Day 6

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We left Missoula this morning around 11:30 MST. It was a rough trip today...a lot of construction, and windy weather. I think the total yesterday brought us to 2,243 miles traveled. Today we traveled 361 miles bringing our total to 2,604 miles.

We arrived in Ellensburg, Washington around 7:00pm PST. We are camped out at a Days Inn that has RV parking. We have water, electric & sewer hook up.

I got motion sick again today...the wind is undescribable out here. Larry really fought the wind a lot and really feels it a lot in his arms & shoulders. BUT...we saw a lot of beautiful countryside too! I took more pictures, however, I'm still having difficulty loading to this site. And, truthfully...by the time we stop for the night, I'm too tired to frigg around with it. Tomorrow we should be at Cindy's by late afternoon and I will work more with it once we're at her house....time to rest LOL

When we crossed in to Idaho there was mostly a lot of crops to see, and it was hot in to Washington and relatively flat. As progressed west, it became more mountainous and more beautiful. ... and windy HA!

At one point we were at an altitude around 4,400 feet...give or take a few. Such beauty up there. We gradually climbed & climbed...then as we went back down...it wasn't so gradual. We went down a 5 mile, 6% grade with gusty winds up to 45 mph....what a knucklebusting experience that was...for BOTH driver and passenger. Whew....

I was able to see several areas of past forest fires and even saw one active one where Firefighters were working on getting it out. At the point that we drove by, it was under control. Quite remarkable considering the windy conditions.

Then near the end of the day's trip, we crossed the Columbia River. It was truly breath-taking and I felt guilty that I could see it all and Larry was unable to because he was so intensly concentrating on the driving in the wind. There were white caps on every body of water we drove past... including small ponds!

The Columbia River was spectacular from every angle. I would love to see how it looks on a calm day too, if that's ever a possiblity.

Some place after crossing the Columbia, west of all the wind turbines on top of the mountain, we drove past a still-smoldering forest fire. I didn't see any flames, but it obviously had not been out for that long.

When we checked in to the Days Inn, I asked the Desk Clerk if the wind was typical and she said this year it seemed that they have not had any break from it. She usually the summer, especially July, they get temps into the high 90's and into 100's, with some wind but not this bad. She said this year, they've had high winds and temps only in the 80's. Quite the opposite of us in NY.

Tomorrow we only have about 150 miles to go to get to Puyallup, WA. Larry was checking the weather for winds and stuff. It looks like it might be a calmer day so hopefully it won't seem more like a 300 mile trip.

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