Day 12

We spent a nice quiet night in Bellingham ,then left the trailer about 10 am to go shopping . We left Mickey behind in his crate with the radio and air conditioning on.

We hit Walmart, Costco, and Bellis Fair Mall. By then we were getting fried and Karen's bad knee was giving her grief so we headed back. We stopped at a Fred Meyer on the way home. Karen tried out a scooter, luckily no shoppers were injured. Camera's were forbidden.

Arrived back to a grateful Mickey and spent the rest of the afternoon reading and cleaning up.

We will leave about 9 am for the border, have a reservation on the 12:55 ferry.

It's been a great trip, we've seen so much beautiful scenery and met some really nice people! We are already thinking of where to go next year.

We look forward to seeing Stephen and the cats tomorrow and ordering pizza for dinner.

Day 11 Leavenworth to Bellingham

We had a mostly sleepless night , Mickey was awake obsessing over squirrels.
They are everywhere and it is his duty to chase them!

The drive over Steven's pass to the coast was nice, the trees are just starting to change colour. I'd almost forgotten what traffic was like , the closer we got to the I 5 , the heavier it got.

We stopped near Everett for lunch at a good Mexican place and shopped at a Joe's Sports. It's a great store, everything for the outdoors.

Next stop was the Camping World store in Burlington. Another good store, all the RV stuff you could want.

After getting a bit lost then finding our way again with the GPS, we found our RV park for the night, Bellingham RV. We were lucky and got the last spot, didn't expect it to be so busy , I guess the good weather has more people travelling. We will spend 2 nights here, then head for the border.

The pictures are from the drive from Coulee City to Wenatchee[temp 85 when we were there].
There are lots of abandoned buildings and farm houses along the way, they make you wonder about the families that lived there.

We saw a lot of these huge hay stacks, they are about 20 ft high and appear every couple of miles

Day 10

We drove to Coulee city, 18 miles south of the campground, to see the Dry Falls. At the time of the flood this was bigger than Niagara.

I'm surprised I got Karen out on that rock for a photo.I had to take her back to the campground for a float on the lake.

Mickey chased the ball in water all afternoon and then needed a good roll in the sand.

We left Steamboat on Friday morning and drove to Wenatchee. Again amazed at the diversity of scenery. We left the deep coulees and were suddenly driving through miles of rolling hay fields, then into the mountains again.

Shopped a bit in Wenatchee then drove to a KOA park in Leavenworth. Camping price is a ripoff, $44 a night, the most expensive place so far but we don't feel like driving anymore today so payed the price.

Tomorrow we will drive to Bellingham vicinity.

You can click on any of our photos and they will enlarge.

More day 9 pictures

Views from Steamboat Rock campground

Day 9 Coulee Dam

We arrived here on Sept.10 but we stayed at a State Park so had no internet.

Drove south from Osoyoos to Omak, Washington, then headed east to Coulee Dam. It was about an hour from Omak, 2 lane highway through the mountains.

The dam is impressive, but not as impressive as the natural scenery.
We stayed at Steambout Rock State Park on Banks Lake, 15 miles south of the dam.

The area is surrounded by huge mesa's, the valleys between them are the coulees, createdthousand of years ago by ice age floods. I had no idea this existed in Washington!

We stayed here 2 nights and would have stayed longer but we had no reservations and the place was fully booked for the weekend. It is apparently one of the most popular state parks.

The pictures are:1. Grand Coulee Dam
2. Gerke Windmill Park
3. Our campground from across the lake ,we are in the trees
in the center of the picture
4. The view from our campsight.

Day 8 photos

The windstorm

Day 7 again

I'll try this again , for some reason the pictures don't always upload with the blog.
We've got our first wifi connection in 2 days.

more Day 8 or is it still day 7 ? I've lost track.

After our wine tour we returned to town to find the wind had really started blowing.

The trees were bent sideways and lawn chairs were blowing around. We kept hold of Mickey so he wouldn't become like Toto, and fly off in the wind!

I decided to take down my homemade wifi antenna before it blew down.

A few brave ducks keep showing up after yesterdays feeding but it is too windy to feed them!

We've thought about staying another day or 2 but it is so windy we can't do much near the lake and we are ready to see new sights.

We plan to leave for Washington in the morning.

Day 7 & 8 Osoyoos

Last night while we were sitting by the lake a few ducks swam up to our beach. Karen started feeding them and before you know it we were knee deep in ducks, they were quite tame, even bossy! I managed to grab one quite easily.

This morning we read the paper by the lake then headed off to see a winery we had passed on our way here. It is called the Golden Beaver Winery, the meaning of the name was not clear, I thought maybe the owner had a blond wife. The wine was not the greatest but we bought a bottle because the label is cute.

Our RV park is on the edge of a desert and they warn of rattlesnakes but we haven't seen any.

Days 6 and 7 Oliver and Osoyoos

I have had trouble getting a reliable wifi signal in Osoyoos so have not been able to post for a day or 2. I now have a separate wireless internet adapter that Henk told me about. I have it mounted on a 4 ft pole zap strapped to the awning support. It seems to be working. My signal is stronger now.

We left Penticton on Sunday morning and drove south to Oliver. We stopped at the Silver Sage winery that Karen's sister had told us about. It was very good and we bought 3 bottles of wine.Would have bought more but it was pricey.

After we left we stopped at the Burrowing Owl Winery because we heard they had a nice restaurant. It was a great lunch with a spectacular view over the miles of vineyards in the valley below.

We saw the old homestead on the way south as well as the horses and turtle crossing.


Arrived at NK'MIP rv park in Osoyoos about 3pm and got set up at a nice site right on the lake. It was hot but windy so it was quite comfortable. We will stay 2 or 3 nights, depending on the weather. After that we will head south again into Washington on our way to the Grand Coulee Dam.

Day 5 Wrights Beach Camp Penticton

We spent the morning canning the peaches we bought in Keremeos. I had to run out and get more jars because we had ran out. We can now supply Vancouver Island with peaches!
After lunch we enjoyed a sunny afternoon on the beach.

We met a nice couple from The Netherlands, Henk and Thea. They are traveling with their dog,Roxy, who came with them on the plane .They had their motor home shipped from home to New York and are now touring the continent. We hope they stop and visit us when they get to the Island.

We will leave tomorrow for Osoyoos. the weather has been fine, sun and cloud mixed.

Day 4 Penticton

We headed out after breakfast for Naramata.It's a nice drive through orchards and vineyards. I was amazed at the number of wineries.They outnumber the orchards now.

We found the tiny Naramata Museum, it was closed but luckily the lady who runs it showed up while we were looking around and let us in. she was very happy to get my mothers memoirs. she is a Naramata native and new mom's family history. They had old photos on display and we saw mom and her sisters in their school photos from the early 20's.
She gave us a couple of booklets about Naramata and thanked us many times for coming , so that was nice.

We drove back to Penticton for lunch then went up the other side of the lake to Summerland.
We were looking for the Kettle Valley Railroad Society. They operate a steam train from there.
My dad had written a journal of his days working for the KVR in the 40's and we wanted to drop a copy off. The train wasn't running today but there was a lady there who was a member of the Society and she was happy to take the journal.

Our work done , we stopped at the Summerland Fall Fair. Lots of home baking and vegetable growing competitions. A real old fashioned fair.

Arrived back at the trailer about 3:30 and set about writing this blog. The internet connection is very weak so my posts don't always go through, then I have to start all over again.

Tomorrow we will hang and enjoy the beach and can the peaches we bought in Keremeos.

The pictures are: A very few of the Naramata wineries
The view from Naramata road over Okanagan Lake
Mickey nervous on the giant peach
A mix of peppers at a fruit stand