Today we gathered up all our stuff and departed from Chehalis Thousand Trails. However, our drive was not long because we only drove over a ridge into the Cowlitz River watershed and about 20 miles later we pulled into the Paradise Thousand Trails Campground in Silver Creek. It is difficult to know when one is in Silver Creek because the downtown consists of a crummy Chinese restaurant, a Mobil fuel station and a very small post office.

Paradise campground is located on the side of a hill offering many parallel pull-through spaces, full hookups in most locations and an absolutely spectacular view from the top of the ridge. Looking mostly east from the campground entrance, one can see the emerald Cowlitz River Valley, azure Mayfield Lake and Mount Rainier, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helen’s on the horizon. All three of these snow-capped mountains are volcanoes – I think Mount Adams is dormant but the other two terrify locals every so often by ejecting frightening clouds of smoke and ash every time they forget that these things could kill them at any time.

It is still raining. We prepped a bit for departure but did little else.

The weather was still lousy but we felt like we needed a break from the confines of our 288 square foot lodgings so we took a spin into the nearby town of Centralia. Centralia is right next to and just north of Chehalis and about a dozen miles northwest from our campground.

The road there is rural almost all the way (unless you go over to I-5) and we like the bucolic scenery along the way. We zigzagged through Chehalis and soon arrived in the historic and quite gorgeous downtown area of Centralia. Although the downtown area is lovely, is was still raining steadily so we found a place called the Olympic Club right on the main drag and ducked inside for a reward. The Olympic Club is an ancient facility where loggers and millworkers spent many evenings in the ornate surroundings. We cozied up in a nice tuck-and-roll pleather-lined booth and ordered a flight for Peggy and a porter for me. The facility is nice but their beer products were only so-so.

The magnificent interior of the place more than makes up for their nominal beer. There is a gigantic wood stove in the main meeting room, a spacious dining facility, two ample bars and a theater sporting ample reclining chairs for their thrice-weekly movie showings. There are stunning stained glass chandeliers and a nifty cigar store in the entry foyer. However, the best part of this place has to be their downstairs restrooms. The mens’ restroom has two massive and ornate urinals unlike any I have seen elsewhere and I’ve been in many johns before. The womens’ restroom sink plumbing looks like the display section from a Home Depot and offering confused users an unlimited variety of ways to wash their hands. The womens’ john was more recently installed because it used to be verboten to bring ladies into the Club and, therefore, a womens’ restroom was unnecessary. Fortunately, reasonable heads prevailed and girls can drink in the Club now.

After considerable wandering and malingering inside the Olympic, we went back out into the dismal rain and drove back to Chehalis TT to digest.

We got some pix inside the Olympic. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/HKXoD2mGf7B2RJh47

We spent the last couple of days hanging around the trailer. It has been raining pretty steadily and we don’t venture out in foul weather unless there is a brewery or some other reward involved.

Peggy was a bit under the weather yesterday and I got to watch the NASCAR race today but other than that, we were boring or more boring than normal.