Wild and Wacky Washington Adventures

Well, it's hard to believe that we've already accomplished 23 days of driving across America and that we're only a few days from returning home. Although we both enjoy being on vacation, we're both ready to no longer be on the road. These last few days have had us go through some very pretty Northwestern countryside, as well as a hair-raising adventure (for those with hair, of course).

After reaching Portland, we turned east again and drove up the Columbia river, for what turned out to be a very scenic drive. The Columbia river is a very wide and fast moving river flanked on both sides by hills covered with many trees (pine, I think). A railway runs alongside as well offering some postcard-looking views. Unfortunately and true to form for this part of the country, it was raining off and on for the last few days, so good pictures were hard to come by. But here are a few:

Then we veered North again and headed to Yakima, where my friend Tamara lives with husband Tim and adorable kids Jacqueline (5) and Nathaniel (2). Tamara was one of my first friends when I moved back to Ventura in the early 90's and it's great that we've been able to remain friends for so long through our countless moves. Now Tamara can run a clinic on hospitality. Every effort was made to make us feel right at home, including little pictures of us all over the guest bedroom to remind us who we were when we woke up. Seriously, nice touch :) Good cooking, good company, good times! If they didn't live so far, we'd be there every month!!! Unfortuntely, Tim was already at work when we got the cameras out and Noa wasn't cooperating:

After setting us off with a hearty breakfast, we drove toward the Seattle area over a few very high mountain ranges. Going up one very long hill, I was keeping an eye on the temperature gauge. Already going through the California desert a week earlier, we noticed the temperature going up and had to refill the car with coolant and water. This time, somewhere in the isolated hills between Yakima and Ellensburg, the needle was creeping up again as we were going uphill. I slowed down so that the engine didn't have to work so hard and the needle steadied, but was still close to high. Then it started climbing again and I wanted to pull over on this 2 lane highway, but there was only a narrow shoulder, just wide enough for the RV to park, but way too close to the right hand lane and trucks were coming by quick. So stopping here would be my last option.

Unfortunately, I ran out of options. The needle suddenly shot to the maximum and steam started pouring out from under the hood. If I didn't pull over onto the narrow shoulder, I would be stopping soon on the highway itself. I managed to pull the RV onto the shoulder, so that there was about a foot between the painted line denoting the edge of the right hand lane with the edge of the RV. Trucks and cars were going by very quickly and pretty close. I really didn't want to stay there too long. I opened the hood and opened the coolant reservoir (carefully) and since I had no more coolant, dumped some of our drinking water into the empty reservoir. We waited a little bit, then started the engine. Carefully continuing up the hill at low speed, the temperature was holding pretty steady, and so we continued slowly for the next 20 odd miles until we reached Ellensburg and bought some more coolant and filled up the reservoir properly. So far after another 200 miles (including uphill climbs) we haven't had a repeat, so fingers crossed!!!

Driving along the Interstate 90 between Ellensburg and Seattle goes quite high. We were basically driving right by ski slopes and snow was piled high by the sides of the road. Funnily enough, the ski slopes were closed despite there being tons of snow on them. Maybe season is over... Who knows!!! Unfortunately, the weather was rainy with low clouds, so we could not see Mt. Rainier and other tall mountains in the area. Would have been nice.

We didn't go into Seattle, rather around it and up the Olympic Peninsula. Tonight (Wednesday) we are in an empty RV site in Port Angeles, from where we will take the ferry early tomorrow morning to Victoria in British Columbia in Canada! Yeah!