Alta Lake State Park

Our trip began on June 24th, with a trip up and over Chinook Pass.  The pass had just opened the day before after a record winter snowfall (over 700 inches at nearby Crystal Mountain Ski Resort).  Colton was pretty impressed with the walls of snow, and we had to stop for photos near the top of the pass.  The rest of the trip to Yakima was pretty much uneventful.  We arrived safely at Yakima Sportsman State Park for our stay.  There's not much to say about the park.  No, really, there's not much to say.  We had never stayed there before.  And we probably won't go back.  I mean it was ok if you just need a place to stay.  But there really wasn't much to do in the area.  Colton caught a few fish in the youth only pond, but it wasn't much fun for Mom and Dad.  We did find they have quite a few mosquitoes.  And my escape from my allergies didn't quite work out, as the Cottonwoods were in full release.  It looked like a heavy snow storm a couple of times.  Unfortunately, we stayed there many days.  Alta Lake State Park couldn't come soon enough...

The beach at Alta Lake State Park

And then we arrived at Alta Lake.  Nice and warm, with a breeze.  Colton and I enjoyed the beach and lake several times.  I will not scar you with photos of myself in a swimsuit!  While the park is very nice, I had an ulterior motive.  You see, many, many years ago, when I was a kid, the family camped here many times.  I recall it being Mom's favorite place to camp.  Well one trip, I took Jeff Forgey along.  He and I decided we were going to hike the trail up to the viewpoint.  Well after about only a quarter of a mile, I nearly stepped on a Rattlesnake.  Now, I never liked snakes, and that sealed the deal.  We never made it up the trail after that.  So, my plan was to finally hike up to the viewpoint.  The first spur I tried was fairly overgrown, which didn't ease my concern for snakes.  The second was better and soon I was moving upward on the trail.  I did eventually reach the viewpoint.  And it was indeed a good day.

This viewpoint photo, only 35 years in the making!

My next goal was to get Colton to the Grand Coulee Dam.  I have enjoyed the place many times, and thought he would as well.  We loaded up the car and went to Coulee City.  The dam was bleeding lots of water over the spillways and was quite spectacular.  We took photos from the usual viewpoints and then headed to the third powerhouse area for the tour.  I had somehow avoided this in my prior trips.  It was great.  We passed through security and loaded into little tour buses.  We got to go through the third powerhouse, right at the base of the dam, and then up and across the top.  No one had been allowed up there since 9-11-01.  This summer they opened it back up.  Wow...  It was amazing...

Lots of surplus water this year.

Inside the third powerhouse.

On top of the dam.  Lake Roosevelt to the right.

And over the spillway.

We wanted to see the Laser Show, but didn't want to stay longer that day, so we went back to the motorhome.  But, silly us, went back the next evening.  It's only about an hour and a half each way.  It was fun though.  I mean the show was no LaserFloyd, but it was neat seeing the show on the flowing spillway of the dam.  And on the way back to the park in the dark, lonely stretches of the highway, we pulled out Google Sky Map and showed Colton many constellations.  And the Milky Way!  The next day, we pulled up stakes and headed home.  Next up...  An old favorite, Silver Springs NFS campground!

Potlatch State Park

That's a limit.

Finally, got on the road.  We took a quick drive up the road to Potlatch State Park to try our hand at clamming.  I found that the descriptions on the State Park website, of the camping sites themselves was a bit scarier than the actual conditions.  I figured that just showing up, our site would stink, but it was very nice.  Not as private as some, but nicely tree shaded by big old maples.  We immediately hit the beach for clamming.  The tide was less than optimal, but Colton and I both managed to dig up limits of varnish clams.  I had never heard of them before either.  But we did discover the next day that they steamed up very nicely.  Tasted great.  We enjoyed Costco Lasagna for dinner and looked forward to a lower tide in the morning.  And we did actually crawl out of bed in time to hit the beach before the 8:05am low tide.  The tide was considerably lower than the afternoon the day before.  We used Jana's entrenching tool from the army, and a clam rake that she had picked up Friday morning at Sportco.  On my first attempted raking, one of the tines broke off.  And it didn't get much better from then on out for the rake.  It's all bent up.  Anyway, I went to the entrenching tool, which we found had a tendency to bust up clams.  But, I did limit on Butter clams, Native Littlenecks, and Manila Littlenecks.  That was some hard work, and took about an hour and a half.  I got a bit sweaty as I started with a sweatshirt on.  Colton went back and limited on mostly varnish clams again.  We had the first day's catch for a lunch/dinner.  I have to admit, I was less than enthusiastic about getting up Sunday morning to go out and clam again.  Saturday morning had worn me out.  But we once again managed to get down to the beach for the best tide so far.  After about three or four minutes digging into my first hole with the shovel, I had an epiphany.  I found that once I moved the surface rocks away, I could just dig into the sand with my hands and find the clams.  It only took about a half an hour doing this to limit on mostly butter clams.  And the added bonus being that it was much less physically taxing.  We made quick work of them, limiting out easily.  Of course, time to leave came much too quickly.  We are planning on going back again, and are now looking forward to our next trip, this time east of the mountains for some sun and heat!    

120V w/o Shore Power or Generator

I finished installing an inverter today.  Nothing too special.  Just 1000 watts hooking up to the shore power line.  Enough to watch some TV, or more importantly, run the CPAPs  while dry camping.  Oh the joy!  I also got all crazy dusting, vacuuming, and general cleaning the inside.  It looks a lot better now.  Man, I can't wait.  Only a couple more weeks...

Maintenance

Four stringed nightmare!

My hero!

Now in my third month in a row working weekends...  It doesn't leave much possibility of going RV'ing when the kids are in school.  However, it did make it simpler to get the motorhome into Camping World for repairs.  That pesky rear furnace is working again.  And the water valve to the ice maker that I failed to winterize correctly has now been replaced.  But it was not all just paying to have others fix things.  I have repaired two cabinet doors that had been broken, along with a drawer face.  I also faced down one of any Rver's worst fears...  Day/Night blinds.  Four strings!  I had four of them that were broken.  They have quite a reputation around the RV world for being a pain in the rear-end.  I managed to get them all down, repaired, and replaced.  I pulled all the strings and replaced them all with 130lb test poly fishing leader.  That should fix them for some time.  If not, I'll replace them with some other kind of blinds.  The first one took me four hours!  About thirty minutes a piece after that first one.  Man, what a pain...  This reminds me...  I still have a small piece of trim that needs to be replaced...  The second weekend of June cannot come soon enough.  Silver Springs, Silver Springs, Silver Springs...

Christmas On The Coast

Where's that wide sandy Washington beach?

Beach combing success

Well, almost.  The kids got out of school for Christmas break on a Friday, giving us almost a week before the actual holiday.  We took the RV to Grayland Beach State Park.  This is something that I have wanted to do for some time.  There's just something about being at the coast when it's stormy...  Maybe it's getting back inside and getting warm...  Anyway, we got there as sunset was quickly approaching.  Colton and I trekked out to the actual beach.  We found that with high tide and plenty of rain, the beach was barely even there.  Quite a bit different than what we are used to seeing during the summer.  There were 4 or 5 other camping rigs in our loop.  Everyone appeared to be already inside for the evening.  The rain was pretty much a constant for the period of time that we were there.  This is the first time we've been to the State Park, and found it to be very nice.  We had power and water, but no sewer.  I had really wanted to get out and do some beachcombing, and that finally occurred.  I was able to find some kind of a float.  Happy days!  The kids seemed to have a good time, although they did get a little stir crazy with most of their time spent inside.  Most people in our loop left on the second day we were there...  Weird...  Anyways we had the place mostly to ourselves for two days.  That's different.  I found that there was a different challenge to deal with when camping at the beach in the winter.  Moisture.  Everywhere in the RV.  There was water that formed in all the cabinets on the outside edges of the motorhome.  I'd like to get a good de-humidifier, but holy cow they're kinda expensive.  At least a couple hundred bucks.  We also had to continue dealing with a problem that surfaced on the hunting trip.  The rear furnace wouldn't light off.  It just wouldn't work.  The family played some Monopoly, except for me.  I never have liked that game.  We cleared out in time to get home and then head down to Linda and Marty's house for the customary Christmas celebration.  It was kinda nice having the motorhome there.  It allowed me the chance to imbibe several adult beverages and not have to worry about driving.  I, shall we say, took advantage of the opportunity.  Very well.   We have made reservations to go back to Grayland Beach State Park in the summer of 2011.   

The Deer Hunter(s)

Camp Czwalinski

October 2010 brought the yearly trip to Northport, WA.  First I have to thank Gene and Janet Czwalinski.  Gene and Janet have kinda adopted Vince, Dave, and I on our multiple yearly trips to God's country in NE Washington.  When Mikee was younger, she kinda adopted and moved in with them for an afternoon or two while I hunted.  They have been gracious enough to allow us to use their RV pad at Deep Lake the last couple of years.  Very convenient, and the price is right!  Right next to Deep Lake for fishing and not too far from prime hunting spots.  Yes, 50 amp electrical service, water, and septic.  Earlier in the fall, Gene and Janet had departed for the winter to Utah.  A few days later they got a call telling them that their home on Deep Lake-Boundary Road had burned to the ground.  Thank God they had already left.  We visited the homesite on our arrival.  Very sad that their beautiful place was gone.

Post Fire

However, they are rebuilding, what I'm sure will be another beautiful home.  Anyways, thanks to Gene and Janet!

Beautiful fishing weather

Limit of fall trout

We started with a little fishing.  For some reason, I was the star, catching my limit, and my family's dislike in one morning.  I think everyone else caught something, but I had a really good day at the dock.

Lying in wait

Afternoons and evening were spent at Helen & Merry's farm, looking for elusive white tail bucks.   This fall they weren't too hard to find.

Mikee had a nice 6 point walk across the field in front of her.  Unfortunately, she got a case of buck fever, and couldn't quite get the scope to settle on it.  She just decided she couldn't press the trigger being so unsteady.  It was ok, as we got to watch it for several minutes.  Jana took a shot at a beautiful buck that she said was a 9 or 10 pointer.  Later in the fall, when I was with the guys, I saw what was probably the same buck.  It was a big boy.  Anyway, we found no sign that she had actually hit it, and I retrained her in supported vs. off-handed shooting.  Maybe next time!

Fishin'

After the trips to Forks and vicinity, we got down to business.  We took about a week to go to the Westport area for some fishing and hunting.  The last time I went salmon fishing was in the late 1980's with my crew from Boeing and my ex-wife.  That was a good trip, with the boat limiting on Silvers.  Unfortunately, salmon fishing on the Washington coast has gone downhill since the early 1970's, with reduced numbers of fish and quotas allowed to be caught.  I had read that this year and next were to be the best King salmon seasons in 40 years due to ocean conditions.  So, we decided to head to the coast for Chinook.  Jana found a nice private campground in Tokeland, right on the water.  Dakota, Colton, and I got up way to early (as far as the boys were concerned), and headed into Westport, and Deep Sea Charters.  We had booked spots on the charter boat Slammer.  We headed out and started catching some fish.

Not too sure about getting up when it's still dark...

The seas were great.  No one got sick.  Would have been great at that point.  However, turns out that Dakota and I both limited on Kings.  Colton had one up to the surface that threw the hook.  In the end, the boat limited out, allowing all three of us to take home 2 Kings.  Not too shabby

Nine Kings

That's a funny looking plant...

 

Lots o fish

I enjoyed myself so much, I decided to book a bottom fishing trip two days later.  This gave me the opportunity for some bear hunting on the day in between.  Saw a couple of deer, but no bear.  I did stumble into a marijuana grow, which I reported to the local narcotics task force for eradication.  The next day, I got up bright and early for bottom fishing.  The boys got to sleep in.  I'd never been bottom fishing, and didn't really know what to expect.  Expect FUN!  Wow!  You are allowed to take ten rockfish and two Lingcod.  What a blast!  We started out a little later than we left when salmon fishing.  It was actually less work than the salmon fishing, and I think that it would be a little easier for Colton.  It was a pretty steady stream of fish coming over the gunwales.  Early on I had a problem with catching a prohibited species.  They are a prohibited species due to being overfished.  I just kept catching them.  You can't keep them, and must throw them back, where they normally die floating away from the boat.  You can't keep them.  I was actually getting quite frustrated, but eventually started catching black rockfish.  I even managed to catch my two Lingcod before we went fishing for Lingcod.  I'd never used live bait before.  We used anchovies for the rockfish, and halibut for the Lingcod.  Will definitely be taking the boys next year for bottom fish.  I spent a serious amount of time processing and seal a mealing fish.  We still have plenty of fish in the freezer.  Next year I'm getting Jana to go.