Our intention in coming to Tall Chief Campground in Fall City was to visit my nephew, J.R., and his partner, Maria, in nearby Auburn, Unfortunately, we had absolutely no foresight and neglected to properly determine whether my relatives were available for visiting and drinking on the same schedule as us. They weren’t.
Instead, we did some maintenance today. Peggy made Charlotte very pretty and I worked on the Barbarian Invader’s water system and some storage issues we had. Although unforeseen issues can always arise, we try to keep our stuff in good shape in the hopes that when something goes wrong, we will still have a place to stay and a vehicle to tool around in. We were pretty boring today. Tomorrow we break camp and head further north.

Since we are in a park near a major metropolitan area, it seems to us that there is no really interesting sights to go see other than city stuff. Peggy and I have lived in many cities and have found them all remarkably similar; they are good places to shop and wages are good but the traffic is terrible and everything costs a lot so we generally just stay out. We have found we prefer the benefits of the rural areas – great terrain, flora and fauna, quiet nights (unless the park is near a freeway or railway) and rare traffic problems.
Today we took a spin up the road to nearby North Bend, WA, passing by Snoqualmie Falls, a gorgeous but tourist-infected attraction in the town of Snoqualmie. There was no available nearby parking or any within a quarter mile. Peg’s sister owns a rental house outside North Bend and we drove by for no particular reason. The house is still there and looked very house-like. Right near North Bend is the imposing, craggy mountain called Mount Si, probably named after the sound all the motorists make while trapped on the single-lane, signal-challenged commute home. Due to the unique operation of the town’s traffic lights and the ponderously overloaded streets, it takes a considerable amount of time to traverse North Bend, even when it ain’t rush hour. It is probably a great place to visit but make someone else provide transportation.
Peggy and I also stopped at a drive-in called Taco Time. We both used to eat in the now-defunct Taco Time down in Coos Bay, OR, back in the dark ages and felt compelled to eat some almost Mexican-like food at the North Bend store. They serve Tater-Tots under the name of “Mexi-fries” despite them not being Mexican nor fries. Their chicken burritos are very tasty but remarkably needle-like for the $3.69 cost, plus tax. It is kind of like getting a toothpick in a paper wrapper. Down in the southwest, this same item would be called a taquito or a rolled taco.
We also took a drive over to a Trader Joe’s in a local town called Issaquah which is Indian for rich white yuppies. Range Rovers, Porsches, Audi station wagons and Mercedes Benz coupes clog the local roads which all have roundabouts at their intersections. We chose to get to T. Joe’s at 7:30 and have never been in one of their stores at a better time. We were almost alone while shopping for our loot.
The weather is still lousy – lots of rain, some wind and temperatures in the low 50s. We are crossing our fingers hoping for less mud in the next few days. Although the rain is a nuisance for us, it certainly has not hurt the local vegetation. The plants here are all bright green and appear to be open for business. The hardwood tree trunks are covered with thick mosses and lichens. The brush is so happy that it is also impenetrable once anyone leaves a cleared area. They need no signs admonishing folks to stay on the trail.
There’s a few pix if you click here

Today was a travel day and, as travel days go, it was messy. We left our Chehalis campsite, stopped at the always-pleasant waste dump and took off headed north. The weather since leaving Oregon has been on the damp side and today started out that way. By the time we had driven the 20 minutes to I-5 the weather was getting nastier with steady, moderate rain. Once on I-5, the excitement really began. The rain increased to steady, heavy rain and Washington highways are not really constructed in such a way that the accumulated rain will run off the pavement. Additionally, the roads are at such an advanced age that there are ruts in the pavement where the wheels of the vehicles have passed for so many years that any precipitation seeks the low spots resulting in two continuous trenches of water per lane.
Most of the time when towing our trailer, moisture on the road has not been a problem other than the usual hazards of sliding, skidding or jackknifing. On Washington’s roads however, continuous freeway speed driving through parallel water troughs allowed water to find a way into our trailer that had spun off the swamped tires and through a joint where the living room slide-out sidles up to the trailer’s frame. The result was some wet carpet and flooring in the living room that we discovered once we got to our destination.
Another benefit of the road construction here is the blinding spray from wheels of cars and trucks plowing the water from the depressions in the pavement and liberating clouds of vision-obscuring tan slop which coats all windshields. Furious windshield wiper operation was not sufficient to clear the vision-obscuring road slime from Charlotte’s windscreen. Even the poorly painted lines between the lanes become invisible which makes many motorists want to lift their foot from the throttle. The balking of motorists results in braking by following traffic and a general slowdown of everyone. The slowdowns do have a bright side – there is much less spray than when everyone is swimming along at 65 mph.
We try to skirt the beautiful but traffic-fubared Seattle area when we come through this part of the world. Unfortunately, the crappy weather clogged all roads in the area so a trip of less than 100 miles took 3 hours on freeways and other limited access highways. We passed some horrible-looking wrecks.
After following a circuitous route through many communities with funny names like Sammamish, we pulled into a campground in Fall City called Tall Chief. Fall City is about 15 miles or 65 minutes southeast of Seattle. The rain continued to pour down on us as we set up the Barbarian Invader. Thoroughly soaked, we eventually climbed into our traveling home and cozied up while the furnace worked on drying our soaked attire and carpet. I’m glad we had some medicinal alcohol on board.

We are still happily set up in the Chehalis Thousand Trails RV Park. We have not really done anything we deserve a reward for but we chose to reward ourselves anyway with a breakfast out at Lisa’s Diner in nearby Onanalska. Peggy chose an omelet but I, not surprisingly, selected their chicken fried steak and eggs which was delivered alongside a small pyramid of hash browns and toast. Both breakfasts were very tasty and the prices (+/- $10 a head) are pretty good, too. I had to leave some of the stuff behind when we departed. After Lisa’s, we were ready for some exploration of the surrounding countryside.
From Lisa’s, our route became quite random although we were generally trying to go northeast, passing east of Chehalis and Centralia. We climbed over many minor ridges dividing watersheds of different rivers with funny names like Skookumchuck and Newaukum. The country is quite nice to drive through with a combination of sections passing through groves of large standing timber, large plots of reforested acreage where logging and tree planting are evident, pastures with cows and big wood barns and nifty homes in the center. Birds dart between the hedges everywhere. We spotted our second bald eagle in three days. Deer seem quite content to graze in the neck-high grass along the roads. Everything is bright green except the flowers and some red leaves on the vine maples. It is pretty here.
We returned from our tour through Centralia where we stopped for diesel and groceries. As we passed through town, we became distracted by the abundance of houses along the 1st Street corridor that exhibit magnificent architectural flair. Most were wood-framed, wood-sided palaces with great porches, porte cocheres, bay and turret windows and striking roof and gable configurations. There must have been some terrific residence architects here back in the early decades of the 20th century. Their legacies survive.
I wouldn’t mind loafing a bit longer in the Chehalis area but tomorrow we are leaving to continue our quest to go north. We can always return here once it starts getting cold and we head south.
We took a few pictures along the way today and you can see them if you click here

Now that we are retired and traveling, I am surprised that we can be distracted from unfettered fooling around by nearly mindless tasks. Today we took on our poorly archived postcard collection. During our travels, when we get to a national park or monument or other culturally or visually appealing place, we look for postcards of the sight. Some are merely photographs while others are prints of paintings of outstanding features, like Half Dome at Yosemite.
Having been on the road for 3 years, the collection had grown to be quite voluminous. What the collection did not have was dates of purchase so we had to figure out what month and year we bought the postcards. That took a while. Then we actually put the postcards in chronological order so viewers could see a short visual summary of each year’s circuit.
In late 2014, we took a spin from San Diego to the Pacific Northwest, returning home in November. In January, 2015, we drove across the country from San Diego to Florida and then north to Maine, then to Ohio and Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Colorado and Arizona before returning to San Diego in November. In early 2016, we went north to Washington before turning east into the Great Basin with stops in Washington, California, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada and Montana before returning to San Diego in October. In November 2016 we left San Diego again but only made it as far as Las Vegas before returning home before Xmas. On December 28, we left San Diego again and took a four month trip to warm and toasty Texas before returning through New Mexico and Arizona for our son’s wedding in April. A few days later we hit the road again and have been going north up the I-5 corridor through California, Oregon and Washington, carefully driving miles out of the way to avoid large cities.
All along the way during these trips, we purchased interesting (to us) postcards but our archiving system consisted of mostly throwing the cards in a box. Now, after today’s efforts, we have sorted our stock and put the collated piles into little brown bags and then Peggy put ’em somewhere.
This clearly important task having been completed, we decided to go fool around. We hopped into Charlotte and took a spin through the vividly green country to the southwest of Olympia, the state capitol. We took WA-12 west to WA-8 west to US-101 south to I-5 south to complete our loop. It is nice country but there is nothing remarkable here other than the colors of the ubiquitous vegetation, many beautiful ranch houses, some fruit stands and large second-growth forests. It is pretty evident the folks in this part of the world consider trees a crop and large stands of reforestation of various heights clearly show how long since the last logging occurred. It is still a very nice drive although I would not come from miles away to do it.
There are pix. Click here

The weather has been kind of funky the last few days. In Portland the the last two days it has been drizzling and it isn’t changing here. Although precipitation puts a damper on exploring, it certainly hasn’t done any harm to the vegetation. It is like a jungle here. The flowers are going bonkers, all the berry vines are squirting up, the Oregon grape is crimson and emerald green and all the grass is just short of waist-high.
We took a spin east up the Cowlitz River today. WA-12 is the highway following the river and it runs from I-5 up to Mt. Rainier, narrowly skirting the north side of the St. Helens Volcanic Park. Sharp-eyed Peggy spotted a bald eagle guarding his nest along this route. We continued on 12 until we where about halfway between the massive volcanoes where we turned around maybe 15 miles east of Morton.
We noted that all the way up the river, which is owned, dammed and managed by Tacoma Power, there are Tacoma Power campgrounds and we went into the facility near Morton called Taidnapam Park, pronunciation unknown. It is a gorgeous facility with very large RV sites, full hookups, deep shade from tall conifers, boat launches and clean restroom and shower facilities. We will put this place on our list of possible good spots to stay on a return visit. It costs $35/night for full hookups but geezers older than 62 get $5 off. The drive up WA-12 from I-5 alone is worth the trip but camping there would be superb.
Some snapshots taken along our route can be seem if you click here

Today was a travel day. We departed Sandy Riverside RV in Troutdale and headed a few miles west on I-84 before turning north on I-205, over the Columbia River and into the state of Washington. Not many miles north, we merged with I-5 and continued north along the Washington side of the Columbia until we got to the Kelso area where the river turns west and the highway goes toward Canada.
Maybe 60 miles later, we turned east near Chehalis and pulled our outfit into the Chehalis Thousand Trails RV campground. We have been here a few times before. They had water problems last year which shut down large sections of the facility but they seem to be resolved and the staff is busy clearing brush and making the joint shipshape. We got a hilltop spot where my satellite dish works which is unique here as most spots are in signal-blocking timber.
We arrived early today so we had time to fool around after we got set up. Our choice was to drive over to the tiny town of Onalaska where we know of a tip-top restaurant called Lisa’s. Lisa’s is only open until 3:00 most days but we were in before 2:00, only to find out that they had just served the last of the sausage gravy that they use on the chicken fried steak. Happily, they also have other great things to eat so I settled for a double bacon cheeseburger with a small pyramid of fries. The burger was great but I’m not supposed to eat potatoes so I felt truly remorseful as I threw too many of them down the grocery hole. We got out of there for about $25, probably because I also got a shake.
There are lots of birds around our campsite. You can see a one of them, a tubby blue jay, if you click here

This was a day of challenges and disappointments. For quite some time I have expounded upon the great chicken fried steak breakfast that can be found at Dean’s, a greasy spoon in Clackamas, OR. I eagerly awaited our return to Troutdale so we could make the half hour drive to Dean’s where I could feast on their formerly stellar recipe.
Something has changed. When my chicken fried steak was plopped down in front of me today, I could see something was amiss. The coating texture was changed. The consistency of the crunchy coating had changed. Something was fishy. The sausage gravy was still the same but the whole product was fundamentally different. When I queried the staff about the new recipe, they all gave me the fish eye and vowed that nothing had changed.
I can still recommend Dean’s as a great place to eat a hearty breakfast but their chicken fried steak, which until recently was my #1 pick for this pedestrian fare in the whole U.S.A., or at least that part I have visited, has been removed from the lofty spot and been replaced with the dish of the same name at Jake’s, in Bend. I am crestfallen.
After our adequate but hardly superior breakfast, we embarked on what turned out to be an odyssey through metropolitan Portland to a shoe store called Oddballs. They specialize in footwear for those cursed with feet larger than size 13, filling a niche that is poorly supplied by ordinary retailers. We were making good headway on our crosstown route until we left the east bank of the Willamette River and crossed the bridge into deepest, darkest downtown Portland. There we encountered not just one but two parades and the cops had all the roads blocked from downtown to NW. We wandered crazily through streets near the river but were foiled in every attempt to cross the the amazingly serpentine parade route. We tried flanking the parade route by driving immediately adjacent to the Willamette on the west bank but we were stymied by traffic enforcement Nazis. We attempted a long west end sweep but ran out of roads going where we wanted to go. Eventually, through bitter frustration, we drove south, directly away from the parades for several miles and then tried to get on I-5 north to bypass the parades. I-5 was stopped, mostly by an abundance of vehicles that had been caught in the downtown parade nightmare and were attempting to escape it crossing the Willamette back to the side where there were fewer parades and blocked thoroughfares guarded by armed Gestapo.
After a few very slow miles, we were able to access NW Portland, again crossing the Willamette but in a different spot. After some disgusted exclamations and more U-turns, we made it to Oddballs. Management’s policy must have changed somewhat there because where lots of big, ugly Frankenstein boots were prominently displayed on previous visits there are now many forms of burglary shoes and shoes for the dead. There were four boot possibilities. I selected one of the limited options and the shoe nerd went in the back only to return to tell me they did not have my size although he had some that were easily identified as way too big. We left with some socks.
Peggy then suggested a Dick’s store and found one quite nearby that we could access without crossing any parade routes. Amazingly, we found a couple of types of clodhoppers that I will wear and feel good. I left with a pair of Danner’s.
Disgusted with taking most of a day to buy a pair of shoes and eat breakfast, we agreed to return to the Barbarian Invader, naps and ample liquor supplies. Peggy already enjoyed a short power nap and I’m thinking about maybe dozing off myself.
We will be out of here tomorrow. I like the location of Sandy River RV but it has a few drawbacks that count against it. There is a skinny, 20 mph road in through Historic Troutdale coming into the park and a bridge too narrow for two cars to pass going out the other way. There are multiple adjacent train tracks and, based on the number of horn blasts I heard during our stay, Burlington Northern Santa Fe is doing a big business. Their engineers are quite dutiful when required to sound the regulation 2 longs, a short and a long blast at each of the myriad nearby grade crossings. The Sandy River RV wifi sometimes works but not if some Republican pulls his enormous rolling estate up alongside your trailer, blocking the antenna. Another weird item – the park management has admonitions and threats printed in their literature forbidding the use or possession of marijuana within their facility despite pot being perfectly legal in the remainder of the state. Just old jerks, I guess.

Today was a travel day so we disconnected from the utilities at the Blue Ox in Albany and struck out northbound on I-5. The weather was not looking very friendly when we left and, other than one blinding downpour, we traveled in periodic drizzle to our destination.
Near the place where the Portland traffic turns extremely hellish, we bailed off of I-5 and took the sneaky loop up I-205 which turned out to be not as sneaky as we anticipated. Traffic near Clackamas slowed down to a crawl for a while before it stopped. Many drivers on this stretch of road seemed dazed; their last-minute double lane changes, exiting right from the left lane and randomly stopping in high speed traffic seemed to be perfectly normal to their alabaster-white heads.
We crept along for a few miles and soon came to I-84 eastbound which, fortunately for us, was the road we needed to complete our journey into Troutdale, a suburb community maybe 10 or 15 miles from downtown Portland. We pulled into thrice previously visited Sandy River RV Park. They offer full hookups, cable TV (we just use the satellite dish instead of hooking to cable), good wifi, very tight RV spacing throughout, a barely audible proximity to the freeway, two nearby airports, adjacent BNSF rail tracks and they are located about 500 yards from Historic Downtown Troutdale which is two blocks long. We ate in Troutdale during a previous visit at an alleged Chinese restaurant called Taste of Village. It should have been called Taste of Converse Basketball Shoe or Taste of Pond Scum because the food was downright shitty and we also received service with a grimace. Go elsewhere.

We were slugs today. We ate too much (although it was very tasty) mostly loafed around the Blue Ox. Our only excursion out into the world was to sneak over to a local Dari Mart for a pint of ice cream followed by a quick stop for diesel on the way home. It was nice taking a day off from doing nothing.