After too many days of planning to write and finding one excuse or another, it's time to catch up to today. We'll fill in some of the past days later. We completed our longest drive of this adventure yesterday: 194 miles from Brigham City to Fillmore, Utah. It's a far cry from the days we'd drive 700 miles before collapsing for some sleep before doing it all over again to report by the required date. Nevertheless, it is still a chore because we have to hook up to start, then unhook and set up before we're done for the day. Most important of all, we really do get to enjoy the scenery when the drive isn't too intense, and that's most of the time. Yesterday, most of the scenery was from somewhere in the middle of ... read more

Natalie writes in: Today, September 21, is the first full day on our journey. A day with sentiment. We left Lynden and the Puget Sound area on a beautiful day. We encountered a lot of traffic that Tom handled very confidently, while Natalie carried enough tenseness to need a chiropractic visit! The smoke around Issaquah area was unpleasant but the higher we climbed the clearer it became. So - we arrived in Ellensburg just fine. We decided the first stay on the journey was going all out (Pardon the puns) with deluxe amenities at the site. We had a stone patio, nice table and Adirondack chairs, grill, fire pit. Then a celebratory dinner of steaks, fried rice, potato, and croissant. We lingered so long over dinner the office closed before we got our ice cream. 😂 ... read more

After dinner, Natalie and I sometimes take a stroll around the RV park. This park includes a tent camping area, 20 or 30 permanent residents, 32 transient RV sites with full hookups (power, sewer, and water) and four little cabins that are basically wooden tents with a bed or two. The transient sites are arranged with a road to maneuver long RVs into and out of the sites. This road makes a fairly nice little track for taking a stroll and maybe meeting some neighbors. One of these after dinner strolls took us by quite a collection of toys alongside a very nice Class A coach. There was a towed Cadillac SUV, two kayaks, two electric bicycles, and a classic Harley Davidson with a sidecar. To top off the picture, the coach had a tall flagpole ... read more

Well before retirement, Natalie and I began talking about downsizing from our home of 30 years into an RV, leaving Washington, and traveling until we find a place to make our new home. One of the best ideas we heard about the idea was to try RV living before investing in an RV because many people get the RV first, then decide they really don’t like the idea, and that can be an expensive mistake. So, a couple years ago, we rented a 27-foot Class C (Basically a big truck with the camper built into the frame) and described the experience in our blog’s trip 2. Once that test proved we could probably enjoy the idea, it became very important to gather enough information to choose well. The best way to get started proved to be ... read more

Although our RV has cable, it's only the basic Seattle channels, so any news beyond weather is only the acceptable Seattle news, so we mostly have ignored it. It's really quite interesting how life in a small community of KOA campers can become an engaging experience. Last night before dark, we heard what sounded like a bulldozer starting up and working on the other side of the campground. After a little while, we saw the source: a fairly standard farm tractor was towing a pickup with a camper shell into a campsite. Today, a big tow truck came into the campground, loaded the pickup onto its bed, and drove away, leaving the camper shell mounted on a frame and all hooked up to electricity. And that was only the beginning of our excitement. We took another ... read more