MAKING OUR WAY NORTHWARD

We hit the road about 8:15 Friday after our normal morning routine.  Mitzy and I walked by to see if the owl was visible but, he wasn’t.   We had nasty head or nearly head winds just about the whole day.  It made for tiring driving.  When we stopped for lunch at a rest area, I immediately dozed off for a few minutes.  I rested again after we ate.  

We arrived at Catfish Junction RV Park shortly after 3:30 Friday afternoon.  It seems to be very peaceful.  The hills across the Snake River have a delicate green blush to them.  There are train tracks across the river but we hardly hear the trains and the horn is faintly heard quite some distance further east so it isn’t obnoxious at all.  Aileen had an hour plus nap then prepared us a late supper. 

I got to looking at the map and thought it might be more interesting to go up through Lewiston/Clarkston and Spokane instead of the monotonous I-84 then Tri Cities to Osoyoos.   This way we can at least have a peek at the Palouse again.  It is about 150 kms longer but it will be nice to get off the freeway and maybe the wind won’t be as bad.

We had a nice quiet night!   If you happen to be driving along I-84 in eastern Oregon, I highly recommend Catfish Junction RV Park.  They are less than three miles from the freeway and very reasonably priced, $24 ($12 with Passport America) and have clean, free showers.  I don’t know if they have internet but our Verizon air card gave us 4G service.  We did hear some rain on the roof though.  We did our normal routine then hit the road about 8:30. 

The GPS lady got in a real snit today with the route I chose.  She spent nearly half the day trying to turn us back.  At one point, Aileen was agreeing with her when after a particularly heavy shower, we ran into slush on the road!   Fortunately, that turned out to be the high point and the road cleared within a mile or so.  US 95 in Idaho proved to be a nice diversion from the freeway.  While we did get some wind later in the day, it was easier to handle than on the freeway.  We did have a lot of elevation change though most of the grades weren’t too bad.  It’s just that there were a lot of them.  We saw some beautiful country, but would not likely do the trip again.

We made it to Clarkston, WA around 3 pm and are in Hillview RV Park.  Fortunately, they still had three spots left as I didn’t phone ahead and I would have been in trouble from the crew if there hadn’t been room.  The plan is to find a nice restaurant to have supper in a little while.  Tomorrow should see us back on the Canadian side of the border. 

We’re planning on spending some time in the Penticton area before wandering up to our home base in the Shuswap.