Day 15 – During our stay at Uncle Jim’s he took us to the local airstrip to show us his really sweet plane! I personally don’t know much about aircrafts; but the sleek shape and profile of the plane along with its complex instrument cluster was very impressive.
We spent that day trying to dig into getting as much done on the Ohana as possible. Laura did start the day adding a few more plants to our rooftop planter from Janet’s garden. She popped in some parsley and a tomato plant! She left one of the fairy doors that she had made with our niece Isis inside the greenhouse.
At that point we said our Goodbyes, Thank Yous, and Hugs to Janet as she headed off to her other home.
As for Ohana projects; I began bouncing all over the place.
I began by installing the new hot water heater user control panel we had shipped down to my Uncles. A short while later we had hot water again- and Laura immediately did a load of dishes!
During our hunt for the wire a few days before, I had noticed a leak at the rear differential. I evaluated it again this day, and decided to schedule it with a shop. Our friend Eli that we would be meeting up with in Vancouver had recommended a shop called Gaynor’s Automotive; so I called and scheduled an appointment for that Thursday morning.
We had been getting a code on our OBD scanner that the rear O2 sensor on our exhaust needed checked. I went by the local O’Reilly Autoparts store and talked it over with the clerk and decided I would try and get a new wire harness piece for it where it had gotten melted a year before. Since it was not immediately pressing, I decided I would comb some scrap yards along our travels for the part.
We began tracking our running light / taillight issue, and I climbed up to inspect the front camper running lights. In the center fixture I found it melted- bingo! The ironic part is I was two fixtures from finding this while inspecting them in Dawson Creek when I had been interrupted when we got to meet our new overlanding friends. 🤦♂️
I clipped the connections running through the camper to the top front running lights, and when I wired it all back together all of the rest of our lights were working properly. I could work on fixing the front wiring later for the camper lights, but in the mean time we had everything else to operate as we needed to in the dark again!
After hunting down and obtaining a bolt I was missing, I was able to install the new AC discharge hose we had ordered ahead of time to my Uncle Jim’s. While I was at O’Reillys I found out that they do not sell AC coolant down here due to new regulations, and we would have to schedule it at a shop to have it filled. Luckily I already had an appointment.
That evening Uncle Jim spoiled us with a lovely dinner at a Mexican Restaurant. After such great food Laura and I walked off the meal along his beach, where we spent awhile practicing skipping stones. It turns out half oyster shells skip really well too!
Day 16- The next morning we awoke to the water heater control not working again… 🤬 After hunting it for a bit I decided it would have to wait.
We finished filling up and unhooking the Ohana from the RV pad for our travels. Then we gave our hugs, love, and thanks to Uncle Jim for such an amazing time. Before we knew it we were back on the road cruising to Tumwater Falls.
At Tumwater Falls we met Laura’s childhood friend Joe Grumbo- who gave us an amazing tour of the park. Kindly sharing his knowledge of the area as well as some good laughs as we wandered the beautiful falls.
The falls are a hatchery in which they have set up with pathways the salmon can easily travel back up the river through. From beautiful and lush plant life, roaring falls, and surrounding breweries it was a small little paradise right in the middle of the city. I took a few photos of the informational plaques; so feel free to pause the slideshow if you want to read a bit more about the park.
Sadly our time with Joe was short- but he came across as a really thoughtful and kind person. Hopefully we will get to meet up with him again sooner than later in our futures!
We then headed down towards Mount St. Helens to the Ape Caves. We saw our 2nd Toyota Motorhome on our whole trip so far along the way! We had seen only one other on the Canada side of the Alcan after we crossed the border.
We arrived at the caves where we met up with my good friend from high school Eli Imhoff. The Ape Caves are the third largest lava tube in North America, and I was pretty stoked to get to share this moment with not only Laura but Eli as well!
We arrived slightly later in the day and there was no park attendants so we left our pass in the window of The Ohana. At the beginning of the pathway to the caves there were boot cleaners to keep our feet clean as not to disrupt the environment for the bats in the area.
There are two different ways you can hike the Ape Caves, one is difficult and the others is an easy route. As we descended down into the first entrance we asked somebody coming out of the cave and they told us the more difficult entrance was further down the path. So we hiked the mile and a half further down and eventually found the second entrance.
I took a picture of my traveling companions before we entered for two reasons;
(1) Being that it was a moment to remember. 💖
(2) To see if they would still be smiling this much when we exited the caves on the other end. 😆
So without further delay we descended down the steep ladder into the far entrance of the Ape Caves. We were immediately greeted with the cave going off in both directions. Since we were not sure which way we should head we decided it would be safest to take the direction that was oriented back towards where we had come from on the path.
We explored the dark, damp halls with slivers of light shining down at the beginning. Eventually we descended into pure darkness. The caves seemed to go on and on winding endlessly through the earth. At times we found large rock buildups that we had to climb a crossed, around, and through, making us navigate some very sharp and uneven terrain. At two points we had to work together to go down some pretty tall drops. It turned out we had entered at the exit of the caves so we were taking the tour backwards, so these drops to us would normally be climbs for people traveling from the first entrance. Our trek would have been way more difficult of a go if we had gone the right way, forcing us to climb up these drops.
We had gotten lucky by mistake!
This is the second time I’d ever been in a cave, and it was pretty neat that this was a completely unguided tour so we got to explore this space all on our own. After over an hour of navigating the dark we came across the steps that went up to the first entrance we had dipped our toes into at the beginning.
But we had come all the way out to the caves and we wanted to see everything we could. We voted to go until we came out the exit for the easy side so we continued on. The easy side of the cave was quite a bit more level and much larger than the difficult side; with areas being large enough to fit a train inside of. After we traveled for the 3/4 of a mile we came to an abrupt shortening in the caves. A little puzzled but with only one way to go we belly crawled our way through the tightest spots along the floor through the water and mud. I led the way and finally emerged out of the tight crawl space to where I could at least crouch again. I headed a few steps forward ahead of the group to preview our path to find… A small conical cave wall!
That’s right, this cave at this end had no exit. So I gave the group the bad news that we had to crawl back through the tunnels to get back out to the open area. We begrudgingly belly crawled our back through the tight, wet, and grimy tunnel to where we could stand up again , and then hustled our way back to the stairs.
I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking but the caves were pretty amazing!
When we emerged I snapped another picture and lo and behold everybody was still smiling! When we reached the path at the top, the warmth and humidity blasted us, and after the colds of the caves it was greatly appreciated.
We wandered back down to our vehicles in the parking area and snarfed down some food since we had packed none in the caves. After a little bit we headed back on down the mountain to Eli’s house for the night.
Overall, the caves was a unique and amazing experience; and an adventure! Maybe they just need to put up better signs for new travelers like us. 😁
Geoff Murphy 6/18/2022