Ellensburg’s Central Washington University

 

This morning the wind had finally died down, so I was able to go for a bike ride.  I rode under I-90 and along Ellensburg’s Main Street until I was able to cut over to the residential streets.  I rode to Central Washington University, known to locals and students simply as Central.  

Our younger son, Jonathan, graduated from Western Washington University in Bellingham, which is known simply as Western.  There’s also an Eastern Washington University located in Cheney which is near Spokane.  These three are all state schools.  The other two state universities in Washington are University of Washington (UDub) in Seattle and Washington State University (Wazzu) in Pullman.  Our older son, Tim, graduated from the Vancouver, WA, USA campus of WSU (Wazzu). Anyway, I had a good bike ride and rode 8 miles altogether.  I rode up to the football fields, but didn’t see Dave.  I saw the high school football campers, though, as they came clomping back to their dorm rooms in their cleats.  Dave said there were 1200 high school boys participating in this week’s football camp and there’s another football camp beginning this weekend.  Also being held were girls’ volleyball camps and cheerleading camps.

While on the campus, I came upon a Japanese Garden.  It provided a lovely, serene respite in the midst of a busy campus.

 

We looked for seven geocaches in Ellensburg and found only two!  I wonder if all college towns have such tough to find geocaches.  The clues were either too vague for us or there were no clues.  And I picked what looked like the easiest caches!  Many of the geocaches here in Ellensburg had several parts which each had to be solved in order by gathering clues at each cache.  We didn’t attempt to do any of those.  This cache was on campus at the ROTC dorms.  It was a fun, easy find.

Tomorrow morning we head for Alder Lake, a Tacoma Power Park located on the southwest side of Mount Rainier.  Thanks for reading my blog!

Wind Turbines Near Ellensburg

Dave left bright and early this morning at 7 am to attend his football officials camp at Central Washington University in Ellensburg.  A friend picked him up, so I had the car all day.  I discovered that there was a wind turbine visitor’s center nearby.  I am fascinated by the giant wind turbines.  The Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility is located about 16 miles east of Ellensburg, along the Old Vantage Highway.  This museum is run by the Puget Sound Renewable Energy Center.  PSE’s Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility is the largest privately owned wind energy facility in the Northwest.  PSE’s Hopkins Ridge in Dayton, WA, is the second largest.  Together, the Wild Horse and Hopkins Ridge Facilities generate enough energy to serve approximately 100,000 homes.  Set on a ridge above the Kittitas Valley, PSE’s Renewable Energy Center offers up-close views of the wind turbines and solar arrays, as well as the Cascade mountain range.  I saw Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, and a tiny bit of Mount Hood.  Below is a picture looking towards the west at Mount Rainier. Located at 3,500 feet of elevation on Whiskey Dick Mountain, Wild Horse is a place of extreme weather.  Temperatures range from 0 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with maximum recorded wind gusts exceeding 90 miles per hour. This turbine blade looks small in the picture, but up close it’s huge!

The visitor’s center doesn’t charge admission fees and is open to the public from April through November.  It offers Wild Horse visitors a first-hand look at how energy can be made from the wind and the sun, as well as Central Washington’s natural and cultural history. 
An early windmill contrasted with today’s version. Solar panels at the visitor’s center.

Father’s Day in Ellensburg, WA

  
We left home at 9:30 am and arrived in Ellensburg around 2:30 pm.  We are staying at E & J “Resort”.  It’s definitely NOT a resort!  But the sites are paved and we have full-hookups with 50 amp.  We get good Verizon cell coverage, adequate WIFI, and good satellite signal along with our local channels. 
 
 Site 403A at E & J RV Park in Ellensburg

There’s a Days Inn here as well as the RV Park.  The RV Park is close to I-90 so it’s noisy, but not as bad when we are inside the motorhome with the windows closed and the air conditioning on.  A Flying J is located on the west side of the RV park.  Handy for getting gas, but not exactly quiet.  We’ve stayed here several times, though, because it’s convenient to the university. 


The restrooms were modest but clean.

The showers looked adequate.

The laundry room looked fine.  Washers were $1.25.

This was one of two group meeting rooms.

We signed up for 1/2 price camping (Camp Club USA) when we were at the Lewis and Clark park in Astoria.  That trip we saved $22 on the first night.  This trip we’ll save $49.50 during our three night stay.  The card cost $39.95, so we have more than paid for it already. 

It’s not raining here, which is good news.  It was raining when we left home but we ran out of the rain just before we got to Hood River, OR on I-84.  The temperature in Ellensburg is 71 now at 3:45.  It’s cloudy, which makes it cooler.  It’s very windy here but the wind didn’t bother us too much during the drive.

Shortly after arriving in Ellensburg, Dave got calls from both of our sons, Tim and Jonathan.  It’s always good to hear from them!

The following pictures were taken on our drive to Ellensburg.  On Highway 97, just past Maryhill State Park, we saw many wind turbines.  There seem to be more every time we come through this area. 


For a while we saw fields of hay.  We got a better view than usual of Mt. Adams, but I couldn’t get a picture of it.

The scenery changed from rolling hayfields to forest when we entered the Yakima Indian Reservation. Ellensburg in the distance.

Vancouver, BC Trip (2nd post today)

After my rant the other day about the difference between Vancouver, WA, USA, and Vancouver, BC, Canada, now I will confuse everyone even more by posting pictures of Vancouver, BC.  These pictures were taken in March, 2006 when we visited Vancouver BC.  We stayed at Burnaby Cariboo RV Park  while we were there.  We had a great time and look forward to visiting this area again in the future. 

While we were there, we drove up to Whistler on a whim one day and we’re glad we did.  When we watched the winter Olympics this year, we kept looking for the Whistler and Vancouver landmarks. 

 

I am still experimenting with Windows Live, this time with the pictures option.  Bear with me while I am learning this!

Experimenting with Windows Live Writer

Rick wrote in his blog about using the new free Windows Office.  I am attempting to learn to use Windows Live Writer.  I was able to sign in to Windows Live and I was able to get all the programs EXCEPT Live Writer.  With Rick's help, I finally got to this screen.  Now we’ll see if it works!  The idea is to be able to write my blog off-line when I don’t have internet.  The other thing I would like to be able to do is send my blog out in the middle of the night.  I see that there is a publish option at the bottom right corner.  I’ll try that.  It looks like displaying pictures works like I’m used to.  I don’t see how to add color to my hyperlinks so that they stand out better? 

Nostalgia and Wanderlust

I would like to welcome my latest blog followers, Kenny and Angela.  Thanks for following along on my journey! 

We will be at home for one more day and then on Sunday morning we leave for Ellensburg, WA.  Dave is going to be a mentor at a football officials camp held at Central Washington University in Ellensburg.  We'll take the motorhome, of course.  After the camp we'll stay at Alder Lake Park (a Tacoma Power Park) for a couple of nights and visit Mount Rainier National Park while we are there. 

Yesterday I blogged about my current hometown of Vancouver, Washington.  Today I am feeling nostalgic.  I was born in Osage, Iowa, and spent the first 22 years of my life there.  It's a small, rural town in northcentral Iowa and has a population of about 3400.  I poked around the internet and found these pictures.

 

Main Street

This was the public library, an Andrew Carnegie library.  This library started my life-long appreciation of libraries!

Mitchell County Courthouse in Osage

The church I grew up in, Our Savior's Lutheran Church

The fresh-water spring at Spring Park.  We always had to get a drink of the ice-cold spring water when we had picnics here by the Cedar River.

Sugar Creek ran through our farm, which was located on state Highway 9, on the west edge of town. 

Because my dad was a farmer, and we didn't have a hired man to do the chores, and we were poor, I can count on two fingers the number of times our family went on a one-night vacation.  Perhaps that is why I now have a wanderlust that doesn't quit!

Across the Bridge and Back to Vancouver

Vancouver, looking north across the Columbia River.

Vancouver, Washington, that is.  Many people confuse our city with its more famous neighbor to the north, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  If you were to read the Wikipedia article about Vancouver, WA, this is what you would learn:

Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. Incorporated in 1857, it is the fourth largest city in the state with an estimated population of 163,186 as of July 2008. Vancouver is the county seat of Clark County and forms part of the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area, the 23rd-largest metropolitan area in the United States.

Vancouver shares its name with the larger city of Vancouver located 305 miles north in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Both cities were named in honor of sea captain George Vancouver, although the Canadian city was incorporated 29 years after the incorporation of Vancouver, Washington, and more than 60 years after the name Vancouver was first used in reference to the historic Fort Vancouver trading post on the Columbia River.

City officials have periodically suggested changing the US city's name to Fort Vancouver, Vancouver USA, or even Old Vancouver to reduce confusion with its northern neighbor. Many Pacific Northwest residents distinguish between the two cities by referring to the Canadian city as "Vancouver, B.C." and the United States one as "Vancouver, Washington".

When you visit Vancouver, Washington USA, one of the sites to see is Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.  Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading outpost along the Columbia River that served as the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company in the company's Columbia District (which covered the northern half of the region known to Americans as the Oregon Country). Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of the Columbia River in present-day Vancouver, Washington, near Portland, Oregon. Today, a full-scale replica of the fort, with internal buildings, has been constructed and is open to the public as Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.

Okay, enough of the history and geography lessons.  On our way from Astoria, Oregon, back home to Vancouver, Washington, USA, we crossed over the Astoria-Megler bridge.  Many of the bridges in our area are being worked on.  It's summertime, you know, even though we've been wearing jackets and running our heater every day.  The bridge we crossed to get to Astoria was the Lewis and Clark Bridge in Longview, WA.  The roadwork on that bridge made the lanes VERY narrow.  The Astoria bridge is being painted, but it has one lane of traffic open instead of narrow lanes.  Which to choose??  Dave chose to cross the Astoria bridge.  Both bridges cross the mighty Columbia River which divides the states of Oregon and Washington.  (That's Washington state, not Washington D.C., another common mistake!)

Before we cross the Astoria bridge in the background, we have to cross Young's Bay Bridge.  We're traveling north on Highway 101.

That's the Astoria Bridge.  From the left lane, we'll head up to the bridge.

We made it up to the bridge. 

The highest part of the bridge.  This is not a drawbridge, so it has to be high enough to let ships pass underneath.

Starting to descend to the lower part of the bridge.

Continuing to cross the bridge.  It's low tide.

We've reached the area being painted.  This part was covered in plastic.

Finally, it's our turn to go.  Actually, we waited less than five minutes.

Notice this newly painted part of the bridge.  Snazzy!

Safely back in Washington state, USA.