Saturday, 18 through Thursday, 23 June 2022
For most of this period I stayed in the fairgrounds, but on one day I drove over to Yakima to see what it was like. I also hoped that, by going that far east, I might be able to catch sight of Mount Rainier, which I'd been completely unable to see from western WA, thanks to all the clouds and rain while I was there.
Tuesday, 21st to Yakima
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| today's route, including Mt. Rainier National Park in the west |
Before I left Moses Lake, I stopped at a laundromat, a grocery store and a gas station. At the grocery store, I took Dexter for a short walk around the landscaping so he could relieve himself before we got on the road. He became entranced with one of those long, thin, cigarette-shaped figures that are filled with air and used to attract attention at stores and sales - you know, the kind that flap around and wave their stubby little arms that you can hardly help but see. There was one at a shop across the street from us and Dext stopped and stared at it for a long time. I have no idea what he was thinking, but he never got tired of looking at it - I had to pull him away.
About halfway to Yakima, I stopped at a rest area and was surprised to be able to satisfy one of my hopes.
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| Mt. Rainier |
Everywhere from the southern part of Seattle down to Olympia, Mt. Rainier is easily visible - it's less than 1½ hours away, after all. I've loved it since I first saw it in July 1977, when I was moving to Alaska, and I never stopped feeling fulfilled just by seeing it. And that's the feeling I got today, too. It just makes me feel grounded.
Out of curiosity I looked up its explosive potential and learned that, though it hasn't had a significant eruption in 500 years, it did have a minor one as recently as the late 1800s. At 14,410', it's the tallest point both in Washington and among the whole Cascade Range - and it's also the most dangerous volcano in the Cascades, which include Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Shasta. Because it's sitting on a zone of colliding tectonic plates, it has about 20 small earthquakes each year which, of course, trigger volcanic activity. I'm glad I didn't know all that while I lived there and I still think it's stunningly beautiful.
If you can enlarge the route map, you'll see that just south of Ellensburg, there are 2 routes to Yakima, and I took one going south and the other going north.
The southbound route took me along the Yakima River through what's called Yakima River Canyon. The Yakima River is the longest river entirely within WA, and this canyon has the largest nesting concentration of hawks, falcons and eagle in the state. I'd hoped to see some of them, but I didn't - and I don't think this was the right time of year, even up here where spring comes later than in, say, Bakersfield.
The road runs for less than 30 miles and is somewhat picturesque, though my photos don't look like anything special.
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The canyon walls rise higher than 2,000' in places, and the photos on the canyon's website are more dramatic, though they seem to show about what I've got here. But the site also has a lot of information about the varied plant and animal life along here, if you're interested. https://www.yakimarivercanyon.com
I passed a house still being framed in, and it already had what looked like a full planetarium installed on the roof. Big thing as wide as the roof. You know, a big dome-shaped thing that looks like a planetarium and not like a dome. Maybe these folks are passionate about outer space and are building their dream home around their planetarium.
On the radio, all I could find was religion, pop (not my kind of pop), c&w, and Spanish-language.
Near Pomona, I passed a facility for Tree Top (as in apple juice), "Grower owned since 1960" they say.
And then I came to Yakima, where a sign told me it was "The Palm Springs of Washington." Between that sign and Mt. Rainier, my day was made, and the long drive was completely worth it. (Palm Springs? Really?)
I aimed for Kiwanis Park, which I'd noticed on the map and thought it'd be a good place to give Dext a break. Yakima had almost 100,000 residents by the 2020 census, and this park can serve a wide variety of interests. There's a skate park, and ball fields, and picnic tables, and lots of green grass with big trees. But the part that fascinated me was the playground equipment. It was a huge area all made of plastic, though I had to look really hard to see that because it looked made of natural materials. It had at least 4 sizes and configurations of slides, a gizmo that let kids play music and another to teach them Braille, it had climbing nets and an unusual jungle gym and so much more. I've never seen anything like it. I didn't have my camera with me and I'm sorry I didn't go back because I can't find any photos online that show it. Maybe local folks don't think it's extraordinary, but I can tell them it is.
I stopped at a nearby liquor store and received comments from 2 different people (older men) about my RV and me driving it. So I guess this is a conservative town.
I saw signs for the upcoming Yakima Mile contest during the July 4th celebration, billed as "the fastest mile in Washington." They say it's for people who "want to run their fastest mile . . . EVER." And people can do that because the race is run on a "gradual downhill stretch" through downtown - so people are running downhill for this mile. The entry fee is donated to the local YWCA to support its mission to end domestic violence in Yakima Valley - a worthy cause if I ever heard one. It sounds like a good time will be had by all.
Back on the interstate, I came to several high points: Umtanum Ridge, 2,265' and North Umtanum Ridge, 2,315', Manastach Ridge, 2,672' and Ryegrass, 2,535'. None of these particularly high but still high points in this country.
My check-engine light came on soon after I left Yakima, so I took a side trip into Ellensburg and stopped at an Auto Zone to ask if they could read my engine's codes. The nice man (whose wife is from Temple, TX) told me I was getting a misfire on my sparkplugs - and it suddenly all came back to me. During my month in North Dakota I was plagued by this warning light coming on a lot and nobody being able to find anything wrong, and eventually (and new sparkplugs later) it stopped coming on. Maybe I just need to get my sparkplugs replaced again?
I passed the turn to the Gingko Petrified Forest State Park. I didn't bother to stop but was curious enough to look it up. Although it's hard to believe now with its desert-like appearance, 15 million years ago this area was lush and wet. It got buried in volcanic ash and the trees here were petrified and buried in basalt (lava). The Missoula Floods about 17,000 years ago gradually unburied the petrified trees. When the state park was declared in the 1930s, more than 50 species of trees were found among the petrified remains. It was designated by the National Park Service as a National Natural Landmark in the 1960s. So that's what's there.
On the way back to Moses Lake I passed orchards and vineyards and potatoes and grains. I didn't get back to my campsite until 4:30, which is past the critters' dinner time, but I still thought it was a worthwhile trip.
The other days in the campground
From when I arrived on Friday afternoon until well into Sunday afternoon, the whole area was a hive of activity because of the competition. I gradually saw enough signs to figure out that it was a regional competition between the Oregon High School Equestrian Teams and the Washington High School Equestrian Teams. The competitors were mostly girls and competed in a variety of activities. They all seemed to be here with their families and everybody looked like they were having a good time.
Our campsite was really close to some of the horse barns, and we could easily see the horses sticking their heads out of their boxes and the kids tending to their horses. At one point I saw a horse get loose and head straight for the campground. (Signs everywhere promised immediate expulsion from the fairgrounds for taking horses into the campground areas.) I saw a Border Collie trailing a leash trying to herd the horse and 4 girls converged on the horse and tried to soothe it while one of them put a rope around its neck. Lots of temporary excitement.
As I mentioned yesterday, most of the contestants seemed to have come with their families in RVs - some including space for horse transport. I was interested to see that most of the RV doors were surrounded by cowboy boots that the girls had kicked off before they went inside. Only sensible, of course, because of what they may have stepped in with those boots, but kicking off one's shoes before going inside isn't standard behavior in the US. It took me right back to my life in Alaska, where everybody almost always took off their shoes when they went into someone's home. It was automatic behavior. And when I moved back to the Lower 48, keeping my shoes on indoors seemed really odd.
Beginning about 11:00 on Saturday morning, one horse started to neigh about every 2 minutes. Really. It was fine at first but after more than an hour of it I really wished somebody would go see what was upsetting it.
I was really worried about Dext's reaction to the horses, remembering clearly when he and Gracie dragged me along the ground for a way while they tried to get closer to a horse in practice ring. And he was certainly curious about them. But he never made any untoward moves. Maybe he's growing up?
After the campground had almost emptied on Sunday, maintenance came with tractors and hauled off all the dumpsters to a central area. When I found them the next day, they'd all been emptied. But maintenance never brought them back. And they didn't bring them back and didn't bring them back. Finally, on Wednesday, I stopped by the office and asked if a dumpster could be put back in the campground, and the woman there asked me, "Why?" I couldn't believe she said that. She was seriously asking. Why would the campers want a dumpster? I was so surprised I didn't even bother to be sarcastic but just said, "so we'll have a dumpster in the campground." And she said, "well there's one in front of the maintenance building and you can take your trash there," like it's reasonable for campers paying for basic amenities to have to schlep their trash around the fairgrounds. But then she asked which campground we were in, and then decided maybe that was too far to ask me to go, and said she'd ask maintenance if that was something they could do. (Huh?) And 20 minutes later, we had a dumpster in the campground. Too weird. That was after the showers had been locked for 2 days - but apparently someone else complained about that before I did, because I found them unlocked on Wednesday.
On the other hand, this place had a great internet signal - or at least it did where my campsite was. Thank goodness. I managed to finally finish my Oregon posts (more than halfway through my Washington month) and got the first 14 days of Washington done. Still not caught up but in much better shape than I had been before I got here.
I also got reservations made for the rest of my time in Washington, plus reservations for Christmas in Florida (you gotta plan ahead for some events). The grocery store in Moses Lake is sadly lacking in many items I wanted, but the laundromat was clean and cheap and functional, the campground/fairgrounds were entertaining, and I had a chance to rest and regroup. Very important.
The annual Grant County Fair, by the way, will be in August and, from the look of the permanent buildings I saw when Dext and I walked around the grounds, it'll be a standard county fair, which I think are a real hoot. I like looking at the cows and sheep and goats and pigs and the flower arrangements and prize pies and vegetables and sewing projects and all of it. I grew up with this sort of thing and still enjoy it.
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