We spent a few nights under a powerline in Whistler, BC before we headed back toward the states. Our campsites aren’t always beautiful but after a few long days of driving, it was nice to relax with no one around. Whistler was pretty busy going into the holiday weekend so we didn’t venture around too much. We went to a couple breweries and then hung out in the trailer.
We drove the rest of the Sea to Sky Highway Saturday morning and although so beautiful, it did a number on our brakes. A 15% grade descent was the worst we’ve ever driven. By the time we reached the border crossing, they were grinding pretty bad. The line at the border was a little long, but being a huge rig finally paid off. We zipped through the RV line with no wait and only a few questions. All of our border crossings went so smoothly, we wonder what people do or say to make them rip apart their vehicles.
I had contacted my friend Stacy who lives in Birch Bay, Washington. She was my roommate at the National Forensic Academy in 2009. We lived together for 10 weeks and got along so well. She was pregnant with her first daughter at the time.
In December of 2009, we were able to visit during a family trip to Florida and I got to meet her daughter who was born on my birthday. Her husband is in the Coast Guard so they move every couple of years to a different coastal town. I was happy to be able to touch base with her since I hadn’t seen her since the December visit. She now has two daughters and it was fun to hang out for the weekend.
We went down to the town festival and drank some beers, watched some really talented people do some pretty amazing chainsaw carvings and enjoyed the beautiful sunny day. We were welcomed at her friend’s house in the country and enjoyed food, laughs, and a make-shift ball game in the front yard with all of the kids. It was a lot of fun and once again we felt like we were at home. They even allowed Craig to do brakes on the truck and Jeep in their driveway the next day. We can’t thank Stacy and her friends enough for the hospitality.
While doing the brake job on the truck, Craig found that one of the calipers was hung up, but because it was Labor Day, we couldn’t get parts to fix it. This was so unfortunate because it would’ve been so much easier than what we ended up doing a few days later.
We stayed two nights but felt a little large parked on the side of her street, so we said our goodbyes and hope to be back to visit again in the future.
We made our way to the casino near by which turned out not to be too bad. It wasn’t very busy and they even had porta potties and a hand washing station available for the RVers. I’m sure they hope to lure tired travelers into the casino to spend some money. We did not fall into that trap and were content making our meals in the trailer and reading our books. Yay, us!
The truck needed an oil change and we had a truck tire that Craig had originally plugged while on the Dalton Highway that now needed to be replaced. We went into Bellingham and parked at the Costco after filling up on cheap fuel. It’s so nice being back in the land of reasonably priced fuel. We didn’t feel like dragging the trailer all around town so we unloaded the Jeep and ran our errands. Discount Tire did not have our tire in stock so that would have to wait. The oil change got done but by that time it was late afternoon so we headed back to the casino.
Wednesday we headed to Yakima, not only to avoid the Seattle traffic as much as possible but we also wanted to see the hop fields. Yakima is the “Hops Capital of the World” as it produces 75% of the nation’s hops and are used by brewers around the globe. We went to Yakima Craft Brewing, Wandering Hop, Bale Breaker Brewing, and Valley Brewing. Bale Breaker was our favorite. Not only did they have amazing beer, they had a beautiful building in the middle of the hop fields. It was cool to see.
After a fun day of brewery hopping, we settled in at the Fred Meyer parking lot where we weren’t 100% sure we were allowed to stay overnight.
In the morning we were intent on getting out of there before being asked to leave, when I noticed another one of the trailer tires was soft. Craig pulled it off while I went to get us coffee. He could not find a leak anywhere. He put it back on, pumped it up and off we went. The drive toward Bonney Lake, where the Discount Tire had a truck tire in stock, took us through Mt. Rainier National Park. It was a pretty drive, although a little smokey from the wildfires. We did get a peek at Mt. Rainier which was beautiful.
We stopped at a rest area and Craig checked the tire again and it was losing air pretty quickly. We got to Bonney Lake Discount Tire and they were great. They assured us our truck tire was covered since we had road hazard on it and we only had to pay for the mounting. They took a look at the trailer tire and found a crack in the wheel. This was a brand new spare that we had put on just outside of Prince George when we had two tires with ply separation. We are severely disgusted with Lions Head Tire and Wheel at this point and a strongly worded email will be sent out soon. With a new truck tire and trailer wheel we headed out again.
Our next plan was to find a Napa to buy a new caliper and do the work in their parking lot. The Napa we found had a tiny lot and was on a busy street and of course, there was a carnival in town so it was ridiculously busy. We finaggled our way through the busy streets lined with cops directing traffic and decided to pull into a Fred Meyer parking lot. We found a spot that wasn’t busy in the back with some shade. After weeks of rain and chilly days, it was in the 80’s, which is nice until you’re trying to work on a vehicle on pavement. We unloaded the Jeep, Craig removed the caliper from the truck, drove to the Napa, came back and did the work in their parking lot. We got a few looks from people but didn’t get kicked out so we give Fred Meyer five stars! At this point, we are sick of dealing with tires and brakes and traffic. We have had enough tire issues and hope to go a few days without any problems. I know…I just jinxed us.
After all that, we got on the highway and slowly made our way west. At this point the traffic was annoying and probably not even close to as bad as it gets, but we just hate it. We got past Olympia and were finally able to relax and enjoy the drive to the coast. I found another casino on iOverlander that offered free RV parking at Quinault Beach Resort and Casino near Ocean City. We were happy to find they had separate parking for RVers away from the casino. We found a quiet spot in the corner with views and sounds of the Pacific Ocean and watched the sunset. This casino was successful in luring us in this time with a $2.99 breakfast which was pretty good. They still failed to get us to put any of our money into a slot machine so we’ll call that a win for The Vugs again.
We have friends flying in this weekend and we will head up the coast where we found a place to camp outside of La Push. We are so excited to have our first visitors! Although the forecast is calling for rain almost the entire week next week, nothing can dampen our spirits for their visit. It will be great to see familiar faces and enjoy their company.
Waiting for the Burnhams…
Love this!! Can’t wait to see you guys!!