Ruth's post - Springfield, Oregon

Ruth and Colin's day - Thursday, December 6th

Woke up in the Richland, Washington Wal-Mart parking lot, in what is classified as a desert zone which has on average 300 days of sunshine, of course we got one of the other 65 days, it is spitting rain, and it doesn't really stop raining all day.

Picked up a couple of things in Wal-Mart and then tried to find somewhere for an oil change. Found one that could do it for $40 or so but couldn't do it until the next day, the other place was an RV dealer and they could do it right away but they wanted $100 which I thought was too much, but we were able to use their dump station and fill up with water.

Continued on to Umatilla, Oregon and used the internet at the library and posted the last two days of  the journal (you will have to check out the pictures later on when they have been added, that will be once I met up with Kevin and have access to the internet again where they can be downloaded). We then had lunch in the parking lot of their marina and park area.

 US Coast Guard ship coming into the Umatilla Marina

Back on the road again, it is really a pretty area, there are lots of wineries in this area, about 150 in a 60 mile area, but didn't have time to stop and taste! The road follows the Columbia River pretty much the whole way with a smaller secondary road on the Washington side of the river. We stopped in a small town called Arlington where they had a nice area to walk Whiskey and took some pictures. They have a wonderful little RV spot which was $15 or so with water and electricity or you can dry camp for $9. Would have been a nice place to overnight at, but we still had miles to put on.

Marnia and RV park on the Columbia River in Arlington

View of Washington State and the Columbia River and a train passing by

Again we do a lot of driving in the dark, we came to this small place called Biggs where highway 97 connects the I-82 that we came down yesterday and the I-84 that we are on, it would have been a shortcut, but it's a secondary road so Colin didn't want to take it as it went through the mountains and he wasn't sure of the condition on the road.  The radio also only suggested that the locals use it, anyways when we came to the intersection where the two roads meet there was a total traffic jam that went on for miles, and the truckers were crossing the bridge trying to get back onto the I-84 and also going to the truck stop in the little town.  It looks like we were right to have taken the longer route and avoid the 97, as we could have been stuck in the mess somewhere not moving, but instead we just drive right by it all.

Finally we are back on the I-5 and heading south again, we make it down as far as Springfield, Oregon (didn't have time to see if Homer or Bart were around, wrong state I think!). Another late night about 10:30pm, I think we just need to put on more miles tomorrow and then were should be back on schedule.

Total Nights Sleeping in the RV... 54...

December Fuel $ 316.70

December Grocery $ 142.54

December Overnight Costs $ 0