Lake Time

  

We are now in Olympia, Washington in the land of evergreens and 60-degree weather. 

 

We made it to our lake house on July 3rd, just in time for the Fourth of July holiday. Thor is safely stowed away in his covered storage spot for a well-deserved rest after safely getting us here. It’s nice to be living back on solid ground. It took me a few days to adjust to having a dishwasher again; I found myself hand washing dishes as if we were still in the RV with no dishwasher.

We bought our lake house last September and have spent a few nights here in the Fall, Winter, and Spring seasons. We are excited to now spend our first Summer here. Jack already has his routine of swimming in the lake twice a day.

On the Fourth of July, we sat on our dock and watched a boat parade. Along with lots of flags and patriotic decorations, there was a pirate-themed boat, pink flamingos, a giant soccer ball, and even live music on one boat. 

Jack was not a happy camper that evening when loud fireworks were shot off right over the lake.

And now our exciting news: we bought a boat today!

A Yamaha ski boat. It will get delivered tomorrow. Maybe now we can get back to furnishing the house. I can’t wait to get some bedroom furniture so I can quit using a laundry basket for my bedside table. 

Day 8 - Final Day / Learnings

Our final day on this trip to Washington has arrived and only one day later than planned.

We will unmoor Thor from shore power for the last time and drive the final four hours to Olympia, Washington. The Jeep received the all-clear from the service guys after charging and testing the battery. They recommended that we start the engine daily when we tow it. Pleasantly, the work was covered under warranty.  

This was our seventh long-distance journey in Thor since we adopted him in 2016. Apparently we are still learning as we “go”.

Some other learnings from our experiences:

• 5-hour energy drink

 Chris doesn’t do coffee so he tried drinking small shots of an energy drink for the caffeine on this trip and it really helped him stay alert on the road. The small shots are nice because they don’t require frequent potty breaks.

• Rest Stop app

I now use a phone app to locate upcoming rest stops on the highway. Helps with planning our lunch breaks.

• Leave some food at home

In 2017, we came home from our summer trip just as Hurricane Harvey was hitting Houston. I had brought ALL our food on the trip. Why leave it at home all summer when we might need it on the road? We left Thor in Huntsville outside of Houston to be safe from the storm. We didn’t have room in the Jeep to bring the food home. The grocery stores were closed so we were stuck with no food. I won’t do that again. I now leave behind some canned items and other essentials (beer).

• Keep a Sense of Humor

It sure helps when you never know what might be in store “down the road”.

Day 6, 7 - Idaho to Oregon; Maybe on to Washington?

Today is the day we were supposed to be reaching our final destination in Olympia, Washington. That remains to be seen. 

After six days of our Jeep Cherokee being towed behind Thor, we were finally forced to unhook it. All the previous campsites were pull-through so that was nice that we could leave the Jeep attached. But our camp spot in Boardman, Oregon was a back-in site. No problem, we’ll unhook, but that’s when we discovered the Jeep had a dead battery. 

Fellow RV’ers are of the friendly sort so naturally a guy offers to help jump our battery. But it won’t charge enough so we have to call roadside assistance. The battery still won’t stay charged so Chris drives the Jeep to a NAPA Auto-parts store to buy a new battery. But NAPA says the battery is fine. Another call to roadside assistance and the Jeep gets towed to a Dodge dealer 30 minutes away. So the Jeep spent the night at the repair shop and we are waiting to hear today what the verdict is.

Meanwhile, we discovered our twin yesterday. We had seen another RV of our same model, Thor Tuscany, at the RV park in Utah. It’s always exciting to see another exact model. But the crazy thing is that same RV was also at the next RV park in Idaho. And then it pulled in right next to us at the RV Park in Oregon!

Three same parks in a row. So of course we interrogated each other: are you following us? They were a couple from Arizona who had the same idea as us to hightail it out of the heat and then drive shorter days as they approached their destination near Portland, Oregon. They had purchased their Thor the same year as us in 2016 but while they bought theirs brand new, ours was a used 2014 model. They said they regretted buying new as there were so many problems with it. The advice is always to buy a used one so the kinks can all get worked out. We enjoyed comparing notes on repair issues and RV life.

While we await word on when the Jeep will be ready, we are at least in a lovely campground. The Boardman Marina Park and RV Campground is located on the Columbia River. We can see Washington across the river. We have a large grassy space. Jack is enjoying the view:

I’ll keep you “posted” on our status.