We had spent the night parked behind Dr. Dan's building. I had
backed the van up over, so that tail section covered the entire
width of the sidewalk. I expected that we'd be up way earlier
than most of the people coming to work here and I'd have it
moved by then. I was wrong. I was so wrong that I was woken up
around 6am by someone who wanted to use the sidewalk letting no
one in particular know what she thought about people who "block
the whole fucking sidewalk" with their vans. I tried to pretend
that she didn't know that we were in the van sleeping.
We ran errands and cleaned and putzed generally between the time Pam had her 8am massage and mine which was set for 2:15pm. We were ready to go.
It is always exciting to begin a new quest or journey, but we have been running up to this starting for so long that we were just tired of waiting. So, Monday, the 29th, is our start date. And, by the time Dan got done tuning me up it was going on 4pm. The expected traffic was there in Monroe, but after that it seemed that we had the road pretty much to ourselves.
We found a nice little campsite in Nason Creek Campground on the edge of Lake Wenatchee. $21 for a parking spot right on the bank of Nason Creek. Now considered a luxury, campgrounds will be something that we try and avoid most of the trip. There isn't room in the budget for too many stays.
We met Jim and Carol, the campground hosts on our walk to try and find the lake. I've been asking every host we come across on how they like being a host. Jim is going on 80 and looks like he's 65 and he's still smiling. Carol is 5 years younger and looks younger than 65. They've been doing this for 21 years and love the lifestyle. Next month they head for Florida to consider changing their residency there. I think they still have their residency in Ohio where Jim sold his well-drilling business at 57 to his son. The motor home is their only home.
August 30th
Today was "old home week" for Pam, as we passed through Leavenworth and Wenatchee. Pam graduated from Leavenworth High School reluctantly. Eager to get out of the school that she didn't fit into, she took community college courses in Wenatchee 20 miles down the road. We dropped by unannounced at the local medical center to see one of her childhood friends who was unfortunately not at work today. Dropping by at work for a quick hello unannounced is much better than dropping in at home in such a fashion. The person you're visiting has an easy out by having to get back to work. At home, how do you kick out such rude intruders? Given the non-existent scheduling of our trip, I suspect that these sorts of missed connections might be more the norm.
We ran errands and cleaned and putzed generally between the time Pam had her 8am massage and mine which was set for 2:15pm. We were ready to go.
It is always exciting to begin a new quest or journey, but we have been running up to this starting for so long that we were just tired of waiting. So, Monday, the 29th, is our start date. And, by the time Dan got done tuning me up it was going on 4pm. The expected traffic was there in Monroe, but after that it seemed that we had the road pretty much to ourselves.
We found a nice little campsite in Nason Creek Campground on the edge of Lake Wenatchee. $21 for a parking spot right on the bank of Nason Creek. Now considered a luxury, campgrounds will be something that we try and avoid most of the trip. There isn't room in the budget for too many stays.
We met Jim and Carol, the campground hosts on our walk to try and find the lake. I've been asking every host we come across on how they like being a host. Jim is going on 80 and looks like he's 65 and he's still smiling. Carol is 5 years younger and looks younger than 65. They've been doing this for 21 years and love the lifestyle. Next month they head for Florida to consider changing their residency there. I think they still have their residency in Ohio where Jim sold his well-drilling business at 57 to his son. The motor home is their only home.
August 30th
Today was "old home week" for Pam, as we passed through Leavenworth and Wenatchee. Pam graduated from Leavenworth High School reluctantly. Eager to get out of the school that she didn't fit into, she took community college courses in Wenatchee 20 miles down the road. We dropped by unannounced at the local medical center to see one of her childhood friends who was unfortunately not at work today. Dropping by at work for a quick hello unannounced is much better than dropping in at home in such a fashion. The person you're visiting has an easy out by having to get back to work. At home, how do you kick out such rude intruders? Given the non-existent scheduling of our trip, I suspect that these sorts of missed connections might be more the norm.
Once out of Wenatchee, the landscape opens up into miles upon
miles of rolling farmland being prepared for winter crops. The
roads are ribbons of asphalt that go off into the distant
horizon that is not marred with obstructions. This all changes once we cross the earthen dam that creates
Banks Lake. Ancient, worn cliffs cut by the mighty Columbia over the millennia walled in Banks Lake with enough room for a
road on one side. We hadn't really gone that far, but we found a
access point on Banks Lake about 10 miles south of Steamboat
Rock State park to camp free for the night. Tomorrow, we plan to
tour the Grand Coulee dam.
August 31st, Wednesday
We got up at our leisure and headed towards the dam site. Steamboat Rock is quite a sight in this landscape jutting out there like a Kirk Douglas jaw line. The state park look like it was in a small oasis.
The dam was magnificent exploration for a hydroelectric geek like myself. It held the record for 20 years as being the largest in the world. Hardly noticed by most people, yet hardly insignificant, were the transmission lines exciting the dam from every face. The big stuff comes out of the newer power plant that was added in my lifetime. Multiple 750KW lines feed into giant towers that make the normal giant towers seem small in size. There are three phases to our electric power grid system,
so you'll see three lines and maybe a thinner communications line at the top of the towers or poles. The 250KW (KW=1,000 Watts) is the size mostly seen in transmission lines. A 250KW transmission line usually is done with one strand of wire for each phase and there will usually be only one set of three wires for each tower. The small lines coming out of the original power plant or the pumping plant have two wires paired for each phase. The lines coming out of the newer power plant have three wires per phase in a triangle configuration. The giant towers have three sets of three phases, with each phase having 3 wires each. Thanks for geeking out with me!
The tour was weak, due to our 9/11 measures. In friendlier times, kids would ride their bicycles through the galleries from one end of the dam to the other in self-guided tours. Of course, people used to throw anything that could be thrown over the spillway too, such as engine blocks, transmissions, bowling balls, let your imagination run.
Passing through landscape that didn't look all that different from what we experienced in Northern Arizona, we headed north along Lake Roosevelt. After leaving the dam area with very weak AT&T cell signal, we lost it altogether. We stopped at a McDonald's in Colville, WA to try and get things caught up, but with the CenturyLink DSL service feeding the computer, we would have been lucky to get things updated before the restaurant closed for the night. We found a nice place to camp for free just outside of Colville at the Colville Grange Campground. It was nicer than many of the places where we had to pay $25 a night.
August 31st, Wednesday
We got up at our leisure and headed towards the dam site. Steamboat Rock is quite a sight in this landscape jutting out there like a Kirk Douglas jaw line. The state park look like it was in a small oasis.
The dam was magnificent exploration for a hydroelectric geek like myself. It held the record for 20 years as being the largest in the world. Hardly noticed by most people, yet hardly insignificant, were the transmission lines exciting the dam from every face. The big stuff comes out of the newer power plant that was added in my lifetime. Multiple 750KW lines feed into giant towers that make the normal giant towers seem small in size. There are three phases to our electric power grid system,
so you'll see three lines and maybe a thinner communications line at the top of the towers or poles. The 250KW (KW=1,000 Watts) is the size mostly seen in transmission lines. A 250KW transmission line usually is done with one strand of wire for each phase and there will usually be only one set of three wires for each tower. The small lines coming out of the original power plant or the pumping plant have two wires paired for each phase. The lines coming out of the newer power plant have three wires per phase in a triangle configuration. The giant towers have three sets of three phases, with each phase having 3 wires each. Thanks for geeking out with me!
The tour was weak, due to our 9/11 measures. In friendlier times, kids would ride their bicycles through the galleries from one end of the dam to the other in self-guided tours. Of course, people used to throw anything that could be thrown over the spillway too, such as engine blocks, transmissions, bowling balls, let your imagination run.
Passing through landscape that didn't look all that different from what we experienced in Northern Arizona, we headed north along Lake Roosevelt. After leaving the dam area with very weak AT&T cell signal, we lost it altogether. We stopped at a McDonald's in Colville, WA to try and get things caught up, but with the CenturyLink DSL service feeding the computer, we would have been lucky to get things updated before the restaurant closed for the night. We found a nice place to camp for free just outside of Colville at the Colville Grange Campground. It was nicer than many of the places where we had to pay $25 a night.
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