After doing the research I thought I had found a special campground that looked like it would be nice on a lake and that we could fit into. And right alone our travel route.
So off we head on a afternoon day trip (Sunday after we landed in Omak that is. 
Well to make it short not is all as it looks in real life. Leader Lake 
One quote "Any time is a brilliant time at Leader Lake Campground if you like the outdoors".
The first clue we were in trouble was the dry conditions in this part of Washington. And climbing mountain road past vast areas had been burned within the last few days in a forest fire. Reaching the lake the sign was nearly falling over and in disrepair. And the lake level of course had been drawn down for irrigation. 
And the topper was it was hot outside with a fire burning ban in effect. So much for camping here. 

Not to fret our journey continues for that perfect campsite THAT a 38 foot 5th wheel can fit into. For now electric in an RV park is pretty nice me thinks. 
 
 

We were parked in the Ferry Fairgrounds at Republic, WA  a town we really liked as it had an old small mining town feel to it and way off the beaten path. It even had a BOA and a great food store.  If we were so inclined the night life in the bars would have been something else me thanks.  But then again we could have gotten into trouble so not this time around. Terry did visit the local museum and brought back a pizza for Saturday night supper. It was sort of a whole wheat thing, good but not great   So now on Sunday  the 4H campers were starting to arrive for the Ferry County Fair  and some later in the day some would want to be where we were parked so they refunded our Sunday nights fee and we hit the road. We can feel for the locals as this IS the big event of the year and they show up early and stay late. We wished them a great fair and moved on down the road. We could see they were going to have a great time. Kind of wished we could have got a another spot and stayed. 

So where to land next. I printed out the map below and gave it to my trusty lost in a paper bag navigator in the seat next to me and off we went. 

We landed in Carl Precent RV Park in Omak which is the RV park in the Omak Stampede grounds. We had choices but liked the idea of electric as it was getting hot and our on truck temp readout was reading by the time we hit the valley 95. 

In case we have lost you... here is a map of the area we are exploring.   We came from Republic west on HW 20 and down to Omak where we have landed. 

We dropped several thousand feet coming down from Republic to Tonasket.

There we no other buildings anywhere near. 

Omak Stampede Grounds billboard. 

I like the Indian encampment in the baseball and soccer fields on the right. This is all on Indian grounds so do they really pitch teepees? 

Read more below about how they race horses down this 225 foot slope into the river and then to the finish line inside the stadium. People and horses do die doing this race. This is done one Indian tribal lands property and a part of their culture so it continues today. 

I found this photo gallery of the Stampede in action. Read the rules to participate in this controversial event.
Up from the river and into the stadium to the cheering spectators. 

 

We are right next door to the arena in a full service RV park for $20. We lucked out and got an end spot where we could deploy our satellite dishes. 

The river valley is full of orchards, apple, nectarines, peaches, plums , pears etc. We did stop at a stand and the fridge is full of goodies. 

Terry is busy making apple crisp with the new apples.  I am going out on a line here and say that yummy word even before we have eaten any of it. But I know it will be a real treat. OOPS he just announced or should I say asked if he could run up to the Super Wal*Mart for sugar free low fat ice cream to enjoy with the apple crisp.  So he is off and about. Are we having fun yet... 
Now for some into happy hour sunset talk. 
You can look at maps, paper gazetter maps, online Streets & Trips, and even with Google Earth, till you are blue in the face, but you never know what you are going to see around the curve in the road ahead, untill you actually hit the brake on that 6% downhill curve, and see the valley ahead and your face lights up and it glows Oh My God.... 
Happy travels to all... We are alive and able to see the wonders of this great country.  Lucky enough for now being healthy enough to do this, sharing what we find for those who might follow in our path. And for others who might not get the oppertinuity to go where whe have gone. 
 

On a day trip to the local lakes and FS campgrounds most of which of course we can't fit our big 5er into. 
But the drive into the wilderness was a treat. 

Swan Lake is a clear-water lake located in the Colville National Forest, just off Highway 21, south of Republic, Washington. In the late spring and summer months, the lake is frequented by local anglers and fly fishers after brook, rainbow, and cutthroat trout. The mid- to late-summer months attract campers, hikers, and bicyclists to the warm lake waters and hiking-biking trails. In the cooler fall months, hunters take advantage of the campground's proximity to deer which frequent the fir- and spruce-lined hills of the national forest. Visitors to the lake are often treated to visitations from squirrels, chipmunk, and woodpeckers. Black bear are occasionally spotted walking the trails in search of summer berries.

Swan Lake. Now gather a little firewood and to camp right here is what dreams are made of. 
We were pleased to be able to just experience so many spots just like this above one. Now if we could get our fulltime 5er RV parked here. 
I told Terry we should pull a pop up behind the 5er so we can go camping again. He sez how about a tent and sleeping bags... and I said  "Don't Think So"... Been there done that. Day trips to these remote places will have to do. If you remember we did find some great spots like at Libby Dam and on the Blackfoot River and we will find more like that if we look hard enough. Untill then city and county parks are working well for us. 

How peaceful can it get... at Ferry Lake.

Fish lake and just sitting here will lower your blood pressure several points me thinks. 

We are staying in the fairground campground in Republic, WA for the weekend while we explore more of the area and so Terry can partake in the local museum this weekend.
As for tonight Terry is doing Pork Spare Ribs (the Republic food store had a sale on them, so I put them in the cart, now Terry has to win a cook off award fixing them).

We are watching the tributes to Ted Kennedy tonight. What great things he accomplished for all the people of our country.
Teddy was loved as a person who cared about us all, no matter your views on issues of the day. A great American without a doubt. A sad time but also a great day for us all, that this man lived, and made his mark on life as we know it. Take care, and hug someone near you. A great spirit has moved on, and we now have to carry on without. 
 

If you haven't figured out by now we sometimes move faster then expected. Like every day now. After exploring sites to stay in the Roosevelt National Rec  area yesterday we got up this AM and headed on out to points west. We headed over the Sherman Pass and Byway. Great road from Kettle falls on HW 20 toward Republic, WA.

 When we explore ahead and we don't find that perfect site we end up just moving on to a known site as the County fairgrounds at Republic as we knew were open for us. After driving around town came back a mile or so and landed at the fairgrounds park. $10 with W/E 

I was waiting to see if FRED was going to find the space station as Tioga George would say. We don't lower our landing gears or deploy the slides untill we get connected to space. 
There is a state park and a couple of FS campgrounds in the area but with our rig you just don't do that without checking first. So the Fairgrounds looked good untill we can explore the other options. 

Our site or any place we wanted to put it was the order of the day. They have a so called stated over 100 sites (or should say camping spaces... to pack then in during the fair, but not now as we are about the only ones who have stopped by).  Do go to their Fair Web site.

Housed in this building is their historic Merry Go Round...

The Ferry County Fair Merry-Go-Round has been a part of the Ferry County fair since 1958. All 24 horses on the machine were hand carved, but 2 of the horses are believed to have been carved by Charles Dare, another noted carousel manufacturer of the 1900's. Do the link above to read more. 

Volunteers came by as we got back from our day trip measuring out spaces and pounding in stakes to define the camp spaces for the Labor Week Fair event. We can see this is going to be a huge event for this local county. 

We did a tour of the downtown and stopped at the HUGE grocery store in town.  You could see they bought out the building next door and combined them for a combo super store. I told them how great it was to find this gem of a food store and they acknowledged they though it was pretty great also. Me felt the checkout clerk wasn't bragging just stating a fact. 

They still had a poster in the window warning about icy conditions on the sidewalks and steps.  This is the end of Aug. me thinks but what the hell it may snow anytime up here about 30 miles form the Canadian border. This is a touristy spot but more then an upper western town even I could love. This is one cool place. 
Now go to their Republic city web site to see how great this out of the way town is. 

A shot of the State Park on Curlew lake a few miles north of town.  It had open spaces but state parks me thinks are kind of pricey. This one better than most but still $19 - $25 to stay.  We thought what's wrong with $10 at the fairgrounds. 

We may spend a few days right here... there is a museum in town which Terry would like to see. We shall see as I hate places like that. I keep telling him that is what the Internet is for... He doesn't see it that way. 
 
 

Life in Sandpoint, ID tends to be laid back as you can see. Time to get our butts out of town.

We got up and decided it was move day... So off we went.  Past Newport on up northon HW 20 to Ione to see what it was like.

Lone is a very tiny, laid back village, trying to be a tourist trap but just to far out of the way to make it big. 
But they do have a tourist train that runs along the Pend Oreille river. Sponsored by the North Pend Oreille Valley Liones Club.

Ione, WA 

Then back tracked down to HW 20 and over to Colville where we stopped at of course at Wallmart. 

Colville is a bustling city with lumber the big industry as in the above picture.  This was right across from Walmart. I zips back and forth real fast to pick up piles of logs and place them in the factory for processing. Their county fair was to start tomorrow. We thought about staying over to attend it but that thought didn't last. 
Doubt we could get into the fairground campground at the late minute. 

Colville is a cool place with a fun downtown as in the above art in the middle of the street. 

We were looking for FS campgrounds all along the way but par for the course all were very small and dark and not big enough for our rig. 
So on we went enjoying the great day and drive. 
 
 

Landed in Kettle Falls at a Passport America campground. Not much of a park with many very old and broken down units but for $12 who's to complain. 

After we knew we could get the dish up we took off looking ahead for our next campground. 
The drive up and down the Lake Roosevelt National Rec area was nothing short of spectacular. (See map below)

Views like this go on and on forever. 

We looked at most of the campgrounds as shown in the below map. It was a long drive but one that must be down to find that perfect site THAT we can also get internet via our satellite. We do have our must haves now don't we. Go ahead feel sorry for us.  Found our best bet was to head tomorrow to Evans campground.  What else we found was there were only a few people camping, most parks were empty. It was about 85 today so the weather is still warm and camping should be great. I think my Senior discount card is good at National Park Rec areas.  The campsites are only $10 and with 1/2 price $5. Kind of silly me thinks. 
The two campground host sites at the Evans location looked like they had never been used this year at all. 

From here in a few days off to Republic, WA to see what else we can find.  Will be meeting up with our friend Tad later on for even more fun and adventure. 
 

Today is going to be about a little of this and a lot of that.
I posted late yesterday that we had landed in Sandpoint, ID and posted a picture of the RV park, (see Aug. 24 post below)

Now today is more of how we got here and what we did today. 
Leaving Libbly, MT we were headed west on HW 2 and had to stop at Kootenai River Falls.

(Have started playing around with Google Picasa 3 picture software and love the "I'm Feeling Lucky" picture improvement feature.  When I retouch a picture I do go back to Fast Stone Image Viewer and Capture to reduce size and crop. And to think I had a photo dark room many moons ago. Me thinks this is soooo easy now) 

The sign indicated a long hike going up and down, but off Terry went as I waited and read the info signs. 
As soon as we had stopped I noticed a 5er that looked famillier as we had been following RVeCafe.com and their travels as they appeared close by on the DastormUsers map. 
They were now moving into Montana and I knew we we going west and they were going east in the same general area. When we pulled into the parking area for the falls I said that must be them as it was Cameo 5er and blue truck with OR plates. Didn't see the web site blog logo at first on the side of the unit. 

It was them we had parked right next to. Above pic is after they had left when Terry got back from his hike, took it. He didn't get to meet them. Ya that is us with a 5er with no windows in the back. Terry was still on the hike when they came back, but I had a good chat with them and we compared travel notes.  Plan to meet up again this winter in Quartzsite. They even are thinking of joining the Quartzsite Gem and Mineral Club. What a deal.  This is a picture they took that I copied over from their blog. 

So off they went toward Swan Lake, MT and off we went to Sandpoint, ID. Without the Internet blogs and people sharing their adventures, we would have never met in the middle of nowhere in a tourist pullout in Montana.  Way cool...

So back to Tuesday as we are staying another night in Sandpoint and today is a day trip.  We like to drive ahead on day trips to see if there is any great campgrounds  we can fit into for our next stop. (Picky since we need a sunny and long site for boondocking) We just can't pull up a forest service road in our big rig and hope to get turned around again if the sites are not big enough. And the general rule, is not many, if any, are big enough for us, most are for tents, or pop ups, we have found me thinks. We, when in vacation mode years ago wore out two pop-ups and a very small 5er.  That was great but now pulling our fulltime house, so to speak,  we have to search ahead with only our truck on day trips to find our next fantastic stopping spot.  It's how this is done. We lucked out below the dam at Libby. We hope to find more places like that down the raod. Wish us luck. 

First there was a Bank of America in town so we stopped so I could cash a couple of old paper checks hiding in my billfold. Inside they didn't have the terminals so I could swipe my card to bring up accounts at the teller window. She said this was Idaho after all and wished they had that.  Very friendly...  and when I asked if a CD had been moved by my home bank today, said it might take a couple of days for them to see any recent transactions to my accounts. Really... how does that work... light speed digital networks don't work well up here. Anyway she gave me my money by cashing  the checks. 
She had a hard time finding my accounts.  Said it would be faster if I used the NEW ATM out front (not the one out back as you can see below) and deposit my checks and then withdraw funds. She was happy to do it, just said it would have been  faster that way.  So much for face to face service. 
I left happy to even find a BOA in Sandpoint. 

While I was inside Terry watched them load up an old ATM. This is how they do it in Idaho

Our day trip from our RV park by Sagle on HW 95 was back up to Sandpoint and then on US 2 west over to Newport and back to Cocolalla on of course back roads. It's what we do to explore an area to see how people are really living. 

Before we got got to Newport we ran into Albeni Falls... 

Now a COE Dam and Rec Area.
Albeni Falls Dam is located on the Pend Oreille River between Oldtown, Idaho, and Priest River, Idaho. It is located on the site of a natural waterfall named Albeni Falls, named after early pioneer Albeni Poirier. Construction on the dam began in 1951 and was completed in 1955 at a cost of $34 million ($261 million] in 2007 dollars). It produces over 200 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year for the Bonneville Power Administration.
The dam is 90 feet (27 m) high and 775 feet (236 m) long. Its spillway is 400 feet (120 m) long.

We stayed below Libby Dam and now seeing Albeni Falls Dam.  Found this nice chart of all the dams by the COE and others in the northwest. 

Where ever we drive the sights are more than can be imagined. This part of the country is something else. 

And Eagles are everywhere. 

Our stop in Newport, WA  A proud history of lumbering. 
The topography of the Newport area is somewhat unusual. About one-half mile north of Newport, the Pend Oreille River enters Washington State and flows north to Canada. Very few rivers in the Northern Hemisphere flow north in a similar manner. In addition, the watershed of the Pend Oreille in the Newport area is extremely limited. The is due to a small depression of no more than 50 feet (15 m), which begins one-half mile to the west and south of the river. Unable to flow uphill, the waters (from natural springs, rainfall runoff, etc.) eventually form the Little Spokane River, and flow southwest towards Spokane.

After lunch in Newport we returned east on the south side of the river on Old Priest River road. It mad for a great drive. 

Had to post the store front we found in Priest River. 

Another store front in Priest River. 

As I do the blog Terry headed back to Sandpoint to explore the tourist traps in downtown. He likes that and I let him go for some quiet time. It works for both of us. 

We will be off heading into Washington on HW 20  tomorrow me thinks. Hope I slow down and stop early or we will wind up in Kettle Falls. There is lots of potential on this next leg. We shall see. I know there is a Passport America RV park in Kettle Falls for us to regroup along with a Wally World in Colville.  But we would love to find some out of the way fishing and a to die for campsite before that, that we could spend several days in. 

 
 

We have landed just south of Sandpoint, ID in a Travel America RV Park  close to Sagle right on HW 95 with full hookups and WiFi. How dare we. 
But at $23 total not a bad deal. In the next few days we will head west on US 2 into Washington. 
But for now we are and living life as we know it, and doing it our way, whatever that may be. 

Much more in later posts as we unwind and explore the area on Tuesday. Early picture as I'm at the picnic table using the netbook WiFi connected to the satellite D3 controller to make sure we can get a sig. out before we deploy the slides. All was fine and DirecTV as well. so we then went to Wal*Mart and getting our bearings to the area. 

We drove through a COE campground (after we had unhooked at the RV park on our way back up to Sandpoint and you could hardly get a pop-up in there. What a disaster. Those site have never seen the sun and none have a view of the lake.  Why pople go there is beyond me. The tiny sites were over used and all dirt and with rain would be just mud.  Me thinks that leaves the great campsites out there for the rest of us who take the time to explore to find them. More later.....  Time for a long hot shower  I screwed up while writing this as Terry jumped in the shower first. I'm having a Gin and Tonic or now several, while I do this. Might be why I started out just saying we have landed and now have gone on and on. 
Did  I say we have full hookups here. I asked for E/W only and they said they charged to dump when we leave so the price was lower if you just take a full hookup site. OK works for me as they were very friendly and said when we first pulled in and I asked for a open site for our dish, they said just go find one and come back later. 
There is a produce stand next door and we shall see if they have tomatoes tomorrow.  They were closed when we got back and didn't see them before. 
 
 

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