Today was a travel day. We have been at Leavenworth Thousand Trails Preserve for nine days, an unusually long stay anywhere for us. We like to move around. I had already taken care of the water and sewer hookups yesterday so we merely had to do some cleanup, retract the slideouts, disconnect power, attach Charlotte to the Barbarian Invader and drive away. We were out of the space about 25 minutes after we went to work.
We turned out of the park onto Chumstick Loop, then WA-207 until we again got onto US-2 westbound over Stevens Pass. A couple thousand feet of climbing and we were over the pass for the 4000 foot descent onto the coastal plain. We went east over this pass back in April and there was lots of snow near the summit. There is no snow there now but the forests alongside the road look very happy and the drive through the pass is astounding. The terrain is extremely rugged.
We bottomed out near Puget Sound where we turned north on I-5. We sort of regret leaving US-2. We have followed it here from Glacier National Park in Montana. Sadly, US-2 just sort of craps out at I-5 near Everett. It has been an amazing road all the way from the Rockies to the west side of the Cascades.
An hour north on I-5 and we turned off at Mount Vernon onto the section of WA-20 which runs west to Anacortes and La Conner. Near La Conner, we turned south onto a back road called Snee Oosh Road and soon arrived at the La Conner Preserve, another Thousand Trails campground where we do not have to pay for camping, other than a $600 yearly fee. I think we have stayed in a Thousand Trails facility more than 500 nights during the last 26 months. Total TT yearly fee outlay has been about $1200 and, assuming a $30 minimum charge in any campground, we have not had to pay $15,000 for the nights we spent at Thousand Trails. It has been a good deal for us west coast full timers. We also belong to Passport America ($44/year) and RPI ($135/year) which also give us substantial camping discounts. We rarely pay full price.