Sunday, August 5, 2007

Vacation Celebration Station Nation

Finally! *trumpets blare* *little children run through the streets celebrating* At last, the time has come! The 2nd part of my Vacation Post! Accurately titled... Land of the Hot Washington Sun June 30th, Part 2 of 2 I gotta say, Western Washington and Eastern Washington are like night and day. When we first passed over the Cascades and saw the scenery, it was eerily like that of California. It was strangely nostalgic, cause I used to live in CA for 11 years. But yeah, it was neat. After awhile, we came across the town of... well, I can't remember the name, but it was definitely a tourist spot. All the buildings were old western style, even the gas station. Anyway, before we went to our campsite, we went and got some three day fishing licenses. Heh, I don't even like fish, yet we intended on catching some to eat. Meh, whatever. Don't have to like fish to enjoy catching them, really. But yes, more on that later. By that time, we were all pretty hungry, so all we wanted to do was get to our campsite for that night and eat. Off we went then to Silver Lane. But, wouldn't you know it, there was some sort of Sports Tournament in town, I think it was baseball, so there was no occupancy. Great. And while my dad was discussing all this with the people at the desk, the rest of us were in the RV, just trying to keep Nick from barking his head off. Finally, he comes back and tells us that there's no occupancy, but that we'll be able to stay here tomorrow night. Until then, we're going to a different campsite, called Big Twin Lake. So again, off we go. Despite the fact that we didn't get to eat lunch until late afternoon, the campsite was quite nice. The camp spots were nice and big, and we had a really good spot. Right near the lake, so a great view; under a tree, so plenty of shade; and HOOKUPS! Oh, thank goodness! Our last campsite hadn't had any, so what a welcome change. Ate lunch, took a shower, watched some Arjuna (yes, even on vacation, we brought DVDs), ate dinner, had s'mores, and voila. End of the 2nd Day. July 1st Morning came, and so did our departure from Big Twin Lake. Before we headed over to Silver Lane, we went into the touristy Western town, parked the RV in a public RV parking area, then walked around for a bit. It's... very small, as are most Eastern Washington towns that I saw. Again, very touristy. Wasn't really much worth seeing. Best thing in town was the ice cream shoppe. Back to the RV again then, ate lunch there again (more sandwhiches, of course), and then played Celebrity for a bit. (Celebrity: A game where one person gives the initials of some sort of famous person, fictional or real, and the others must ask yes or no questions until one person figures it out.) Gosh, the many times we played Celebrity on this trip... Anywho, off we went then to Silver Lane. Honestly, it wasn't as nice as Big Twin. The spot was a lot smaller, and the camp itself was a lot busier. But still, at least we could fish here. We were pretty close to the lake (again), and there were some docks there. My brother Eric actually caught a crawfish. Yeah, that was interesting. We got a pic and everything too (I'll post that later). Fishing is actually pretty fun... when you're actually catching something. Even if all you're getting is little fish, tis better than just sitting there for hours on end... But yeah, Eric, Kyle, Dad and I went fishing for a bit that evening before and after dinner. It was a cool experience; I learned how to put salmon eggs on the hook, caught a couple of small fish too. So then, the night came, we watched some Monty Python (more DVDs, le sigh), and off we went to bed. End of the 3rd Day. July 2nd Today was the day. Today, we woke up early. Today, we went fishing. Today, we caught nothing. Funny thing is, Dad and I were there early enough to see someone else catching a big fish, so it's not like they weren't there, just that we weren't lucky enough to get one. Oh well, the experience in and of itself was fun enough. However, not everyone saw it like that. Robin desperately wanted to catch a fish, even a small one. She was so determined to that end, she wouldn't give anyone else a turn on her rod for quite awhile (only three fishing rods, you see). And so we went back, defeated; ate breakfast, and yet again, got ready to go to another new campsite: Sunbanks. This campsite was by Grand Coulee Dam, so the whole reason we were staying there was to get a tour of it the next day. It was a long drive there, but pretty cool when we finally saw the Dam. Now, all the other towns up to this point were pretty crappy. Small and just not too good looking. But the little town that was right next to the Dam was very nice. Very green. But yes, onto the campsite. Remember, this place was different. This time, we had made reservations for a spot beforehand, quite a few months back. So you'd think, when we arrived, that the spot would be really nice. Eheh... no. For one, Dad drove down the wrong way, past the registration desk, so he had to awkwardly park next to this one building for a bit while he and Mom went to get us checked in. So imagine us, stuck together in the RV with all these people around us, Nick barking here and there yet again. By now, we were already pretty sick of each other too. So Mom and Dad came back, and Dad had to awkwardly back out and go back up the dirt road we had just gone down. We were expecting a pretty decent spot, you know? Typical of most campsites at least. But, what we rolled into was a parking spot. Or at least TWO parking spots, but still. Disappointed but beyond our control, we started to settle in for a nap, when what do you know? Another RV starts pulling in right next to us, into what we thought was OUR spot. By this time, yeah, we were all pissed. Apparently though, what we thought had been our entire campsite was really two spots! So our space was even smaller than we thought. Luckily, the RV wasn't staying, so we still had that bit of room. Doesn't really make up for it though. Anyway, to just get out of there for a bit, we decided to go into the town and get some ice cream. We found a really nice little burger place that had really cheap ice cream. It was nice. By the time we went back to Sunbanks, guess what else we found? Someone had parked in our spot. When the guy was told he had to move, he said, "Sorry, I thought it was a parking spot." Oh no, really? Who would've thought our little campspot could EVER be mistaken for that, hmm? Whatever. Let's just forget about that, right? At least we got our spot back. Yeah, hurray. I tried to end my evening on a somewhat high note by taking a nice, relaxing shower. Eheh... no. For one, the showers were filthy. Toilet paper in the shower stalls and just... ugh. Whatever, I dealt with that at least. As long as I get a hot shower, right? Eheh... no again. The water was frigid cold the entire time. Gashsplurn you Sunbanks. By the end of the night, we were pretty determined to get out of Sunbanks as soon as possible. We were scheduled to stay there through July 4th, but there's no way we could take this. Mom called the next place, Coeur D'Alene, to see if we could come a day early. As long as we could get out of this hell-hole, really. Now we had to play the waiting game. Would Coeur D'Alene come through and save us, like the good li'l Christian camp it is? Or would we be stuck in our parking spot for two more days? Find out next time on All My Vacation Stories! God Bless

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