Today was a travel day so we went through our departure procedures and lists and departed from Tall Chief RV. The weather is still lousy with drizzle most of the time and rain the rest. We were trying to go north in Washington but, due to the interesting but confusing road configurations, we immediately turned south and passed through the town of Fall River. There we skirted a roundabout and reversed direction on WA-203 toward Monroe. It is a very scenic and relatively safe two-lane road but there are no turnouts or passing lanes so massive queues result, some of them behind us today.
In Monroe, we turned west on US-2. East of Monroe, the road leads to Stevens Pass over the Cascades. We followed 2 west until we got to the busy and exciting I-5 northbound. Traffic was pretty heavy but only wrecks and a couple changing a diaper at the roadside were sufficient to provide any panicked braking.
North of Mount Vernon we turned east at Burlington on WA-20 headed up the Skagit River toward our destination near Concrete. With the skies in full drizzle, we pulled into the Grandy Creek Thousand Trails/KOA. Timing must be everything and we had great timing today because we were able to immediately pull into a still-warm front row spot that is one of about five TT spots in the campground that offer the clear shot south necessary to fully utilize our satellite dish. The park is beautiful with big conifers sprinkled between the RV sites. There are 50 amp full hookups, a laundry, wifi at the clubhouse, pools, lush grass everywhere and complete silence at night unless some retiree goes bonkers and unleashes his almost uncorked Dodge or uncorked Harley. Grandy Creek runs along the west side of the campground before flowing into the Skagit.
About a quarter mile from the campground, WA-20, part of the magnificent 400-mile long North Cascades Loop runs by and the Skagit River borders the road, at least for a while. We will be taking the drive into the North Cascades during our 11-day stay here at Grandy Creek.
I’m glad we are here but I hope the weather quits being shitty.