We went to downtown Seattle today. Even though it was a Saturday, traffic was stunningly bad both coming and going on I5 to the point where I had trouble contemplating what rush hour must be like. Sandy was kind enough to pull up grunge related sites but when it came down to it a lot of them were a good distance away. We did see the market and space needle. I was kind of surprised at how many people were there but then again it was a Saturday and it was a tourist spot. Riding in Pearl Jam was playing and it took me back to 1991/2/3 or so when ’10’ was released. It was in heavy rotation when I was roommates with Bill Adams. It was particularly poignant when ‘Alive’ was playing as he is not. Died of a brain tumor several years ago. Part of the song goes:

Is something wrong, she said
Well of course there is
You’re still alive, she said
Oh, and do I deserve to be
Is that the question
And if so…if so…who answers…who answers…

It got me thinking of why I’m still here and he’s not. But it’s best to not dwell on questions that really have no answer.

The only grunge related site we saw was the ‘Sound Garden’ where Soundgarden named itself after a wind-channeling pipe sculpture, which was called: A Sound Garden. The installation was featured on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration property at 7600 Sand Point Way in Seattle, next to the popular Magnuson Dog Park.

Well it’s done, we got a mattress at the place Sandy’s friend suggested and it was $300 cheaper than the one we had to cancel BUT, it’s a 14 inch mattress, even I needed to get a step stool so I could get into bed properly. But it is comfortable and that I think is the most important thing. We’ll see, Sandy fell ill when we got back from our hike, the PX and commissary so she went to bed around 7:30ish. I couldn’t sleep that early so I’m blogging, doing dishes and cleaning. We also got the mattress toppers wrapped and rolled and in the truck to get to Zakery. BTW we had lunch with him at Red Hots in Tacoma. Nice place but for 3 hot dogs and a couple of drinks it was $38.38 with tip.

We got a nice 5k hike in after we got back from lunch and got everything packed in the truck and before we went shopping. It was in the city of DuPont right between the police station and city hall, the path went down to a lake, maybe a sound, but it was pretty. I’m in love with the trees everywhere around here. The Pacific Northwest is amazingly beautiful.

The Sea-hawks are playing at home on Sunday so we’re heading into downtown Seattle tomorrow and then Mt Rainier on Sunday. Monday will be a rest day if needed and back on the road on Tuesday. From now on the miles are towards home. Which made me happy but Sandy sad, we’ll have to work on that.

So the bed we’ve got in the RV is horrible, a combination of two mattress toppers that just aren’t cutting it. So when we were camped at Doug’s in WY, I ordered a sleep number bed to be delivered to Zakery’s place last Friday (Oct 20th). They called me when they were there and I was someplace in Yellowstone. So being we’re in town now I called them up to have them redeliver. They said the next window for delivery was in like two weeks. I couldn’t believe it but I had to cancel the order. MF’s could not get a mattress that was out for deliver last Friday to me in the 5 days were here. Sandy went for lunch with her friend Pat and he said there was a place called Cannery Furniture, we’ll see what we can do.

We did get a chance to tour the museum here on base. It was nice as it told the history of the place. We went for a around the campgrounds when Sandy got back from lunch, here are some pictures of the day.

Made it to Seattle today, actually I think it’s more of Tacoma than Seattle. We had been scheduled in at Kitsap state park but we decided to check and change to a military base. So we are currently camped at Join Base Lewis McChord in the RV park they have outside the adventure center. It was kind of a production to literally get on the base, Sandy’s ID wasn’t registered and they had no idea who I was but we’re in and settled for the next 5 days with full hookups and cable TV that I can’t get to work. We got spoiled with the internet at the last site and now are hurting without it.

Today was the perfect down day, we went to the grocery store where I packed in the fuel to the tune of 69.241 gallons or $329.52 worth of diesel and shopped for food. Went for a hike on the coal trail then came back and did laundry. Made pizza subs but they burnt in the RV oven, I don’t think I’ve ever had anything come out right from that thing. It’s gotten colder out so it’ll be a chilly ride to Seattle tomorrow but only about 3 hours so easy time.

Lastly, for some reason, the park put us right next to the white trash of the park, if you have a new RV and you have the bright new LCD’s just know you don’t have to actually run them all night…

As we make our approach to Seattle, we cut the drive from Idaho in half by stopping for a few nights in Whispering Pines RV park. It was found on a Google search and was rated 4.2 which was higher than the others. The trip in was probably the windiest I’ve pulled the RV through and even without stabilizer bars on it pulled like a champ. The truck is hard to push around. We saw some beautiful areas but eastern Washington state is pretty desolate.

Got in and set up, the internet is fabulous and the park is sparsely populated. Not much to the town, tried to find a historical cemetery, didn’t work out. Was going to do dinner but couldn’t figure out what we wanted so it was grilled cheese and soup at the camper. Tomorrow will be a R&R day before a short jaunt to Seattle.

Farragut state park is a 4000 acre park in northern Idaho at the southern tip of Lake Pend Oreille in the Coeur d’Alene Mountains. It was used in WW2 as a training campus for the navy due to the size and depth of the lake. 300k sailors trained there over the course of it’s 30 months in operation. It was very pretty.

While the park was nice, I do have some complains with the costs. So Idaho is one of those ‘screw you’ to visitors charging double to enter the parks over what residents pay, $14 per day vs. $7. And they charge an additional fee for out of state for camping fees. So the cost for one night at an electric only (water shut off) came to something like $77. We can say we’ve been to Idaho and can also say we won’t be coming back.

We made a trip into Wichita today to do some exploring. Had an amazing time and got to see lots of sights, including Keeper of the Plains botanical gardens and the veterans park. We had lunch at Bite Me BBQ.

Left out at 6:15am and everything was good, damn brakes broke loose again but we’re in Kansas so not a big deal, need to do something about that before we get into the mountains, or at least trying to get out of them, it was good for the first 4 hours and then on and off, grrr. We got off I35 before the toll road, we were going to be early to the campground anyways and wanted to kill some time. So the last 60 miles to the campground were on a 2 lane blacktop through farm country. It was one of the nicest drives that I’ve had in a while. No one behind me and no one in front, and farmland all around. It was beautiful.