MOSSES LAKE, CENTRAL WASHINGTON
August 1, 2000, Tuesday- good-bye Idaho and hello Washington. After a 175 mile trip westward, we arrived in Soap Lake, just north of Moses Lake, in the middle of the State of Washington, along I-90. This is one of our Western Horizon membership parks, but we've not been here before. Apparently they took over an older park with small spaces and lots of trees. Fortunately for us, we found a spot near the entrance that was beyond the trees, has grass, and could get the satellite dish. Most of the other spots had blocked views and lots of dirt.
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We did a bit of small world again as another couple walked by our rig, saw Hobbes and said "weren't you in Abita Springs, LA?" We were there in October 1998. They also said- "isn't that a different Eagle?" How could they remember?
Only problems here is only having 30 amp electric service, and the temps are in the upper 90's; one bar on the cell phone; and when we connected at the office for e-mail, our first try yielded a 2400 baud rate.
August 2, 2000, Wednesday- time for a car trip to the west, to Wenatchee, WA. This Washington plateau is definitely the breadbasket of the area. Here the farmers add a nice touch to their fields, a sign by each field indicating the crop being grown. A small sampling included grains, apples (Washington of course), wheat, feed corn, potatoes, dill and alfalfa. Temperatures still in the mid 90's, so it's too hot to ride the bikes or hit the golf balls. Let's hope that the heat wave ends soon.
August 3, 2000, Thursday-the coach has been ok for Hobbes during the daytime. Even though it's in the sun, and with 30 amp electrical service we can only run one air conditioner, the inside remains at 78 and outside it's 93 or more.
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A few miles north of here we passed the Blue Lake Recreational Area and noticed a ridge line above the lake that looked very green. So, we headed towards the nine hole golf course and enjoyed a few good strokes and a few other strokes. Fortunately the ridge line had a nice breezed during our two hours of play.
Our travels continued north. Next we stopped at the Dry Falls Washington State Park visitors center. This is an amazing place. Back after the ice age, a catastrophic event forced the Columbia River to reverse course, and a four hundred-foot high back-flow enveloped the river gorge. The receding water flow created a horseshoe shaped waterfall over 400 feet high and 3.5 miles wide. Compare that to the Niagara Falls at only 165 feet high and 1 mile wide.
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Onward towards the town of Coulee City, at the southern end of Banks Lake. The lake is formed by this dam at the south and the Grand Coulee Dam at the north. A coulee is a glacial formed now dry river gorge, and grand it is!
Continuing north we passed by "Electric City" just south of the Grand Coulee Dam. We wonder where the name comes from. Just possibly it was the bedroom community, read little homes and dormitories, started during the eight year construction period starting in the late 30's. Boulder Dam at the end of Lake Mead, by Las Vegas, was the largest dam project at its time, but really, in size, was just a building block towards the size of this tremendous structure. Grand Coulee, the next town, and the site of the dam location, hosts the visitor's center where we watched a film showing the dam construction. What an awesome undertaking in the mid 1930's! In short, the structure was poured by millions of four cubic yard buckets, one mile wide, 500 feet high and 500 feet wide at the base. Interspersed are inspection and maintenance tunnels in the dam, and irrigation pipes that each is so large that each would provide enough water for the city of Chicago. The project provided many things for the central Washington area, including cheap electricity (although the project did cost the taxpayers over $300 million in the 30's), and irrigation for over 500,000 square miles of crops, an area greater then the ice pack that had encompassed the area millions of years ago. Inspection of the dam is a continuous process done by video monitors, visual inspections and remote control submarines for the 200 feet of structure below the waterline.
During the car trip we passed several small golf courses, each of which had attached RV parks. Same thing with many of the lakes and gas station/convenience stores.
August 4, 2000, Friday- the heat goes on with temps forecast into the mid 90's again. Our travels today took us south to Moses Lake, clearly a bigger town then Soap Lake, and then south to Warden, WA, where we found a neat little golf course and RV park. In the area that used to be the driving range, they added 42 full service sites, and offer combination golf and space rent deals. All that we cared about was the ability to walk on and play nine holes of golf without anyone in front or behind us. In fact, we made a tee time for Sunday morning. While walking Hobbes this morning I looked up and saw a four engine military jet doing it's low level terrain hugging. I think it was the same plane we saw yesterday morning hugging the golf course ridge line 20 miles north. It was close enough to count the rivets as it went by.
August 5, 2000, Saturday- again we reached 95 on the car. Low keyed it today with a Western Horizon members meeting this morning…learned about future park acquisitions and directions. Even though we only had a 12,000bps modem line, I was able to finish July's web page, and it felt good to get that behind us.
August 6, 2000, Sunday- with the same forecast temperatures, we got a 9AM tee time at the Sage Golf Course that we played on Friday. This time, it was for 18 holes, and again, just a twosome, and basically nobody in front or behind us. It took just over 3 1/2 hours to play, and I probably had my best round ever, but we didn't keep score. All I know is that I had bundle of pars and bogies, and very few double bogies. Even the last hole, number 18, a 550 yard par five, I reached in three and got a par. With a forecast of higher temperatures for the next few days, and 100 by Wednesday, we shall head out to the coast tomorrow, a day early. Forecast in Anacortes for the next four days, lows in the 50's and high of 70. Looking forward to civilized temperatures.
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