Washington Days, Snoqualimie Nights

Today we drove 36 miles to our third park in the area, this one up in the Snoqualmie Valley. Another membership park, Tall Chief RV Resort has 189 RV sites in a heavily wooded area. The spaces are not close together, everyone has their own little spot in the trees with a picnic table, and it’s very cool and pretty. But there’s no TV reception and the Olympics are starting ….

This park has a lot of rules. Normally the park rules go on the back page of the map we make, but Tall Chief has seven sheets of rules and notices and thinly veiled threats inserted in the fold of the maps they hand out. Those of you who have been on the entire journey with us will recall this park as the one demanding incontinent folks use adult swim diapers ($3.50 in the office) when using the pool. We were stopped by the assistant manager before we could pull into our site. She drove up, waving a rule out the window, yelling “I’ve had two complaints on you already!!” Apparently we were clocked doing more than the allowable 5 miles per hour. (“You were flying when you went by the laundry!”) It’s very hard to come into a park and try to find the assigned space and read 7 sheets of rules at the same time. Every park has a posted 5 mph sign. We don’t speed. And we have rarely “flown,” even when we knew where we were going. But this park has a severe dust problem and their way of dealing with it has put their map makers off just a touch.

We enjoyed our stay at Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, near Enumclaw. It’s a small, totally wooded park, heavily used all year. The host spot, with full hook-up, was supposed to be held for us, but next month’s host showed up a month early, so the park had two hosts for August and none for September. We ended up parked in the sunshine, next to the shop. We ran an electric cord under the garage door and after the Roto Rooter guy fixed the backed up toilets in the shop and office, we had the use of a sewer! It was just fine. Sales were pretty good at both Lake Sawyer and Kanaskat-Palmer and we met some really nice people.

The last month has been a very social time for us, as we soak up family visits that will have to last us through the winter. A highlight in our “good friends and good meals” chapter was spending an evening with Jim and Linda Beecher. Jim was Dave’s best friend in high school and it’s been 50 years since they last split a pizza! The reunion notices got them both thinking, and before you could say Google me, we were catching up. It was really great and we hope to stay in touch.

Daveâ€s sister Carole took us to the Snoqualmie Forest Theatre again this year. We saw “South Pacific.” and it didn’t rain this year. (Not that the rain slowed them down last year!) This outdoor theatre is very rustic, with benches set into the hillside, and closely surrounded by tall fir trees. The acoustics are pretty good, though, and the actors are mostly pros from the Seattle area. We really enjoyed it. PLUS, the salmon dinner was outstanding again, supplied by a well known chef. We love the meal: salmon, baked potato and salad with raspberry vinaigrette is SO Pacific Northwest! They sort of let down for the dessert, though; some kid comes by and pitches you an ice cream bar. We understand, though, as the cast has to eat and get back down in the holler to do the evening performance!

We had bad news from our Fairgrounds Park in Redmond, Oregon. They don’t want us to do a map for them this year. They want to do it themselves and incorporate it into an Expo package. (I’ll bet 50 bucks they hired an in-house communications person.) Anyway, we’re very disappointed. We have doctor appts in Bend in mid-September but won’t have the time there we had planned on. From here we go to Moses Lake and Yakima, then we are going to try to loop up to Livingston, Montana to see our old friend John Sullivan and drop back down to do our New Mexico parks.

We send love and warm thoughts to you all.