Moved a Few Hours North to Twisp, WA

Posted from near Concrete, WA

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Winthrop, WA
Hiking near Twisp, WA

We moved 118 miles north from Quincy to Twisp, WA on July 19th. We made reservations to stay at Riverbend RV Park back in early April. As it turns out, that was a good idea.  Since we had never been to this area before, we had no idea that a large outdoor event named the Winthrop Rhythm and Blues Festival was to be held this weekend. Our campground was only located 8 miles south of the festival and all of the surrounding camping spots were full.

Riverbend RV Park was a very nice, laid back type of place. It's located right alongside the Methow River. We had a pull thru site with FHUs and the sites are very large. We could have easily parked another towed vehicle behind our Honda Fit. The trees are large and tall in the campground and although great for providing shade, not so great for satellite reception. We were never able to use either our permanently mounted antenna atop the rig nor the portable unit we carry with us for just these types of times.  We were able to pick up a few OTA stations out of Spokane, so all was not lost. Oh well, a few days without television is really not a bad thing.

Aside from the beautiful scenery in the area, we were very much looking forward to meeting up with our very good friends Bill and Debi. They reside on the western side of the mountains and made the 5 hour drive to camp with us (actually beside us) for the week. Both Bill and Debi are our pickleball partners during the winter in Arizona and we have come to regard them as close friends. On this trip, however, we were "using them" for their knowledge of the area! (Debi is very familiar with Mt. Baker and pointed it out to us on several occasions during the week. Sorry, Debi, but I couldn't resist that one.)

On our first sightseeing trip we traveled a few miles up the road to Winthrop. Winthrop is a cute, small town with a western theme. Certainly worth a trip to visit for part of a day. Bill also discovered that Winthrop has a place to play pickleball. They convert a skating/hockey rink into 6 pickleball courts during the summer months. We played a couple of times during the week from 8-11 AM. There was usually a group of 20-30 players present with a variety of skill levels.

There was a pedestrian bridge located along a trail very near the pickleball courts and you could walk into the center of Winthrop. The Methow River flows beside the town.

I mentioned earlier that Winthrop has a western theme. I'm not sure whether these folks would qualify as "cowboys and cowgirls", but we were having fun nonetheless.

Ok, I'd better show the "other" picture, so that Bill and Debi won't think I'm making fun of them.

Bill has hunted in this area for many years and was kind enough to show us some of the "trails" in the area which our Honda Fit would never have been able to get to. The area is very green and wooded, quite a contrast to the area we just left around Quincy.

Lunch time along a Forest Service Road in the mountains.

The happy group!

Before heading back to our campground for the day, we drove up to Sun Mountain Lodge near Winthrop.

The views from this mountain top lodge were beautiful.













I'll stop at this point so as to not make this entry too long. In the next blog, we'll visit the North Cascade Smokejumpers Base and take a tour of Lake Chelan via boat.



As always, thanks for stopping by to take a look!