Oregon, Boardman - Tuesday, August 14, 2018 - Boardman Marina Park

It’s been a while since I posted anything on the blog.  We spent a couple of weeks just wandering around between square dance sessions in Montana.  The last post I made was from Chewelah, WA which is just about 70 miles south of the Canadian border.  The smoke from fires in Canada was pretty heavy our first night there.

From Chewelah we came back through Idaho and into Montana crossing the Bitterroot Mountain Range.  This area has a lot of large lakes and rivers and some really massive mountains.  This will be our second time over this range so it didn’t seem quite so bad this time.  I couldn’t get a picture of the highest mountain because we were navigating it.  These are just some of the surrounding ones.

We spent a week back in Jellystone Park in Missoula, MT so we could square dance in Lolo once again for a special weekend event called the Lolo Stomp – had a great time!

Back across the Bitterroot Mountain Range headed for a couple of nights at the Northern Quest casino just outside of Spokane.  The rock formations along the road in Washington look like they were carved out of milk chocolate.  The picture doesn't do them justice.

We left there this morning, our stop for tonight is the Boardman Marina Park in Boardman, OR.  This is one of those parks where a back in site is probably better than a pull through because the pull throughs are just curved areas off the side of the main road with lots of trees around them.  Greg managed to get us in, we are still uncertain how the morning will go when we try to get out.

Part of the Columbia River Heritage Trail runs along the park.  We walked for a while this afternoon but the nice view across the river was covered by a haze from smoke.  The air here doesn’t smell of smoke and we aren’t really close to any working fires, but the smoke drifts for miles.

Some of the boats at the Marina.

I thought this dragonfly (or damselfly, I can’t tell the difference) was going to be my “wildlife” picture of the day.

But then we came across this seagull who seemed to be lost.

In the morning we will be headed for Tillamook, OR.  Hopefully the views on the coast won’t be obscured by smoke haze.

Washington, Chewelah - Friday, August 3, 2018 - Chewelah Casino RV Park

We left the Northern Quest Casino in Spokane this morning after finding out about something new at Walmart, Walmart2World money transfers.  This is a great service if you travel and your bank is nowhere near where you are.  You do need a middleman to pick up cash on the other end at another Walmart and deposit it for you.

The GPS took us through downtown Spokane this morning.  Lots of traffic but we made it through without a problem.  Greg does so well maneuvering us through difficult circumstances.  They have put in some new very compact roundabouts going out of town that our GPS didn’t know about, I don’t think he even bumped a curb.

I love it when we see fields of sunflowers.  They are starting to harvest some type of grain crop up here, we think it might be oats. 

We are spending the next three nights at the Chewelah Casino RV Park.  They have 10 sites here on a first come, first served basis.  We thought we were going to be lucky to get one of those sites which have 50 amp electric and water hookups.  We’ve been here all afternoon and so far we are the only ones here.  It’s a nice little park.  The casino is smaller than the one where we stayed last night but it looks nice.  We walked over and signed up for their club card.  You need to do this whether you intend to gamble or not, it is free to sign up.  The card gets you a discount on campground fees and food.  The campground rate for card holders is $15 a night.  After we picked up the campground rules we found out that they say the sites are 30’ long, obviously they are longer than that, we fit in our 45’ with room to spare.  WIFI and TV reception here are great here.  So, for now we are pretty happy.  I was a little concerned when we pulled in around noon – the whole area was covered by smoke.  We asked at the casino about where it was coming from, it’s from Canada.  As I write this at 5:00 this evening the smoke has cleared but we are expecting a storm.

Idaho, Coeur D'Alene - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - Blackwell Island RV Resort

This park has a lot going for it.  It’s just an overnight stop.  We tried to book an extra night but they didn’t have room for us.  Right now we are out not doing anything special.  We are kind of killing time before we go back to Missoula, MT for another week of square dancing.  Never thought I would say it but we are kind of tired of mountains and waterfalls for a while, just need to kick back.

At the time I write this we are boondocking in the parking lot of the Northern Quest Casino just outside of Spokane, WA.  We got here last night and will be leaving tomorrow morning.  The parking area for trucks and RVs is a huge lot.  No hookups are available here but if we have to dump our tanks there is a new Chevron station just down the road with a nice dump facility for RVs.

We did some playing on the penny slots last night with very good results.