Our Weekend Desert Adventure in Moses Lake

This last weekend we decided to escape all the rain and gloom and head east of the mountains to the sunshine. We headed over to Eastern Washington to visit my friend in the desert town of Moses Lake (Yes, we have lush mountains, coast beaches and desert within a few hours of each other in our state).

Getting over there was definitely an adventure. It was snowing heavily in the mountain passes and they closed the highway down for a while due to vehicle spinouts. We took the opportunity to stop at the store at the last town before the closure and grab a bite to eat. By the time we were done, the road was open again.

As we headed over the pass, we passed a lot of cars chaining up in the rain and a few that were stuck. The highway is normally three to four lanes wide but those brave enough to drive over the pass slowed to about 35 mph and drove in one lane in the middle of the highway.

I am used to driving in the snow so it wasn’t that big of deal. There wasn’t even much snow on the road by my standards but I think they plowed it really good while it was closed. We weren’t willing to risk our lives to pass anyone though so it took us a long time to drive over the mountain.

We got into Moses Lake about an hour and a half later than we planned and checked into our pet-friendly hotel – the dog-friendly Super 8 Moses Lake.

It was pretty craptastic but the staff was friendly, it was affordable, it had a bed, the shower was hot and the TV worked. What more could you ask for right?

The next morning we got up, went for a little sand-dune hike and drove to my friend’s house.

Chester used to play with my friend’s kitties when he was younger but hasn’t been around kitties for a while. The few times he has been around them he wanted to chase them. I figured I would break the ice and lay down the ground rules as soon as we got there so I showed him her most dog-tolerant kitty.

To my shock he grabbed kitty and pulled out a little tuft of fir. I would say that wasn’t funny except that kitty didn’t even notice. When Chester pulled on his fur, it swayed the kitty a bit but it didn’t even look in his direction so see what was going on. Chester got a good scolding and after about an hour he started leaving kitty alone. Gretel, as usual, wasn’t even fazed by kitty.

She owns and breeds pit bulls so she has about 6 of them (I start to lose count). Two are nutso around little dogs but the rest are ok so she brought them in the house. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of Chester and Gretel with the big dogs but here are photos of two of her dogs.

We had a nice dinner that night and sat around snuggling with the dogs and cats on the couch and watching movies.

The next day we headed home. We stopped briefly in Vantage, at the Columbia River gorge to go to the Ginko Petrified Forest Visitor Center (which ended up being closed closed). We wandered around the grounds for a bit and enjoyed the view. We got home in the early evening.