One of my mom’s favorite movie lines is “There’s no crying in baseball” from A League of Their Own. Lately she’s been saying “There’s no whining in Washington.” My dad has been unhappy with the weather since we left Arizona in March and keeps saying he’s a “sunny, warm weather kind of guy”….and keeps saying it….and keeps saying it.
This is what we’ve been living with.
I try not to take sides between my people but I have to agree with my dad. We haven’t had nearly as much sit out in the sun time as we both like – almost none except for a few days on The Island. (That was a nice backyard!)
To distract my dad from his whining, mom gave him an engineering problem. A cupboard above the desk had started sliding out when we travel from place to place. She worried that it could fall out completely and damage the desk. Dad agreed and set about finding a solution.
First he got out all of his stuff and looked through it for inspiration. It reminded my mom of that scene in Apollo 13 when the engineers dumped everything the astronauts had available to them on the table to figure out how to fix the filter problem.
“We’ve got to find a way to make this fit into the hole for this using nothing but that.”
Here is the video clip if you want to see it.
He had a couple of false starts but my dad figured out a workable solution with just the stuff he had in the trailer. I supervised his work and my mom was impressed as always.
Several people we’ve met on the road have told my mom about Wenatchee Confluence State Park. It has been on her big, long list of places to go and things to do so she had us stop there.
I gotta say – some people know what they are talking about! There is grass everywhere! We don’t see grass all that often so it is special when we do. Mom and dad like that the campground feels so clean – all grass and blacktop- and the sites are spread out so we have lots of room.
I like that the weather is great and my people are outside and I can lay on that beautiful green grass lots of the day. There is no (more) whining in Washington!
My mom knows a lot about state park reservations in the west, all of them except California. (She also knows that Nevada doesn’t allow any reservations – grrrr, boo, hiss!) Mom doesn’t like that Washington charges different amounts for categories of campsites. Not only are there basic sites without services but there are three categories of full service sites meaning they all have water, electric and sewer. Full economy sites are $30 per night, basic for $35 and popular for $40. She says Washington’s campsite prices are higher than surrounding states. With a reservation fee, an extra out of state reservation fee, and a rate of $35 – our real charge was $43 per night.
We didn’t need to use them but if we did, you had to pay extra for showers and dumping. But for these two nights at Wenatchee Confluence State Park with all the grass – and to stop the whining – she thought it was worth every penny.
Mostly we spent a lot of time outside enjoying the grass and the sunshine, but one day I took a nap in the trailer while my people got out the bicycles.
They rode the eleven mile Apple Capital Loop Trail which crosses the Columbia River twice. One bridge was a regular highway bridge but the second one was interesting.
It was the first highway bridge over the Columbia River south of Canada. Foot and wagon traffic crossed for toll and it also allowed irrigation water to cross the Columbia to the east side. In modern day that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense but maybe it did in 1908.
They saw the Cascadian Fruit Shippers building, the largest apple cold storage in the world, with a capacity of 1000 (train?) cars.
They stopped at a public market, had some gelato, and bought some frozen local peaches. They passed peach orchards on the ride and had peaches on their minds.
My mom got to smell her favorite flowers – lilacs!
They saw some interesting critters on their ride. But none of them are more interesting than me.
We all liked Wenatchee and Wenatchee Confluence State Park. We liked that the snow on the mountains was far away.
Sometimes boys just have to be in the dirt.
If you enjoyed my blog, remember I wrote two others before this one.
Guest blogger: Elko from September, 2015 (this one has really good sunrise pictures) and Elko’s Blog 2 from January 2017.
Serene Wandering 
All that sunshine looks wonderful! I would be a happy camper too. Great blog Elko!
You brought back many memories both special positive and very sad . A young friend of mine was the Head guy at the Wenatachee National park. His home was in Wenatachee. Bill and I visited a couple of times. He was diagnosed with ALS in Sept 2015 and died Feb 2016.. He is honored and remembrance by many in the National Park community. I remember the beauty of the area.
It is good to see Elko behind the keyboard once again! Good boy!!
We have found that overnight lodging costs have increased in the past few years, both at private and public campgrounds. We’ve found state parks are generally less expensive, but might not offer the amenities. Gifford Pinchot, where we just spent seven nights, had only electricity at the sites for $30 per night. Most of the private parks we’ve stayed in are closer to $40 – $45.
But we’ve never seen a “fee only” dump station. That’s a new twist!
So glad you got in at Wenatchee Confluence ! I loved Elko’s blog!