Packed up and ready to leave by 10, we headed out of our spot….oh so carefully….I watched while Mike pulled out….all A-Okay! No encounters with trees. I hopped back in the truck and we headed down the road to “dump our load” at the sani-station before hitting the open road. As we were driving on the main road out of the park, we heard a funny noise. I barely heard it; sounded like the splash of water hitting the road. I thought it was water from the roof, or maybe elsewhere, that was set in motion with the driving. Mike thought it was the bikes but we kept on going until a car driving behind us flashed its lights. The driver told us a tree had reached out and grabbed our antenna. It pulled it right out by the roots and let it fall to the pavement where bits and pieces of plastic broke off. Thankfully the park rangers happened on the scene and drove back to get the antenna while Mike drove to the sani-station, fuming with anger at Arctic Fox and their major design flaw. I was upset too, not angry….but then….I wasn’t the one that would have to fix it. It had started to rain again which didn’t make the fixing job any more pleasant for Mike. While he got busy fixing, I gave our contact details to the rangers who promised to fill out an incident report for their own purposes as well as ours, for insurance purposes.
By the time we got going it was 1130. Once again on this drive, I was another “Nervous Nellie” until we hit I5. The new Rand McNally GPS made major mistakes twice!! First in Longview and then again nearer Olympia where it took us past where we should have exited and had us take the next exit, go over the I 5 and then right back on the I5 heading south again. After that though, we had no problems finding the Landyacht Harbor RV Park, where they were very friendly and welcoming. It’s a great park and very quiet while we were there. The only problem was that all of the connections were at the back of the trailer which meant the electrical cord had to stretch all the way out – first time for that….and the black/grey water hose was stretched to the max. Thankfully we had an extra section of hose.
The next day we met Mike’s cousin at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge which was the highlight of our visit. Beautiful! Spectacular! Phenomenal! We walked, took pics, talked, met a photographer who had taken some great pics of the baby great horned owls (it took him 8 hours of sitting patiently waiting but his shot was well worth it) and who showed us the tree where the owlets were (they didn’t appear for us). He also pointed out a peregrine falcon, and a nest that looked like a weaver bird and a hummingbird nest. He was very quick to spot birds.
We were up early the next morning as it was a travel day….a BIG travel day in our perceptions as we had to drive from Olympia through Tacoma, Seatac, and Seattle. We had everything ready and were on the road by 915.
The first part of the trip, there wasn’t too much traffic but through Tacoma it was heavy but then thinned out again. Not for long. Soon, we were caught up in bumper to bumper traffic pretty much until after Mercer Street in downtown Seattle when it at least started to flow a bit faster. We’d been inching along for a long ways.
The border crossing was a bit hairy but only because of our size and trying to fit through the gates. They asked a few questions but before long we were on our way. No sooner had we gotten back on HWY 99 and we had to turn on 2nd Ave. That turned out to be the “Fast Track” for the commercial trucks. Our turn came right after. Reached the park easily, registered and got into our site, a pull-through. Nice park but we are very close to one another….can almost see into the windows of the rig beside us and behind us. The best thing about this park was its proximity to a splendid little bar called Bennett’s Pub….a five minute walk!
ENIGMAS 