On The Meandering Road: August 25, 2016 - Portland, OR to Kent, WA

Uhh…Ohh.. we got up late and it was too late for us to drive down to Portland to try and get donuts from Voodoo Donuts, per Keri’s suggestion. We could have gone, but the traffic going into Portland from Vancouver on I-5 takes forever to go across the bridge and into downtown. We will be back here next year.

We checked out of Jantzen Beach RV Park at 10 am. Edith went in the Jeep to go to Target to use wifi, so she can upload videos for our blog while Erwin took the Lil’ Home (LH) to get diesel fill-up at Chevron.

Erwin met Edith at the parking lot in front of Target, hooked the Jeep to the LH. We finally left Jantzen Beach at 10:55 am. Got on I-5 N and entered Washington state line at 11 am.

Traffic was little heavy most of the way with lots of semis, but there was no bumper to bumper along the way.

We started to see colorful leaves on trees. We cannot wait to see the foliage up north.

We had our lunch break at a rest area near Rochester, WA. There is a map/information station, but there was no personnel there to assist with travel information.We stayed around for about half an hour before getting back on I-5 N.

We finally saw Mt. Rainier after exiting the rest area. It was difficult for Edith to try and capture a clear shot of it while traveling. Also, there were too many trees. There was snow still on the mountains.

Traffic jam on I-5 Southbound, arrived the city of Olympia, the state capitol, at 1:30 pm. We may come visit Olympia during our stay at KOA in Kent, WA.

Traffic started to get heavy after we left Olympia, slow moving for miles and miles.

We checked into Seattle/Tacoma KOA on S 212th Street, got site #63 (pull-thru with full hookups). It is not too far from Mt. Rainier and Seattle Airport. After getting the LH settled in we rested a bit, checked emails.

You know you are in Seahawks country when you see lots of Seahawks banners and signs. The picture below was at KOA Campground!

We were concerned about the braking system between the LH and the Jeep. The brake/signal light on the right side on the Jeep would not work. We thought about getting a different kind of signals, so we went to Poulson RV Center They had one in stock, but not the kind we were looking for. The service guy suggested to check and clean the contacts of the tail light wiring kit. Maybe we need to do that first to see if it works or not.

Dried up Saguaro plant

There is an ice cream social at the gazebo behind KOA office/store. They only had chocolate, cookies/cream and orange sherbet. Erwin had a scoop of sherbet.

We asked the KOA staff about Mt. Rainier viewpoints near here and they suggested us to try Earthwork Garden. The view was so-so and we could barely see Mt Rainer between trees. While there there was a fellow with a dog walking up to the parking lot and Erwin asked him if he happened to know of other spots that we could get a better view. He gave directions and we went off from there.

This old gravel pit stood abandoned for years and the city
decided to turn it into a dog park. You can walk around
in the concentric circles and back up again and you will have
walked over a mile! the view there was awesome but the
trees on the right blocked the view of Mt. Rainier!

We managed to find Grandview Dog Park and the parking lot was almost full.We walked up to the top of the park. Oh, what a perfect view of Mt. Rainier!!! We stayed there until just before the sunset, then left to go to Des Moines district but we missed the sun going down behind the mountains but Edith managed to get pictures of the beautiful/colorful sky.