Washington State

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Well, we got ourselves moved out of the house in Point Roberts. It took several trips with the cars and one trip with a small moving truck to get everything out.
Some stuff went to a local charity, some to a storage locker, some to our shed and some even found its way into the motor home!
We were probably too ambitious in planning what would fit into the motor home, no doubt some reorganization will be needed before we leave.
Before leaving Blaine, we need to get all our stuff organized and some maintenance work done. These pictures show Linda's office and the kitchen area. We have to make sure all the essentials are covered first!

	We finally got on the road on October 3, heading for Toppenish and the Alpine Coach Homecoming rally. We wrapped the Volvo up for storage and hit the road!
The trip from Blaine to Toppenish covers a diverse set of climates.
	From the wet of the coastal area, shown here at our breakfast in Fall City
	To the dryer pine forests on the eastern slope of the cascades where we stopped for lunch
	And finally the desert like climate of the the Yakima Valley, where were were camped by dinnertime.
	A beautiful Toppenish sunset photographed by Ron.

Alpine Coach Association Rally In Toppenish we spent our first week traveling in the RV with over 100 other Alpine owners, getting some help with minor service issues, leaning more about the coach and meeting a really great bunch of RVers.
Linda got her first and second experience driving a motor home. First was a "Confidence Course" to learn how to back into a parking spot and how to drive while avoiding obstacles and people. The instructor said I did great so .....
We took to the "quarter mile" for a drag race. Linda's time 23.06 seconds, Ron's 22.66 seconds! For a more "Active" picture of the race, click HERE
Our racing timecards, our cards are circled, you can see where we placed overall, not in the winner's circle, but not last either!


After almost a year, we crossed back into Washington State at Spokane on September 6, 2006, and drove to Yakima on Sept. 7. We won't actually get home for a week or so, we have to arrange to get the fridge fixed and other service on the coach first.
	While in Yakima we stayed at the WRV Repair Facility (in Union Gap) with other Coach and 5th wheel owners needing work done. WRV provides parking spaces with a security patrol and electrical hookups. Coach and 5th wheel owners provide the nightly party!
Ron photographed this stunning sunset at the WRV facility in Union Gap. He was amazed at how the clouds of the day were giving way to a clear night sky.
	One of the advantages of getting the work done in Yakima is that it's close to Toppinish. During our weekend there we (of course) paid a visit to Porteus Wines to get a few bottles to help us through the long winter ahead!
While driving around the vinyards and orchards we met four friendly "Red Hat" ladies out for an afternoon ride.
	We got back to Blaine on September 14 but we had to have some tree trimming done before we could bring the motorhome to our site.
September 19th, 2006 - back at Latitude 49. This will be our home until we figure out where we'll be working.
It's been 11½ months since we pulled out of this spot on our tour of North America. At the start a year seemed like a nice long vacation, but we discovered it really isn't quite long enough. There are places where we would have liked to stay longer and other places we didn't even get the chance to see this time.
Any qualms we might have had about living in the motorhome for an extended period of time were certainly quashed, we could certainly do this again and we will, there's a lot of blue on the maps that needs to be turned to red!
	At home - Watching families crabbing from Blaine Pier.