17 June ‘09

Wednesday

Last Sunday we moved over to Lake Sawyer RV Resort at Black Diamond.  This is our first time here and we’re really pleased with what we found.  The only negative is most of the RV’s are parked right on top of the other.  I mean, if you put your awning out, you’re sure to touch the coach next to you.  Now I said most of the sites, the one that we’re parked in has pretty good room on both sides. 

The negative is the front of our coach is looking directly into the front-side windows of the coach next to us because of the angle in which we’re parked.

OK, enough of the negative…  The clubhouse, the rec-room, and the large deck all overlooking the beautiful Lake Sawyer make up what this “Resort” is all about…fun and relaxation at its best.  About 50 yards off the beach are two little islands.  Located on each of them are a couple of small beach cabins that are so “adorable” that they’re almost un-real.  With the great weather we’ve been having lately (29 consecutive days of sun and 75+ degrees), we couldn’t wait to paddle our way through and around the lake. 

It did take us 2 days to completely circumnavigate the lake, but in doing it we didn’t leave anything unseen.  We even had an Osprey take a fish just off our “port side”…pretty cool. 

Today we went over to Flaming Geyser State Park… 

 We haven’t been there for over 40 years.  They say that you can “never go back” to see and enjoy the same things you enjoyed the first time…well that ran true for Flaming Geyser Park.  The drive through the park is still very pretty, but the “geyser” is disappointing to say the least.  It is so disappointing that I didn’t want to take a picture of it so as not to embarrass it (just kidding…). 

Another place that we hadn’t been to for a long time was Black Diamond.  In the mid 1800’s, Black “Gold” was found here and Black Diamond was born…it grew to the largest coal mining operation in the Northwest and brought with it a destination location for travelers to leave their homes in Seattle for "the country".  They would ride trains (up to 2 a day)

to visit this quaint little town, visit the famous Black Diamond Bakery, and then make their way down into the valley to see the “Flaming Geyser”.  We did find a great little restaurant that wasn’t there in 1800. 

The building fit well into the era of the 1800’s, but I don’t think they were able find and enjoy a good pizza then.  Well we did, and we highly recommend it to anyone that comes this way…a A+ for PIZZA and BEER.      

7 June ‘09

Sunday

When you live your life on “Wheels”, you have the right to change directions and revise your plans.  Well that’s just what we’ve done.  Our plans were to keep heading north and east, but we decided to make a left turn and head west to Seattle.  I would imagine that others that “Full Time” have had to see a doctor or two while on the road.  Well, that’s what we’ve had to do.  The problem was we could never find the “solution”.  It finally came down to the fact that for us to feel comfortable we should see “our” doctors in Seattle. 

Putting the cruise control at 57 we drove I-90 most of the way.  We’ve never driven more than 350 miles in one day but on this trip we found our 2^nd day doing 534.  It wasn’t that I wanted to push it that far, it just was an easy drive and we had a tail wind the whole day.  The first 3 nights were spent in Wal-Mart parking lots and then a campground in Bozeman before a couple nights in Coeur d’Alene.  We did take a couple of hours to visit Livingston, Montana…I really don’t know why we pulled off the highway, but we did.  I guess it was because we’ve passed it by many times and it just “called”.  We were both wonderfully surprised by Livingston, the architecture, the people, and MONTANA…  Just walking the streets of the town,

checking out the little businesses, the old buildings with wonderful styling, and finding a “brewery”.  Yep, we found Neptune’s Brewery.  It was small in stature and confined in an old house, but it had everything going for it.  Louise and I both enjoy a good IPA and they had one.  The two guys that owned and ran the brewery made us feel right at home.  Besides having great beer, they also have a very interesting food menu from which we ordered an appetizer of Pork Wasabi Balls with Blue Chips to go with our IPA’s. 

Our stop in Coeur d’Alene was routine. As always, our choice for campground was River Walk RV Park, early morning breakfast and lunch at Franklin’s Hoagies, a visit with Larry and Pauline, and spend as much time as we can with Joelle, Amy, Trevor, and Randy.

On Sunday we packed up and moved to Spokane.  Louise’s mother Lois was spending her 93^rd birthday

with family in Spokane and we wanted to join in, so we parked the coach in John’s driveway and chatted the day/night through. 

Late Monday afternoon we arrived at our campground in Fall City. 

 Tall Chief is our “home” campground with the Western Horizon group that we joined in early 2006.  We’ll be here for at least 5 weeks before we move on. 

Saturday, we joined some more of Lou’s family

at Lake Sammamish for the annual “Racin & Tastin” calibration.  This is where the city of Issaquah puts on a day of boat racing with a wide range of food concessions (and a couple of beer tents).  The boats range from jet skis to the unlimited hydroplanes.  

 Mark (one of Lou's Brothers) and Susan are part owners of one of the Unlimited Hydros.  They put on one heck of a deminstration for the crowd with their jet powered hydro.  Even with the short course, they ran reallllllyyyyy fffaaasssssttttt.....

Most of the jet skis were sponsored by the factories and the hydroplanes were those that you see racing around the country.  We had a great day, got a little wet, ate and drank a little, and were ready to call it quits when the last checked flag was flown. 

23 May ‘09

Saturday

We weren’t able to kayak up to the “Fallasburg Covered Wooden Bridge” yesterday, so we decided to drive to it today.  The bridge is 14 feet wide, 100 long, and an inside clearance of 12 feet.  Hung above the passageway is a sign that reads:  “$5.00 fine for riding or driving on this bridge faster than a walk”…  Do you think their serious?  Fallasburg is not an incorporated area, but it was an important area back in the early 1800’s.  It was a major stop for the stage that ran from Ionia to Grand Rapids and, it was a location for a large factory that manufactured chairs.  Just after passing through the bridge, we found the old school house that is now a museum and a couple other buildings

that were identified as belonging to the early families arriving from the east in 1827.  About 5 miles further up river is another covered wooden bridge we wanted to visit. 

The White’s Bridge was built about 5 years after the Fallasburg Bridge at a cost of $1,500 and is 20 feet longer.  Both bridges have had some repairs made to them over the years, but they still have stood the attacks of floods and heavy snows and still be around and useful 100 years later. 

22 May ‘09

Friday

Well it’s time to get into the water….  The fairgrounds that we’re staying at are but a half mile from town (Lowell), and the Flat River runs through it. 

 I mentioned this the other day when we stopped by for lunch and a walk aboard the sternwheeler sitting alongside the boardwalk.  This afternoon was a perfect day for a paddle.  The water was high and clear, had a pretty good flow so paddling up stream gave us a nice float back, the sun was shining beautifully, and the sights on the river were great. 

 I was hoping we could paddle up to the Fallasburg wooden bridge but when we came upon another kayaker, he told us we would have another 5 miles of paddling and have to forage around a dam to get there…  we’ll drive.