There's no place like home (heels clicking), there's no place like home!

It was inevitable.  In fact, we expected it.  Yesterday, a 42 foot Class A motor home (i.e., bus) moved into the space next to us.  Now ordinarily, they would have been welcome as the buds in May, BUT they stole our view of the river!! Rude, I say, rude, rude, rude!

Actually, when we made the reservation to stay here, I asked for one of the view sites, but our favorites (#1-10) were all reserved already. The host offered me site #75, because it is closer to the river than all but one other. I quipped, "I hope you don't have a 45 footer scheduled into #76."  He told me that a 40 footer would be there for 2 days. So, I agreed to take it. 

When the very nice folks from Montana arrived yesterday, Ken (the owner) apologized for taking our view.  I told him I was expecting him, and that since he was only there for two days, I would forgive him.  But then he told me that he had just made the reservation the day before.  There had been no place for him to stay for a week, until "guess who" cancelled.

So, we are suffering mightily ;-) due to lack of view. 

Our original plan was to stay here for five to seven days and then move on to another park, as yet to be determined.  I looked on the internet for  a nice park near Mossyrock, WA.  Some RVing friends have raved about the area, but we have never made it there.  So, today, since Topper is standing on her own four feet, we took Silvie and headed for Mossyrock, about 45 miles up the road, to scope it out. Here are our findings:

1. Seaquest State Park:  a beautiful park with 16 full hookup (electricity, water, sewer) campsites, all of which are arranged like a parking lot and as of today surrounded by mud. Lots of hiking trails and a beautiful wooded park.
2. Silver Lake Motel and RV park: a very tired motel with, perhaps 8 RV sites, which appear to be just a matter of parking on the lawn. I couldn't tell what they had for conveniences.  In their favor, there is lake frontage with a dock and boats for rent. Overall, the "feel" of the place was what might come to mind if you learned we were living in a "trailer park."
3. Silver Cove "An upscale RV Resort": The facilities are nice enough, and the park is well maintained.  It is fairly new, built on a series of canals that were apparently dug in order to offer waterfront RV sites to most of the guests. As we looked around, we were impressed by how unimpressed we were and with the fact that there appeared to be no activities available except walking around the park. 

In a desperate endeavor to do better, I turned down S. Silver Lake Rd.  It sounds promising, no? We drove up and up, ever higher into the mountains until, at last, we came to a T.  To the left was a dead end road (in 1 1/2 miles) that headed downhill toward what I guessed might be the lake.  We drove for what felt like 3 or 4 miles and came to the end of the county road, although the pavement continued. At the end of the county road, there is a little turnout. 

We pulled into the turnout and decided to enjoy our picnic lunch. After all, the scenery was pretty enough, and we had long since despaired of finding the perfect RV park on Silver Lake.  While we were eating, we noticed some blackberry bushes.  That was all it took. Jill was out of the truck and filling her sandwich bag with blackberries.  I wasn't far behind, and after a very few minutes, we had a couple of cups of berries; enough for dessert tonight.

It seemed like a good time to head for home.  When we returned to the T, where we had gone to the end of the county road, we continued on what became Headquarters Road.  The drive was spectacular, and in a short time, we found ourselves back at I-5.  I turned the truck onto the freeway and we came back to Woodland. After a quick stop at Wally World for some ears of corn and some pork spare ribs for dinner, we made our way back to site #75, Columbia River Front RV Park.

I went up to the office and asked if, perchance, they had a space available in the view sites beginning on Wednesday.  Bingo! Wednesday, we will be moving to site #5, where we can park Topper with an unobstructed view of the river.  So, we won't be staying in the Silver Lake area; at least not on this trip.