Road trip 4.1: Okanagan and Colville National Forests, Little Pend Oreille Reserve, Washington

After getting home from Lake Tahoe I went into the hospital to have major surgery on my left shoulder.  I had this surgery six years ago on my right shoulder, and it made the shoulder better than it had been since I was in my mid-20s.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that the recovery is a bear, with very limited use of the shoulder for several months.  

And a road trip isn't like a vacation in a 4-star Hotel.  You need both shoulders a lot. 

The MRI showed a tear in the rotator cuff.  When I awoke from the surgery, guess what?  No tear.  The MRI provided a false positive.  I had impingement syndrome that necessitated a minor surgery that would not require limiting my use of my shoulder.

Since we had already planned our schedule for a long rehabilitation, the results of the surgery meant that we had some free time.  We could sit around the house and relax, or we could HEAD TO THE HILLS!

(guess which we decided).

We went to the Okanagan and the Colville National Forests in Eastern Northern Washington.  At one of the campgrounds there we found out about the Little Pend Oreille Nature Reserve, and so went there for several days.  

We either stayed in "dispersed" sites (meaning boondocking, or dry camping), or in campgrounds that were almost empty.  Just right for us.  We like people, honest, it's just that we like them better when they are not where we are.

Our campsites:

 

 

 
We hiked a lot:

 

  (our camper is in the exact center of the above photo)

 Some of the places we try to go are pretty remote.  Narrow one-lane rocky roads that require 4-wheel drive and high clearance are not unusual.  We also sometimes are too tall for the roads.  In those instances, Vicky has to lift branches off of the top of the camper so I can drive under them.  That adds to the adventure.

Here she is standing on the bed through the top vent lifting branches off so I can drive under them:

To celebrate that I would have a usable shoulder, we bought a kayak!  We had done some kayaking in the Florida Keys, and found it to be a lot of fun.  After doing a lot of research, we realized we wanted an inflatable kayak.  However, we also discovered that to get an inflatable kayak that is more than a glorified floating inner tube, one has to shell out a few bucks.  But if there is anything more true than the adage that you get what you pay for, I don't know what it is.

The one we got is the heaviest of the inflatable kayaks.  It also has some inner skeletons that make it so it stays true when paddled.  We had planned on staying near lakes on this trip so we could try it out.  As (bad) luck would have it, though, the weather was not good enough most of the time.  We did, however, get to try it out once, and it is clearly a good purchase.  We will use it a lot in the future.

Christening the new boat with a glass of wine:

We had a blast on this installment of Roadtrip 4.  On the way home, we caught up with Owen and got to have breakfast with him.  It was great to see him.