Long Days Journey to Washington

We had another enjoyable week at Avila. We only had two overcast, cloudy and cool days out of our two week stay. The rest of the time was wonderful sunny weather. Very unusual for us former So Cal people use to what we call June Gloom where the sun doesn't come out until 4 or 5 o'clock most spring days. We mostly just took it easy. We paddled a few times. One evening our neighbor Scott brought over some excellent wine to taste. We got some things done for our trip up north such as changing our Verizon plan to include Canada and taking Savannah in to get a health certificate in case we get asked at the border.
Tuesday, after memorial day we finally started our trip north and what a start. We drove all the way from Avila to Medford. Oregon in one day!!! We haven't done that since our vacations taken when we only had two weeks time off. Joe just was feeling fine and just kept driving. After spending two weeks in one place we just wanted to make up some time. We drove until around 9 and then headed up staying at a rest stop. The next day we drove through Oregon and to Olympia Washington.

                                                     





We stayed at a commercial campground called American Heritage Campground which we had read about in Mike and Terri Church's book, Pacific Northwest Camping Destinations. They had mentioned it was more like a state park than a commercial campground and they were right It is a beautiful campground with Japanese maple trees and other gorgeous flowering trees at the front entrance and the sites sitting in a forest like setting with 60 foot tall Douglas fir trees all around

  We have been to Oregon and Washington a number of times and just love the beauty of the area Of course there is a reason for all the greenery. Lots of rain In fact, it rained all night we were in Olympia. We did some laundry while there and stocked up on some food as it is so much more expensive in Canada. We also bought a new camera. We got a Nikon Coolpix P510 which has a bunch of cool features. Some of the reasons we liked it is that it is smaller than our current Nikon camera but also has a 42x telephoto zoom lens built in. That will be great for closeups of the wildlife we expect to see in Alaska.  
We loved the campground and only spent one night there but it is definitely a place we will return to. Washington is so beautiful and we would love to spend a month here exploring some time. We made our way north east heading to Wenatchee.

We had about a four hour drive and arrived at the Wenatchee River County Park in the late afternoon. Another great park set right on the Wenatchee River in Monitor, which is right next to the city of Wenatchee. The weather was nice and we sat outside trying to figure out what our next stop will be when we cross the Canadian border tomorrow.It should be about four hours drive. We plan to make our drives shorter from now on. No hurrying now though Alaska is calling