8 May -Happy Mother’s Day!
5 May – We left Davenport Washington at our normal SP time which is we all know now is zero 930. I half expected Rusty to show up with donuts, but I guess we are old news now.
It began raining as soon as we left and started driving west on Highway two. We went up and down in elevation and when we got to the river, there were acres and acres of apple and cherry orchards lining the mountains, just beginning to bud out with the blooms soon to follow. We could see all the Agra manufacturing plants with the thousands of reusable apple crates ready to get filled up during harvest season.
We arrived in Leavenworth Washington, which is an alpine German inspired town that must be extremely busy during the skiing season and of course the normal summer tourist season. Thankfully we are still on the shoulder season, there’s basically nobody here and we dry camped in a city parking lot for one night.
We treated ourselves to an outstanding German meal where I had a Jager schnitzel, Virgil had a Cordon Bleu, Ann Marie had a Wiener schnitzel, and Delores had brat wurst, kraut, and potato salad. And of course Virgil and I washed it down with an excellent German Pilsner.
The next morning after checking the weather forecast we decided to SP earlier than normal, at zero 730. The cold front was coming in with rain and snow with higher elevations and we were traveling over the Stevens Pass which is about 4000 feet. It was a beautiful drive as we followed the river in the valley and then ascended to the pass. The snow covered mountains that were once in the distance, we were now in the middle of them. Beautiful.
We arrived at a casino in Marysville just north of Everett. They allow three nights of free dry camping, as long as you register for a players card and get registered with the security.
That was no problem as we went into the casino to get registered and within 45 minutes Virgil walked out with $100 winnings and Anne-Marie with $20 winnings. Not bad playing with house money and a free camp spot! It has been raining all day with nothing but rain in the forecast.
Our next stop is an RV park in Bellingham Washington about 55 miles away and only 5 miles from the ferry port.
It’s starting to get real, after almost 5 years of planning and preparation we are really close to beginning the Blue Canoe Odyssey of heading to Alaska .
For football fans, we watched this commercial on local Seattle TV. Remember Marshawn Lynch, RB for Seattle? Besides playing football his thing was not talking to the media, before or after games, or really almost anytime. Well I guess it is different when he gets paid by a local plumbing company, caring a toilet out of a house!
Oh, before I forget, I added a page under the Alaska Adventure 2022 pull down menu. It’s called “Our Social Media Posts from Alaska”. Here I have Virgil’s, Ann Marie’s, and my Instagram account linked. So if you don’t have Instagram you can still see our posts.