Beyond Infinity

We are at our "home" Elks Lodge, in Kennewick, Washington (map). Although we are technically members of this lodge, this is only the second time ever that we have visited, and the lodge is closed on the weekends, so we'll not go inside on this stop. That does mean, though, that we've had the parking lot to ourselves. Last night we walked to Chico's Tacos just down the street, a local favorite, with excellent burritos and a license for beer and wine.

Yesterday morning found us at the Snoqualmie Casino (map), on the west side of the eponymous pass, in North Bend. The casino itself is fairly new, and not listed in any of our printed or online directories, and word around the 'net was they were RV-unfriendly. I called them before we left Infinity Friday evening, and they were very enthusiastic about telling us they "now" had RV parking, with a one-night limit. We later learned that the specially-striped RV spaces opened just a week ago.



We had dinner at their nice sit-down restaurant overlooking the mountains. The view was spectacular and the food was decent, although they were serving only a limited menu Friday. Apparently, on nights with scheduled concerts (Friday was Rick Derringer, of "Rock 'n' Roll Hoochie Coo" fame, along with Pat Travers, and the casino seems to have a fairly regular schedule of headliners), the restaurant sticks to a limited menu to speed things along a bit in the kitchen.

Yesterday morning our friend Patrick drove out from Kirkland to meet us for brunch -- they have a great weekend brunch spread in the buffet restaurant. We had a great visit for a couple of hours, though his other half Carol was unable to join us. Patrick and Carol live aboard their boat, something to which we aspire as the next phase of our traveling life, and I tend to pick his brain a lot when we get together. Patrick is also the creator of our wonderful YachTub portable hot tub.

We finally wrapped up at Infinity late Friday afternoon. Most of our to-do list got tackled, with only minor exceptions. The paint and bodywork on the rear corner from the tractor-bucket strike came out great -- to my eye, the repair can't even be seen, so kudos are also due Kevin at K&D Autowerks in the Infinity Industrial Park for that work, along with his painter Jeff.

Of course, our night at Snoqualmie had to involve a torrential downpour, and we discovered to our extreme disappointment that the leak remediation was only partly successful. We still have water coming in at several locations, including some that passed our "sprinkler test" while we were at the shop. In fact, it was so bad that we strongly considered canceling our conference in Salt Lake and returning to the shop tomorrow to continue to work on leaks; Friday night when we returned from dinner to a leaky bus, we were certain of it. By Saturday morning, with the weather pleasant and the bus dried out, we decided instead to continue with our plans, and work on the individual leaks one by one as we are able. I have a much better understanding of the mechanisms now, so I think there are some things I can try myself.

Yesterday afternoon we stopped by our little plot of land in Desert Aire, along the Columbia on Priest Rapids Lake. It looks just the same as always, although more of the formerly vacant lots in the development now have structures on them -- I think the popularity of the place is actually increasing. Lots of folks out at the pool and along the lake as we drove by, a good sign.



One of the very tame "wild" rabbits at the Tri-Cities Elks Lodge

In a few minutes, we we continue south into Oregon and connect to I-84, which will take us into Idaho tonight and then all the way to Utah.