Day 19 (August 31, 2016) Wednesday – To Silver Lake

Too much behind, I decided to jump days and give you some fresh news. I will catch up at some point. You may have been wondering if we fell off at the end of the continent! But no! We left Spokane around 9h am, so the morning traffic would be over. We drove on Interstate 90 west for a climb that lasted for close to 100 km. Along the way and on the plateau on top of this big hill are humongous fields of harvested cereals: yellow, brown, slopes and hills as far as the eye can see. Very impressive but not quite enough to keep me awake! The more we went west, the more irrigation we saw and of green big patches. We saw our first Washington vines, corn, potatoes and probably sugar beets fields. We stopped along the Columbia River. It was amazing, the canyon was of a depth we could not estimate… no trees, no details that could serve as a reference.

Before we turned south on Interstate 82, we started seeing fruit farms. The state of Washington is renowned for its cherries, peaches, apples, etc. Some of the trees had been harvested, however many were covered with apples or pears. This valley is simply amazing. First Trump signs in 450 km driving in the US. Not bad at all!

We had lunch in Selah where there are many big fruit plants. We also did our first grocery shopping. Quite a bit discouraging… The price (number) are the same than in Canada but in US dollars. You could wonder if all the fruits and vegetables are teletransported to Canada.

When we left Selah, we quickly left the Freeway. About 200 km of the 600 km of the day was on a 2 ways road (US 12) that was hilly and winding. We could have stayed on the freeway for an additional 40 km but we would have missed the scenery.

We got to the camping at Silver Lake, not far from Mount St. Helens, at around 6 pm.

Day 2 (August 14, 2016)

We went walking along the Sand River when we woke up where there are many waterfalls in the camping park. We were back on the road around 10h am. We did some stops to fill up the tank (the car consumption’s is very different now) and had lunch at the McDo in Sault-Sainte-Marie and at the touristic centre in Wawa. The Chinese tourists from an organized trip were very interested by our trailer. Pictures were taken in from of it. Copies may hit the market at some point… We arrived at the camping of White Lake around 6h30 pm and after the set up, we went for a swim. Many campers have their boat and fish. The lake is very big, we could only see a small part of it. We went swimming when we got up, we had the beach and lake for ourselves!

The previous pictures are from the Chutes Provincial Park and the following from White Lake.

Departure – Day 1 (August 13, 2016)

We had hosted few friends on Wednesday night, a house warming (for our new house) and a farewell party. A bit of a strange combination!!! Our friends Sonia and Nathalie came to say a last goodbye Saturday morning. Sonia, who arrived first, helped me fill the trailer’s fridge. Claude did his hookup and after our farewell to Édouard, we were off at 9h30 am. First stop for the night: the Chutes Provincial Park in Massey at about 565 km from Ottawa with the objective to be there for dinner and before sundown. It rained most of the time. We did few “essential” stops (Winners: it would be nice to have a little pillow for the passenger’s naps along the way; Canadian Tire: as we do not have what is needed to change a tire on the trailer; a lunch stop in the trailer; filling up the gas tank, of course; and a stop at the grocery store as I forgot to get coffee). We finally got to 60 km east of the camping where we had to stop as an accident had just happened. The firetrucks and ambulances just whipped past us. We were at less than 1 km away of the 3 vehicles accident. We were very thankful not to be involved, but a bit upset as we were stopped for 3 hours. We had a “water and cheese” in the car. I was very thankful for the water facilities of the trailer! We finally arrived at the campground at 9h30 pm.

Departure minus 1 day (August 12, 2016)

Friday had been particularly stressful as we had to finalize packing. Almost another move, even though at smaller scale, we still have to decide what will be needed for 1 month of camping and our extended stay in California. We will skip a winter but we still have to handle 2 seasons (summer and the equivalent of a fall in Ottawa). Once the winter suitcases closed, we each sorted everything and left one third of their content. Same thing with the piles of clothes we had done for the summer apparel. For the trailer kitchen, I kept doing trips to it from the house and stopped when the little cupboards were filled. Thanks to Édouard for his help loading up the stuff!

We still took the time to go see a movie with Georges and Édouard and we had dinner watching the Olympics and packing. It was the farewell with Georges and Marie-France.

From dream to reality!

During his 27-year university career, Claude has taken only 6 months of sabbatical while professors typically take one year of leave every other 7 or 10 years. Our multiple moves did not help as each time, the sabbatical counter was reset to zero. We have seen many of his colleagues leave and come back but it was never our turn. It is now time for the big trip and the great adventure for at least the coming 10 months. As the first part of the sabbatical will be in Davis California, we decided to drive, revisit known places and explore new ones. To make things more enjoyable, we decided to move our bedroom with us. We bought a little camping trailer in the spring which was made in Québec. It is just perfect for what we need and we could keep our car.

If you want to see more of the trailer you can go to the company website: Safari Condo

This is how we look on the road: Covered wagon circa 2016!