We are "home," at Desert Aire on the Columbia near Mattawa, Washington (map). The reason I say home is that we actually own a lot in this planned community. It is an empty lot, but it is enough of a legal address for voter registration purposes here in Washington, where state law prohibits us from using our mail-drop service for that purpose. County ordinance prohibits us from spending the night aboard Odyssey on our own lot ( a whole story in itself), but the development has a dry-camping area that is free to homeowners. The campground has the advantage of being right on Priest Rapids Lake.

Until last night we had never spent a night here since we bought the property back in January of 2004. Our route from Salem to Minot passed within an hour of here, so we decided to come check up on our property and spend a night, just to say we did it. While Desert Aire is somewhat of a failure as a resort community (don't let the glitzy marketing web site fool you), the lake, like much of the Columbia, makes a pretty backdrop.

On our way here we also stopped by our US mail address, in Richland. No sense paying to have this month's mail forwarded when we had to drive right by anyway. We've been in there only three times since we started getting our mail there, and they are always surprised to see us.

While in the tri-cities, we also stopped to have Odyssey washed, since the painter suggested we do that ASAP. Unfortunately, during the washing process, we discovered that the massive leakage around the upper windshield is still with us, as well as the leak through the passenger sun visor. We had hoped the work we had done at Infinity three weeks ago would take care of those, but, clearly, it did not.

We had a nice impromptu visit with Jerry and Kay Hornor in Salem, and the Phoenix RV Park there (map) turned out to be quite tolerable. The campground was able to park us together, which was nice.

As usual, the drive up the Columbia River Gorge was spectacular -- one of the few stretches of Interstate that we actually enjoy driving.

I expect that this morning will be the last time we are able to get online with our satellite until after Minot. SatMex5, our chosen bird, has a coverage footprint that drops off sharply in the northern reaches of Washington, Idaho, Montana, and the Dakotas. We will have to make some decision in the next couple of days whether to bite the bullet and switch birds ($100 or so, plus hours, usually, of fiddling to make the darn thing work) or tough it out without internet access for ten days. I'll try to keep you all posted, but, if we are off-line, you'll know why.