Saturday, July 14 – TT Chehalis, WA 98532

We are on a mission today, we are driving 3 ½ hours north into Washington State to the first ever TT campground at Chehalis.  It’s a lovely sunny day and there is no marine layer of fog over the ocean yet.  We're on the road by 8.15am so an excellent start.  Although we are backtracking the same way we came to Lincoln City, it's still a nice drive.

We stop for diesel at King City on the outskirts of Portland, while we are still in the no sales tax land and once again Gas Buddy shows the best price in the area - $3.139 when others were advertising up to $3.50.  It’s such a good app.

Portland looks like a nice city from what we saw driving through, the I5 pretty much skirts around downtown alongside the Columbia River, where there are some very large launches moored, there are high rises dotting the skyscape and sun is reflecting off the water, lovely.  The I5 gets a bit busy through town but Kim only has to honk twice!  Our horn is so loud I bet it scares the bejasus out of those on the receiving end!

Portland Skyscrapers

Columbia River with Mt Rainer faintly in the distance

When a river runs through your city you always have bridges

We cross the bridge spanning Oregon and Washington State, there are handy signs advising drivers we are leaving Oregon and entering Washington and I also get the pretty 'Welcome to Washington' sign once we get back on to land.

A bit further along the I5 we can see smoke in the distance and a fire truck heading south towards us and then we come across this car on fire. Pretty sure the driver is out, there is a police car inattendance.

A slightly better photo of Mt Rainer between the trees

We arrive at TT a little after noon and spend the next 2 ½ hours trying to find a campsite we can set up in.  The 323 site campground is quite full and every one of the 33 x 50 amp sites is taken, there are quite a few personal sites which are chained off and there are only a few of the remaining 30 amp sites which are big enough for us and they are not very level nor particularly appealing.    We try three separate sites and none of them will give us power.  Our Electrical Management System, which checks high and low voltage, frequency, incorrect wiring etc. to save frying our electronics, won’t let us connect.

We drive back to the office to let the rangers know of the power problems in the last three sites.  The staff must all be new - unlike the campground, one young ranger sent us off on a wild goose chase to the only pull thru site they have, saying that B9 has very reliable power!  But once we pulled in to the site we could not open the door because of the blackberry.  The camp is losing the blackberry battle, it encroaches everywhere.  We can't get power here either.

In sheet frustration we eventually pull into site B3 on the main thoroughfare but at least we can get in, still no power but flag down the ranger as he drives by to ask if we can please have an electrician check the power pedestal for us. They said they replaced the circuit breaker, but there is still no power coming in on line 2. 

It's 30C, that's very hot when you are a tad stressed and I am not sure if we are more frustrated, grumpy or just plain disappointed once again in Thousand Trails. We go for a swim in the pool to cool down and we will dry camping for the night.