Pendleton to Lake Chelan

April 15, 2010

We left Pendleton around 9am yesterday as we didn’t have too far to go.  Our destination was Beebe Bridge Park at Lake Chelan on the Columbia River.  We have stayed here a couple of times and it always a good last stop before we head into Canada.  It is immaculate, cheap,beautiful and although the highway runs right next to it the traffic is quiet at night.  The park opens the first of April and the cost is $10 if you are over 62 (in the off season – Labor day to Memorial day)  for water/electric/hot showers and a dump on site.  A lovely stop and you can drive over the bridge and up into Lake Chelan for a meal or shopping.  This is a big tourist destination in the summer but right now it is very quiet. 

We took an alternate route to get to Lake Chelan (see previous post map) and passed through Benton City coming off highway 82 onto highway 225.  As we neared our left turn onto highway 240 we passed the Horn Rapids Park on the Yakima River, made a pit stop and had a look around.  Another quiet, pretty park with hook-ups and we will keep that on our list for another time.

Horn Rapids Park on the Yakima River.

It would have been a doable drive from Meridian if we left at 8am. and we could have arrived in the late afternoon.  We followed my preplanned blue line (in MapPoint on the laptop) with the GPS following it and I didn’t make any errors and although this was a new method it worked great.  Next year we will have another slightly smaller laptop with us to use in the truck.  Also, it is always good to have a back up in case one lap top dies.  This leads to the next part of the story!  Yesterday morning the laptop wouldn’t open and I just about had a heart attack!  Windows updates had fouled up it’s start mode and I thought I was done for.  I shut it down and started over and everything came up fine.  I have now cancelled auto updates and will check them periodically to see if we want them as they constantly muck things up restarting the computer when you don’t want them to. 

The days travelling was without wind and warm and sunny when we arrived. 

Lonesome highway.

Rock Island Dam south of Wenatchee.

Spring is just coming here in Washington and the trees are starting to bloom so we had a  nice warm happy hour at the edge of the water. 

The rig in the Beebe Park.

Beautiful Beebe Park.

 

Beebe Bridge looking north up the Columbia River.

This would make a great painting!

Happy Eric having happy hour in the sun.

Tomorrow we head for Kelowna and Eric’s brother Ian’s driveway.  I also have two sisters there Anne and Elisa to visit.  From Kelowna we will make a trip in the truck to Vancouver where we will visit Mom and stay with Eric’s brother Brian and wife Fran.  We’ll also see any family that is available for our brief trip to Vancouver.  If Mom wishes we will bring her back to Kelowna with us for a visit before we head home for Terrace some time next weekend.  The party is over and the work at home waits!