Epic RVing with the Gradys - Day 6 - Westward Bound

Travel day!!! We didn’t have a campsite booked for the night, so our next trip was necessarily going to span 2 days. We didn’t really have a plan for where we would stop, but we spent quite a bit of time trying to plan the logistics since there was a massive heat wave that started in the Pacific Northwest and was now moving east, right in our path. We were happy that it moved out of the Seattle/Portland area because that’s where we would spend the next 8 days or so, but we still had to travel through Western Montana and Eastern Washington, and temperatures were reported as high as 115 degrees!

Oh well - we slept in until after 7:00 then got up and made some breakfast, dip eggs in fun shapes with toast. Jenny also did a couple more loads of laundry. Our hope was to get out of town by noon, so we had some time.

Before we began tearing down camp, we drove into town to get one more of those amazing Velvet Chais at the Cross Roads Coffee shop. Man, those were good!!! On the way back, we attempted to stop and get some cigars for Bryce, a big fan of them. There was a place in our path called Montana Sport Cigars, so I figured I’d pick up a few for him and deliver them next time we saw him. After a bit of research, it seemed I should be able to stop in anytime after 8:00 AM, so we drove into the lot on our way back to camp, but then turned around rather quickly. Maybe I’m faint hearted, but there was a barrage of Trump gear decorating the premises, so I decided to not patronize the establishment… I mean, really - the election’s been over 8 months now. I don’t need to see all this crap about your cult!!!

We tore down camp and were wheel’s up by 11:30 local time. A quick 40 minute drive and we were in Bozeman to return our very nice rental car, an Infinity Q something or other. It was NICE!!! It was really hard to switch between driving that and driving the gigantic house on wheels…

Then we drove… For a LONG time!!! The driving was really easy, actually. For some reason, the terrain in Western Montana made driving the RV seem trivial. I was even day dreaming about buying my own RV. It seemed easier than driving a car that same distance. The hours just melted away… I even listened to 4 Weird Al albums along the way, along with several podcast episodes. It was definitely HOT and heating up, but all other conditions were easy. Until they weren’t…

I crossed into Washington around 6:30 local (Pacific) time after having drivin for 8+ hours, and things were still pretty good. I felt like I could make it to Seattle if I wanted to - it was only 300 miles away!!! About the time we crossed the Columbia river around 8:30, however, things made a turn for the worse. The wind picked up, significantly, and the driving turned into a white knuckled torture fest. So we stopped in Ellensburg around 9:30, got gas, then decided to stay at a cheap Days Inn as there were no rest stops and no Walmarts around. It turned out to be a pretty good decision, honestly, as we were able to use a nice shower, sleep in full sized beds, and it was still HOT outside, so it would have been pretty miserable in the RV overnight. Also, the hotel pool was out of order and their TV was messed up, so we got to stay there for $75!

Vacation is starting to weigh on people, however. We went to bed, all vaguely arguing individually with every other person. There was no TV to distract us, so we all pretty much just crashed…