28/29SEP07 - Everett & Kittitas, WA

We woke to a beautiful sunshiny day at Kathy’s. But the forecast was for big Pacific storm to hit the Olympic Peninsula and travel eastward across the state. Based on that we decided to hit the road and get on the east side of the Cascade Mountains believing that would get us ahead of the weather before we started our journey south. So after another great meal at Kathy’s we headed out of Sequim to catch a ferry to the eastside of Puget Sound.

Unless you want to drive all the way south to Olympia to avoid the ferries, you have four choices: Port Townsend ferry to Whidbey Island; Kingston ferry to Edmonds; Winslow ferry to Seattle; or Bremerton ferry to Seattle. Having experienced the joys of the Port Townsend ferry, we opted for the Kingston ferry. After Corrie purchased our ticket, she came back to the RV complaining that they had tried to charge her more than the last trip. Dan pointed out that the last trip was a different (and shorter) run and the prices were supposed to be different! So we ended up paying less! Thankfully, this ferry run was serviced by the ferry SPOKANE, a jumbo class ferry. Getting the RV onboard was no problem; but getting off the boat in Edmonds was challenging. The Edmonds ferry dock is tightly hemmed in by the downtown, with railroad tracks cutting right through it. It was tight quarters all the way to the freeway.

The first stop in our efforts to beat the rain, was back to Paul and Shannon Peters. No one was home on our arrival, so we parked the RV and took off to the Monroe post office to get our mail that was two weeks late. Thankfully our mail was finally there. Back at the Peters it was another quiet evening visiting, but instead of “forcing” Jan or Shannon to cook, we all voted for pizza.

Saturday morning as all the Paul took off for work (retiree Dan tried not to gloat) and the rest of the Peters headed to soccer games, we headed over Snoqualmie Pass to Bonnie and Steve Kiesel’s in Kittitas. No one was home, but we plugged the RV in and made ourselves comfortable. Gumbo was highly excited to be back running in the “pack” with Anna, Boots and Brix. Unfortunately after everyone returned home, Bonnie had to leave for a couple of hours for volunteer work at the Moose Lodge, but it was still nice to visit once again.