The Northern Cascades Fall Colors Caravan - Day 1, Getting the Express to Seattle

Greetings All!

The old Redneck Express have hit the road again, this many camping trips so close together is almost unprecedented for me, and frankly, I'm loving every minute of it.

This time round, we're not the only camper on this journey, rather we're on our way to meet up with a couple of the big Truck Camper Clubs clubs for their Fall Colors Rally in North-Eastern Washington State.

Now, being that I'm rather bored of the Interstates in Washington (Seen them far too many times over the years), I designed myself a rather nice alternative route that would have taken me along several side highways and skipped I-5 entirely.

However, given the fact that the old Redneck Express is extremely cantankerous, I didn't get moving till around 3:30pm, and by the time I was on the Washington Highway 411 (The West-Side Highway), I was shedding daylight like a dog sheds water.

Fortunately, I managed to get roughly half of it in and psych myself up for touring through the dazzling colors of fall foliage. If you ever want a nice alternative to I-5, I recommend following my route below, minus of course, the KOA that I'm staying at :p.



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Along with me for the journey is Murphy's older brother, Moby, who is by far the better behaved of the two.

Moby's never done any camping before, so this is first adventure out. So far, he's approached it in the same fashion he's approached all car travel in the past, namely, find a comfy spot and sleep till we stop, then fly up on my lap between my tummy and the steering wheel, eager to hop out and explore.

I didn't take too terribly many pictures while driving the West-Side highway, alot of it was beautiful, but the light was too low to get a good shot one-handed while trying to drive the Express, so I settled for photographing neat looking towns.

Winlock really was the main one that caught my eye on the drive, both for the fact that it had the first railroad crossing I've ever seen with a warning that you might high-center trying to go over it, and for the fact that it has the world's Biggest Egg!










Winlock



Now, normally, I'd drive on through to meet the caravan at its first site ahead of schedule, but given that the misses will be happy to get a neat little gift and that I need to get my annual supply of Peppercorn Gouda Cheese from Beecher's over at Pike Place Market, I decided to stop in Kent, WA at the Seattle-Tacoma KOA.

My only major gruff with the park is that the Cable TV costs an extra six bucks and that you only get 13 channels (Basically, the local broadcast stations). At $53.72 for the night, I was expecting a little more.

On the upside, I was able to enjoy a nice looooooooong hot shower, something that's a luxury to me or anyone whose been living in a Truck Camper for an extended period of time and uses the onboard shower for their everyday ablutions. Plus, they have this nice high-speed wireless internet service that I'm writing this blog on ;).

Next Stop?

Sauk Campground, east of Concrete, Wa! Write ya'll again in a few days!