Wenatchee
Where the hitch snapped
Our "bike rack" while heading back home
Judy’s sister and brother-in-law, Marilyn and Gene, were going on a 2 week camping trip, and making a stop in Wenatchee, which is just over the mountains for us on highway 2. So, of course, Harris says, “Why don’t we go join them?” Any excuse to go in Howie, right? (Or is it the fact that Judy usually makes oatmeal raisin cookies for our trips? Hmmmm.)
Our first spot at Wenatchee Confluence State Park
We started off from Lake Stevens rather late on Monday morning, since we knew Marilyn and Gene wouldn’t get to Wenatchee until the afternoon anyway. We stopped in Monroe for gas and groceries. Good thing we did! As we were leaving the parking lot, going slowly over the big speed bumps, we heard a great crash. “What in the world?” we both said, looking in the back of Howie, and then in the mirrors. We saw our bikes lying on the ground in the parking lot! Our bike rack had just broken off, clean in two, at the hitch! We pulled over and grabbed our bikes which seem to be okay. BUT!! We were just so thankful that it happened in the parking lot and not on the busy freeway going over Stevens Pass! We could have caused a very serious accident.
4 or 5 people fishing?
. We put the bikes inside Howie and went back home to unload them. Then we left again. We didn’t arrive in Wenatchee until about 4 PM….cocktail hour. We met Marilyn and Gene at the Wenatchee Confluence State Park. It is a great park situated where the Wenatchee River meets the Columbia River. We were surprised that it was so full. After all, this was a Monday in October, and the weather was just so-so. The sites are spread out across grassy fields, and our first site was a little ways away from Marilyn’s. (The next day we were able to move right across from them when someone left.)
Wish this sign was posted on more trails
Harris cooked a great meal of barbequed chicken, salad, bread, with Judy-baked oatmeal cookies and spumoni ice cream for dessert. It was a little chilly, eating outside, so we went inside Howie to play cards afterwards. Harris beat us all at Quarters.
We spotted a White Heron on our walk
We discovered our electric hot water heater wasn’t working, so we had to use our gas heater to get hot water. No problem there, just wondering what’s wrong with the device Harris installed a year ago to use electricity to heat the water. About 5 AM on Tuesday morning, the carbon monoxide alarm went off! That woke us up in a hurry. We had windows open already, but opened the door and the ceiling vent and tried to mute the alarm. It stopped, we went back to bed, it went off again! We did the drill one more time, but this time Harris took it apart and shook it around a little and that seemed to do the trick. But of course, we were up for the day at that point.
A side benefit of "Click Clack" cache site
Tuesday was a bit of a cloudy day, but not bad. We went for a morning walk on a nature trail around the park with Marilyn, Gene and their dog, Trix. Then Marilyn wanted to go into Leavenworth , a cute Bavarian tourist town about 10 miles back toward the pass to shop. She hadn’t been there for many years. Harris decided it wasn’t his cup of tea, and he stayed back in camp to relax and do some geocaching.
A clever cache near a Home Depot
While Marilyn, Gene and Judy shopped their feet off, Harris borrowed Gene’s bike and found about 11 caches. Using the bike, he was able to find caches along the train tracks, some others scattered around a nearby commercial area, and on the way back to camp loop through a couple of riverside parks. Harris had a great time.
Low lying morning clouds (at least it was dry)
We met up again for dinner, which we ate inside this time, and cards. We played Whist, which Judy and Gene won. Then Gene almost beat us all at Quarters, except! We added a new rule that if you hit a multiple of 100 during the game, your score reverts to zero….which Marilyn did. So, she was the winner.
Another clever cache hiding spot in a small park
It rained a lot that night, and we discovered a new leak by the ceiling fan the next morning. As it continued to pour, we decided to skip the garden tour we had talked about doing and just come on home. We hoped for better weather, but of course, that’s silly. If it’s raining in eastern Washington, it’s raining even harder in Lake Stevens! But at least we got out a little bit. Even though we call ourselves Sunseekers, we do go camping in the rain…..now that we have our little House on Wheels!
Our 2nd camping spot
Total miles driven over 3 days (including extra 34 for bikes = 286
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