Our last two stops in Washington are Randle and Seaview. The 176-mile trip to Randle was eventful only in that Daisy threw up in the truck. It slowed us down a bit, so we didn't get to the Maple Grove RV Resort until 2:00 PM. It is a strange, but OK, place with a golf course (with very brown fairways) attached. Our site is fine. And it's wonderful to have cell phone and internet access, again.
Wednesday night was set aside to watch the Republican debate. We knew it was run by NBC, but couldn't find it. Too late, we realized that it was shown only on MSNBC, one of NBC's little-watched cable channels. Oh, well, I think staged political debates are boring, anyway.
Our stop in Randle is solely to give us access to Mt. Rainier National Park, which we visited on Thursday.
We had delicious cobb salads at the National Park Lodge near the park entrance. We initially intended to make that our only stop in the park, but were talked into driving up the hill for another half hour to see the “Paradise” area. The Paradise Inn is 40% up the mountain, was built in 1917, is beautiful and well-maintained, and surrounded by spectacular scenery---the immense volcanic mountain itself, dotted with glaciers and covered (in its lower portion) with trees and wildflowers. I’m very glad we went.
Friday was a travel day. We went 173 easy miles to Seaview, located in the southwest corner of Washington. Our GPS took us into Oregon, through pretty and historic Astoria (named for John Jacob Astor, who briefly had part of his fur trading operation there), and over the spectacular 4 1/2 mile-long Astoria-Megler bridge back into Washington.
We are staying at the Long Beach Thousand Trails Preserve in Seaview. It’s an old but nice park, with small spaces and odd utility setups. We have a fine, very convenient site, though.
We went to nearby Long Beach to do some shopping late Friday afternoon. There is a huge annual old car show this weekend and there are a zillion of them all over town---and even some of them in our park. It’s fun to see them.
On Saturday, we crossed into Oregon again, to visit Cannon Beach. Becky’s dad’s family used to go there for vacations. He said his most significant memory of the place was the huge rocks. In fact, it is the home of Haystack Rock, a striking formation just offshore. It had an interesting fog bank around it today. There are more big rocks in the area, but Haystack is the most famous, and most prominent. We had a nice soup and salad lunch at the Wayfarer Restaurant, right on the beach.
On the way back, we stopped at the Lewis & Clark National Historical Park. Rather, we stopped at the Fort Clatsop portion of the park, just outside of Astoria, Oregon. It’s very confusing---there are several parts to "the park,” some in Washington and some in Oregon, some actually in state-owned areas.
Fort Clatsop was built by Lewis and Clark at the end of their expedition, to house their operation while they prepared to return to St. Louis. It burned down several years ago, and was recently rebuilt as an exhibit. It’s very small, especially when you realize there were more than 30 people living there. Primitive, but interesting.
Sunday was the 10th anniversary of 9/11, of course, and, like everyone else, we relived the horror through the wall-to-wall TV coverage.
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