June 14, 2010

From Kettle Falls, WA N48º29.004’ W118º 9.984’

Day 12

All the graduation activities are behind us and all goodbyes were said yesterday. I was up at 7:30 AM and started getting things ready to roll. For some reason the locking arms on the driver’s side slide out wouldn’t engage. This happened last year and we waited six hours for a service man to come fix it. Because of conversations with American Coach lat year, this time we didn’t wait. I’m going to see if Kevin Mallory or American Coach can help me via telephone and also watch for an RV supply store and buy some bars to brace it at the top while traveling, our 1999 Holiday Rambler had them. We were on the road by 9:20 AM headed to Kettle Falls, WA for a visit with Bob and Barbara Rodreick. The onramp for I-90 east was near the exit from the RV Park, I-90 was our main route for the day. There was road construction for several miles after we passed the North Bend area. It was down to one lane along Kechelus Lake. There were several miles of one lane later also. The barrels making the lane were on our side of the center line so far that I constantly had one wheel on the rumble strip, very annoying.

I did a geocache at the Indian Jim Hill rest stop. There was a range of mountains to the north covered with snow. I read the information sign. It was the Stuart Range and the claim was that it is the largest area of exposed granite in the United States. Since it was covered with snow I have to believe the sign because I couldn’t see any granite.

We exited I-90 just east of Ritzville, WA on to an unnumbered highway that connected eventually with WA SR-28 in Harrington. At least part of the way it was named Coal Creek road or Harrington-Tokio Rd. Although it was two lane the asphalt was fairly new and generally smoother than the interstate. Route 28 took us to Davenport where we picked up WA SR-25 the rest of the way to Bob’s house. Although he lives on a side road his address is on Highway 25. Somewhere along the way we noticed that the signs giving distance to Kettle Falls was less than the GPS read to Bob’s house. When we were nearly to his turn off I remembered we had this same problem last year. When his address is entered into the GPS it shows him north of Kettle Falls. He is actually south of town. There was no problem finding his turn because of a distinctive landmark called the Slideoff. It is a small rocky hill that looks like, well half of it slid off. I will have to try to remember to use coordinates when his place is the destination. Chalk up another anomaly for the Gremlin, aka Garmin.

Bob gets better at helping me park every year. We pulled on to the pad with ease and very little maneuvering.

After driving a grueling 324 miles and setting up the motorhome we sat around and visited. After supper we were back at the coach, Glenna reading, Gerri in bed with her laptop and I was catching up my e-mail when the 110 power went off. A check of the panels showed no shore power coming in. I turned on the genset for awhile so Gerri could finish her Facebook stuff. For some reason the genset quit after an hour or so. We just went to bed and will check the problem in the morning.