Troutdale, on the outskirts of Portland. The drive down the edge of the
Columbia River was really great. We got glimpses of Mount Hood, but the white mountain didn't have enough contrast with the sky for the camera to focus on it. We watched shipping
on the river and generally enjoyed the beauty of the river.
We arrived at Sandy
Riverfront RV park early in the afternoon, got set up and checked out the park.
We spent the rest of the day looking at our travel info, and making plans. We
are really pleased to see that as we get further west the temperature rises,
high of 15 today and the low is 10, a much more comfortable temperature for
trailering. We also have noticed that the RV’s that are permently parked in the
park are not skirted, nor do they have their water hoses wrapped. Indicates a
certain lack of frost expected.
Thursday morning we
awoke to a vibrant rainbow over the RV park. After getting groceries, more lock
washers and a quick stop at Camping World for a hangar to put our ladder on, we came back to the RV park. The
neighbour who is leaving tomorrow, gave us her unused laundry tokens, so we
spent the afternoon doing laundry. They have a really nice laundry room here,
and who knows when we might get this lucky again.
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