Repairs were done for the deer damage and we left Chilliwack on July 6, 1988. It was nine weeks later on September 12 that we pulled into California at Crescent City after a trip down the Oregon Coast. We liked Washington and Oregon. We were members of several camping clubs. We used them a lot for low or free camping rates. We belonged to TT, NACO, and CCC. TT was started in Washington State by a motorcycle club. There were five or six camps in Washington and 30 or so nationwide. TT was a promotional outfit that counted on later members paying up to $10,000 for a membership. Sort of a ponzi scheme. It later fell on hard times but it was good in those days. We bought our membership second hand for $3000.
From Chilliwack we drove to the TT park at Birch Bay. 49 miles. Birch Bay is famous because Loretta Lynn lived there in the fifties. You know the girl from Butcher Hollow? Then down the highway to Mount Vernon. 42 miles. This TT park was a quiet secluded spot north of the city of Mount Vernon. Now you almost drive through the parking lot of a huge casino to get to the entrance gate to the park. A different place. In a few days we moved to the LaConner TT park. It is only 24 miles from the Mount Vernon TT park.
This was our first visit to the TT park at LaConner, WA.
LaConner is on a canal. Mount Baker in the background.
Skagit Flats tulip fields in LaConner,
We stayed for the free two weeks and enjoyed it so much that we went back 16 or more times. We stayed some 120 days. I even worked for TT for a couple of weeks. I helped frame a building. I had learned a little about rough carpentry helping build a coop in Chimacum. I worked on a 30 by 60 foot building from poring the slab to installing the roof joists. Working hard for 8 hours straight was tough. I quit after two weeks. At the coop I could sit down when I wanted to and work at a more leisurely pace. But I am getting ahead of my story.
The Escapee Coop RV Park in Chimacum at this time was only a thought in the minds of several hundred Escapee members. They were having an organizational meeting in Chimacum early in August. We moved over to a NACO Park in Discovery Bay so that we could attend the meeting and see the land where they were going to build. We were enthralled with the idea. The coop was to occupy a large portion of our lives for 20 plus years.
It was a ferry boat ride and 59 miles to the Discovery Bay park. The park was about 20 miles from Chimacum.
The ferry boat ride was from Whidby Island to Port Townsend (Port Townsend is 8 miles from Chimacum). A ferry boat ride that we were to take many times in the future.
The County Courthouse in Port Townsend. The structure in front that looks like a lighthouse is really somebody's home. They built it that way. Cute, huh? We watched it getting built.
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