Wednesday 9-6-23 Welcome to Washington - Willows Campground

Washington

We thought we would not have cell service but somehow our campground is getting a signal so we can post this blog. Probably no more posts for about a week.

Today was another long day of driving. We drove 360 miles through three states. We started in Idaho at City of Parma park, drove through Oregon and ended up in Washington.

We started at 7:00 am and stopped at 2:00 pm.  It really was another hour because the time zone changed. We drove about 8 hours, mainly on interstates. We drove about 30 miles in Idaho when we came to the state line of Oregon. We drove 210 miles in Oregon. The last 120 miles was in Washington. We stopped now and then to stretch our legs, get gas and have lunch.  

While driving through Oregon the landscape was rolling hills and prairie. This section was part of the Oregon Trail. We saw windmills on top of the hills. We saw the Snake River and Umatilla River. We took a bridge over the Umatilla River. We passed a sign, that said we were halfway between the equator and the North Pole. After getting gas in La Grande we drove a mountain road with lots of tall pine trees, then we were back to plains. As we were going up and down we passed an eighteen wheeler going up hill, he would then pass us going down hill. We must have done this 8 or 9 times.

Oregon

 

 

 

Oregon rolling prairie with windmills

Snake River

 

Umatilla bridge

 

Umatilla River

When we got to Washington we had to take a detour off the interstate through a city called Prosser. Before doing so we stopped at an overview called Horse Heaven View. It was where wild horses use to roam freely, now it is mainly wheat fields. We had lunch there. After lunch we continued our adventure. Prosser was a cute little city. Some of the businesses had statues of painted horses in front of their business. They were very nice. 

We were glad we had the detour because we saw a lot of different kinds of apple orchards, a huge pumpkin patch, tomato vines, vineyards, wheat fields, onion fields and other crops. We knew the fields were onions because we followed a few trucks full of onions and some fell off on the side of the road. They were nice sized onions. We joked about stopping and picking them up. We also saw men working the fields. I was surprised to see this. I thought everything was done by machines. 

When we got to Yakima WA we were 31 miles from our new destination. Larry decided to do a couple of errands because we were going to be without power and no gas stations. We stopped by U-Haul and filled the propane tank in the Minnie. Next, stop was Walmart to fill the Minnie with gas.

The drive to our new destination was very beautiful. The road went through the Okanogan-Wenatches National Forest. There are forest campgrounds along the road and the Tieton River runs by the campgrounds. As we were driving down the road we saw a rafter, kayakers and people getting ready to tube down the river. The river was too fast for me. We saw a rescue truck at a campground so maybe the tuber and kayakers were doing some training. 

We drove through the first campground called Windy Point. We stayed there 15 years ago when we were here. It's very nice. We decided to go farther down the road about 8 miles to Willows. We drove around and found a great site. We decided to stay. We setup the Minnie for the night. The campgrounds in this National Forest don't have any power or running water toilets. Some of the campgrounds don't have water. Larry was surprised to see we had AT&T when everything he read said we shouldn't have cell service. 

Camping at Willows Campground

 

 

 Tieton River

 

Pumping water

After dinner I walked around to get my steps. I only did 6 laps and stopped because it was too dusty. I ended up doing 10,000 steps, which put me in 6th place in my group.

Willows has a couple of vault toilets an old water pump for fresh water. You have to pump it five times to get the water to flow. Larry had no problem but it was hard for me. I was successful. The site has a picnic table and fire ring. If your towing a trailer the maximum size is 20 feet. The road in the campground is dirt so it's very dusty.

We love camping in a National Forest because of all the pine trees and peacefulness.