A Breakdown in Washington

First stop in Washington is a small overnight stop in Ridgefield, all I can say about is more tall trees. I was glad to clear Portland, although I was on a by-pass, very heavy traffic, lots of stop go driving, glad to have an automatic but keeping an eye on the temperature gauge. Driving in heavily congested traffic brings home just how close other large vehicles pass, I, like them, take up almost the entire width of the available lane.

Forever onwards, my next stop is in a charming, rural site called Silver Lake, its main purpose in life is to provide trout fishing for everyone living in Washington, it is after all the national hobby. I say it is rural, find a space you can fit into, it won't be level, I will need my levelling jacks here, all big tree roots, look for the mains power socket hanging over a branch.

It had a good shop and a small motel built on stilts at the edge of Silver Lake. Part of the day's entertainment was the constant stream of boats being launched and recovered on a steep ramp, and the “one that got away” stories over a beer and bar-b-q. The site also had a healthy band of very dark red squirrels in fact, almost black.

From the site, I had a distant view of Mount St Helen, the one that exploded and blew its side off, still blowing clouds of steam out every couple of days, I reckon it was about 40 miles away, so if it misbehaved, I should be ok. I spent four nights here, very pleasant, sitting in the shade with a beer and the squirrels for company, watching the fishermen doing their own thing.

Next on to Ocean Shores, here in a very large flat well organised site, I had an unexpected delay for 11 days. On parking I discovered I had no hydraulics which meant I did not have use of either of my four levelling jacks or my lounge and bedroom slide outs. While I can use the motor home and live in it like this, I felt I was going to be "on the road" for quite a while yet, a long road ahead of me so I decided I had to get the hydraulics repaired if possible.

In the site office, as in every other site office one, an advert for the local garage, a quick phone call and he was with me within a half-hour. He diagnosed the problem, my pump had died, (probably old age) he said he would try and get one, I wondered if a ten year old pump used on a fairly rare motor home would still be available, he came back to say he had located one in the Mid West, it would take a week or ten days, I said ok, order it, it was an agreeable part of the world, a break here would not be unpleasant. Meanwhile, the lady running the site insisted, as the vehicle had broken down, I should only pay 50% fees, as I said before, they are nice people.

Although my vehicle was broken down according to the site owner, I could, and did, take the motor home away each day. One person I spoke to suggested a pleasant way to pass the day was to drive a couple of miles to Ocean Shores harbour, then take the passenger ferry the 45-minute sail to Westport.

This I did on two occasions, Westport is a nice little town, it seems to be quite a popular tourist destination, I suppose it is its location on a long narrow spit of land, it has quite a large fishing fleet, not sure what they catch though, I enjoyed walking along the quay looking at the boats, it also has a number of nice restaurants, I tried a couple of them, a nice change to have someone cook for me and even better, do the washing up

The site I was on had an Osprey nest on top of a telegraph pole, Ospreys are quite common in this part of the world, there were two very large and very noisy chicks which demanded and got fed fairly regularly, the parents flying in carrying good sized fish.

The other wildlife consisted of Chipmunks, little tan coloured miniature squirrels with white lines running from nose to tail, so cute, I could have brought them home with me. With a lot of patience I was able to coax one over to a dish of bird seed sitting on the door mat at my feet as I sat on the steps.

Once I got my hydraulics repaired, yes, it was the correct part, I moved on further north, I was heading for a site I had stayed on during my Canadian trip, where I nipped across the border into Washington, to the city of Everett, home of the Boeing Aircraft factory, being so close this time would give me another chance to visit the biggest tourist attraction in the area, and the biggest building by floor space anywhere in the world.

As I say, Boeing is a huge tourist attraction, they offer a very professionally run guided tour of both the construction line and the finishing/paint line, using coaches/guides/exhibitions etc, I feel sure most visitors enjoyed the experience, you could almost believe it was a Disney production, Boeing employs 157,555 staff and is the largest exporter by value in the United States.

Apart from Boeing, the coastal scenery on Puget Sound is beautiful, lots of tree clad islands, car ferries sailing back and forth all the time, in fact, the ferry fleet on Puget Sound is the largest fleet anywhere on the west coast

Looking across Puget Sound you can see the Olympic range of mountains on the north western most part of America, which run north to Port Angeles where a car ferry can take you to Vancouver Island, the ferry is called the “Coho,” after some type of Salmon I believe. I sailed on it a few years ago, This part of the world is supposed to be very wet, I must have been very lucky, not hot but lovely blue skies, a delightful part of the world.