By 10:30 AM we were all picked up in Sandy River RV Resort and on our way into Washington. Just a few minutes after departure we were on I-205 on the east side of Portland and not too long after that we crossed the Columbia River which separates Oregon from Washington.
The southern part of Washington was very beautiful, particularly in those spots where you can glance to the east and see what is left of Mount St. Helens which gave many Washingtonians a big surprise in 1980 when it erupted and blew 1300 feet off the top of the mountain. A bit further up the road the view to the east is the snow covered Cascades and west is the snow covered Olympic range on the peninsula of the same name.
When Peg and I traveled through this part of the world in 2014, we stayed at a campground called Paradise in Silver Creek and also at Chehalis, both Thousand Trails facilities where we do not have to pay to stay with our elite campground membership. Unfortunately, Paradise does not open until April 22 this year and Chehalis campground has some sort of water issue so it is closed, as well. We bypassed both of them and continued into the driving hell of the Seattle area.
Despite it being a Saturday, the transit was a nightmare this year. Many folks here do not believe it is necessary to look over their left shoulder when entering the freeway from a ramp creating terrifying high-speed standoffs with those cars already on the road. Other folks here make lane changes without verifying available space in the adjacent lane before veering over which makes for loud horn-honking concertos and wild finger waving. On one section of road, we were preceded by a tattooed biker and his portly girlfriend who surprisingly decided to stop their bikes on the freeway without notice or signalling, generating a wild scramble for those behind trying to avoid flattening them. Long sections of highway were slow moving, bumper-to-bumper crawls where Washingtonian driving habits have resulted in catastrophes which they all had to leer at before proceeding. Nowhere north of Olympia was I required to worry about speeding since I would have had to accelerate just to get to the ridiculously low speed limits. I sometimes try to be open-minded about places we visit but the traffic here is a horrible nightmare and I seem to remember saying I would never come back through Seattle again. Stupidly, we returned and were rewarded with the same horrifying antics that made us want to avoid this area.
Eventually we turned off the crazy and unpredictable highways and on to county roads near the east end of Lake Sammamish. A short distance later but without the elimination of the very same stupid behavior we noted on the interstate we turned up a big hill and pulled our traveling show into the Tall Chief RV Resort in Fall City, WA. We were met at the gate by Bill, a former Marine and campground host who checked us in and opened the gate. We drove around the campground a bit before selecting a nice, sunny spot between the ample supply of trees and settling in for a three day stay.
The only issue we had with the resort was some jerk parked across the road with about 4 or 5 uncontrolled little dogs that seemed to think it was okay for them to bark, whine and make wounded dog noises incessantly. Fortunately, Bill noticed the dogs were making an unauthorized amount of noise and told the guy to put his dogs inside his RV or face expulsion. Gotta love those Marines.