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We exited Canada this afternoon and entered Washington State, this was the shortest route out of Canada and I knew a lady from the rv forums years ago who I have on my facebook (when it is active) and she knew we were going to Canada and offered to let us stay at their house if we needed a place to stay. Well she was not far from where we entered so we decided to go visit her and her husband. We did spend the first night at a park in Republic Washington that is by far the nicest park as far as cleanliness. It had all paved sights and neatly manicured grass. Excellent nights stay for pretty cheap compared to what we had been paying. This one was only $29 for the night. The next day we left for Annie and Rods place which was only about 80 miles away in the fairly remote part of the mountains but not so remote there were not any people. Annie I first found on the rv.net forum and followed her escapades as she and her husband traveled around. She posted under the name of Outback Annie and is from Australia, through the years she has visited or lived in 60 different countries and flew airplanes and sailed on boats and all sorts of things including a stint as a radio show host under her assumed name of Outback Annie. She was all that you can imagine with the full blown aussie accent and is crossed with a Greek background in her family. The entire time we spent there she was trying to feed us something. Her stories went on and on of her experiences and we listened and laughed right along with her. Her husband Rod was just as interesting having spent 25 years in the Army and was a Ranger at one point, 8 tours of duty overseas including Vietnam and the Sand box as he called it. Now he spends his time as a long time FAA licensed pilot, inspector and mechanic. Being the only FAA inspector in this area he gets all the work he could want and can pick and choose his jobs. One of his past experiences was working for NASA on multiple projects and some work on the Shuttles.
Their house is situated on a depression of land having been raised and a lower basement/living space placed underneath it. It is surrounded by beautiful high mountains and a creek running along one side and down the back from a nearby lake that feeds the Grand Coulee Dam. The creek which is deceiving in depth flows at a very rapid pace and looks to only be a few inches deep but is not the case, at only about 15 foot wide there are spots over 6 foot deep! The trout are abundant and although all I managed to catch was what they called sardines ranged from 6-8" . All in the flavor of Rainbow and Brook trout. I caught probably a dozen and a half of sardines while Rod managed to catch a half dozen nice sized ones that we had for breakfast the next morning. Annie over fed us beginning the first night with barbecued chicken pork chops and sausages with potatoes and salad followed up by cheese cake and our choice of 4 different flavored ice creams! The next morning it was a souffle with sausages in it more potatoes and juice and coffee with toast. WOW, they the whole cheese cake and ice cream thing began again and reoccurred 8 hours later after fixing more breaded chicken and left over barbecued chicken from the night before. She fed us so much and they were so kind to us and welcomed us back anytime. We camped in their front yard and they told us we could pull down by the creek and camp is we wanted. We spent 2 nights here and decided rather than wear out our welcome we would head off to Missoula Montana to visit our old friends Smokey and Pam.
Another cool thing about this place was the wildlife, they have a feeder that the deer have learned if they come there they will get fed, all they need to hear is the sound of the coffee can and they wait patiently, although you can't get closer than about 20-30 feet they don't run away, they dump the food in the trough an soon as they walk away the deer begin feeding. Really neat experience, bear, beaver and moose are also frequent visitors along with the occasional Eagle but those were void during our visit. Of course I have failed to mention their dog Bear, a 13 year old chow with a real personality. He definitely does not like his picture taken but enjoys the belly rubs and attention. Bear lost his sibling about a year ago which was CoCo but seems to have adjusted although I can't say so much for Annie. :( In the meantime Bear keeps them company. Some day we hope to go back and visit and possibly have them come visit us. Annie got her citizenship last year and is now a proud American/Aussie.
Friday morning we took them to breakfast in the nearest little town and we chatted about the past couple of days and the fun we had. Unfortunately it was time for us to move towards home, Deanna's back is doing better and with the smoother roads that helps. As we all know good things must eventually come to an end so after returning from breakfast and snapping a few photos we exchanged hugs and said our goodbye's. We most definitely enjoyed the time and it was so relaxing and at night we could open the widows and listen to the creek. So for now we move on............
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