In Ellensburg, we had never seen thousands of cows in one place before. We checked the black vinyl luggage carrier and found out the zipper had worked open and the nice potty seat had fallen out. I had spotted "Dick and Jane's Spot" in the Evening Magazine mailer, and asked around where it was, and sure enough, it looks like all of fremont crammed into one couple's backyard just one block inside of 1st off of main. I'll have to get the pictures up later, it's pretty strange, there's bicycle wheels, a polaroid camera man, and a bunch of other stuff.
I decided to skip the long way south which would have gone through zillah with the teapot gas station and tri-cities, and hit I90 straight to Spokane. About half-way we heard some really loud flapping noises, and checked the rearview mirror, and sure enough a big gray thing was on the road, so we stopped, I walked back, seeing the cars whiz by and retrieve the bag that had my glasses and other stuff inside, while Jenny backed up the van the 200 yards or so. Pretty dumb considering that I did have luggage locks, and after all, all of the bags actually did fit in back after some packing. Maybe that explains why we didn't spot any similar bags on any other Chrysler mini-van roofs.
We hit Spokane about 8, had dinner at $35 for the whole crowd of 7 at thte place that had a big buffet sign visible from the freeway. We weren't sure, but when we spotted the big Chinese tour bus, we figured if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for us.
Got a brocure (in Chinese of course), the deal is that for $600 or so, they go from Vancouver to Yellowstone and back. Looks like Vancouver has a pretty good shot at becoming the North American capital of the Chinese diaporaa at this rate. Drove around a little bit to see the downtown which features about 12 different skyways and a curvy bus alley, and the waterfront park which is the old expo site. They've got a nice bus/train station, and really tacky Texas style barbecue plastered with neon signs. The chevron station there had every car in the Chevron car series on display if not in stock, saw a collectibles store with all kinds of toy show type stuff and a prominent "Hot Wheels" sign.
Stayed at the Super 8, started raining, got directions for the Target, WalMart and Toys R Us (but didn't have time to go there), 2 rooms $70 per room, they wouldn't let us put everybody in 3 beds, which is what we usually do at home, free toast and coffee, but no shampoo.
Sunday Morning, took a quick hike over the border. Toy Liquidators was there, but not open til 11:00 AM (too bad...) looked at Cour d Alene the beach park, looks a lot like Kirkland waterfront with possibly the world's biggest wooden playground, only a couple of years old, it's really something else they built there. Stopped off to get a look at the Spokane falls, the fabric cover for the big roof is gone, it's their Seattle center now with Imax, train rides, gondala in front of the lower falls, etc.
Drove by Fairchild AFB, could only see the top of the KC135 tails, had canned lunchmeat sandwiches under a tree in Davenport, got to Grand Coulee Dam by about 3. It was about this time that Jenny wanted to put the Raffi cassette back in, and the brand new Chrysler radio that they had replaced the old one (clock didn't work, warrantee) with refused to eject or play the cassette. The old one had a mechanical eject - you push the button, it pushes the tape out. The new one will play the radio when it's in ff or rewind, and radio station 5 doubles as an eject button, but the tape would not come out after a start eject noise, so we were without a tape player or CD for the rest of the trip.
Took the inclined elevator tour of the new 3rd generating plant, 300 ft down in a glass elevator, which is the extra bent section on the end they added in the late 70s after we saw it as kids. It's huge, it looks like walking through one of those matte paintings from Star Wars. You get to look at a big spinning shaft too. Too bad the camcorder is down for repairs. They've got a laser show at night, but we had to move on. It was about 97, but it was dry, and most of the time we were in the car. Jenny was wondering what there was to see with a dam, but everybody thought this was really cool.
The canyon by steamboat rock was pretty neat to drive through, stopped by dry falls, which was pretty impressive, 20 miles of canyons cut by falls, supposedly the largest falls in history when an ice dam busted in Idaho. Near Wenatchee, every bit of land is covered by apple trees. I asked around, found out that the Tiny's signs that used to dot eastern washington are all gone, the guy passed away, the place burned down, or both, there's a bob's stand that is across the street from where the old place was.
Picked out the Tyrolian Ritz hotel in Leavenworth, pretty small but very nice, they gave us a deal $70 a room for two rooms, which was only $10 per room more than the really tacky place with a 2 story high knight in armour down the street. One had two beds in 2 rooms, the other had 2 bathrooms, 1 shower, shampoo. Nice view on the back porch. Went to the waffle haus for breakfast, the only toys I got on this trip was a Maisto pull-back Morris mini and diecast BMW 750i $4.00 and some whistles for $.65 each and Yertle the Turtle book on cassette for $4.00. Took the kids to Icicle Junction for the train arcade and rc model boats while Jenny and parents checked out the shops.
Hiked back to Cashmere, toured the Aplets and Cotlets Factory (all of about 2 rooms and maybe 40 people), they've got a old-town setting to their downtown worth driving by, except every third store is empty. There's a pioneer town of no city in particular but it's all shuttered most of the time. Saw an unusual Department of Transportion all-in-one coach with it's own engine drive on by at the railroad crossing.
Had Safeway fried chicken and got eaten by mosquitos at tumwater campground, made it over Stevens pass without any stops, saw some trains and cabooses at Skykomish, and got a lot of kids videos at the Skykomish branch of the King County Library, which is housed in a darkened shack of a place that makes the old Cascade Vista branch look pretty opulent. Turns out since nobody goes there, they've got all of the really good videos all the time.
Between food, lodging and gas, we were probably doing $220 a day, so that's quite a lot for a 3 day weekend compared to Franklin Carl and Mom just camping, but we felt like seeing something. Maybe we'll spend the rest of our 2 and 3 weeks of vacation at home finishing house stuff since we've already done 3 weeks worth of travel.