07-17-04
Here we sit in a Wal Mart parking lot in Pendleton, Oregon. It's
a little after 8:00 as I write this. We only drove about 200
miles today. We got up in Moscow, Id with a temp of about 67
degrees. We unhooked our electric, filled the fresh water tank
with clean water, headed across town and filled up with gas at a cost
of 2.029, ( yes that is all but $2.03), headed to the dump station at
the Fairgrounds to empty the black and gray water tanks. Seems as
though some others had the same idea, as we were about the 7th in
line. After waiting about 45 minutes, it was our turn. I
pulled up and when I got out, I was surprised to see that the
Fairgrounds had left a hose attached to the dump station, so all we had
to do was hook it to our rig and pull the dump levers. Only took
a couple of minutes. After that we drove about a block to have
the rig weighed - (we had paid the outfit at the Life on Wheels show to
do this today). Then we did a load of laundry, went to
Wendy's for lunch, Wal Mart for a couple of things we needed, and then
back to the University of Idaho. I went back there just to check
how many had left by now (it was 12:30 by this time), and we counted
less than 50 rigs left. There had been a couple of hundred the
day before. Most of the ones left were packing up and getting
ready to leave. Anyhow, we pulled out of there about 1:00
or so this afternoon. I did not realize it, but when we left, we
headed west on route 8, and within a mile were in Washington. I
thought the state line was a few miles down the road, but is
wasn't. We took route 8 to Pullman, Wa. and then 195 south, then
picked up route 12, then route 11 south to Pendleton, Or. When we
got here, it was 100 degrees, both on our thermometer on the coach, and
at a bank in town. Yes, it's hot. Funny thing though, it
doesn't feel
as hot as it does in Pa. Once we got in the parking lot at Wal
Mart, we finished getting groceries, (this Wal Mart is a Supercenter,
the one in Moscow was not). Decided that is was certainly hot
enough to start the generator and turn on the overhead air. No,
up until this point, we had not run the air while driving. We do
normally open the windows and have two 12volt fans that we run overhead
in the front that blow directly on us, so the heat hasn't bothered us
too much. Once we stopped, we decided it was time to cool off a
little. 2.00 a gallon or not, let's be cool tonight. By the
way, when we arrived at this Wal Mart, there were two other motor home
here before us. When we came out of the store from getting our
groceries, another motor home had pulled in behind us for the
night. No, we are not pulled into a "wagon train circle", thank
your very much. Just had an old Jamboree class C motor home pull
in. By the way, we are here, there is a Southwind, a Monaco,
behind us is a Safari. Personally, I'd like to slap the **** out
of the guy behind us. He's got a table, barbeque grill, and two
lawn chairs out. This isn't a campground, it's place to pull over
for the night and catch some rest. I'm ok now. As I said
yesterday, I'm not sure what our cell phone access will be like the
next couple of days, so we may not be able to post. On the way
down here, we were in a roaming area for a while. Once we got
here, we were back in the America's Choice network again, so we are
able to make calls with no additional charge. Hence the post for
today. Not sure, but we may head 84 west in the morning, and then
route 5 for a little while. We can always head west from route 5
and drive 101 along the coast. Well, I think we'll probably be
hanging it up for the evening soon. It's getting close to
9:00. Maybe we'll turn in early and get up early. Later.
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