Ellensburg

On Thursday, we moved to Ellensburg, Washington, location of Central Washington University. Ellensburg is located 130 miles Southeast of Seattle on the East side of the mountain range, so we had to go over the pass and down into the valley which is warmer and drier than the Puget Sound area.

Carole's grandson, Alek, is graduating from CWU and the graduation ceremony is scheduled for Saturday morning. Alek has been attending school and participating in the Air Force ROTC Program, so Saturday evening we will also be attending the Air Force commissioning ceremony.

We checked into a KOA campground, the only RV Park in the area. It is a typical KOA Park except that the interior roads are very narrow and the individual sites are very tight, otherwise the facilities are nice.



The RV Park is located on the Yakima River which we could see from our location. The river was moving fast with lots of water from spring rains and snow melt in the mountains. Our site in the park may have been confining, but the scenic view of the river was really nice.



Late Thursday and on Friday, we had the opportunity to tour the University campus and look around town. The CWU campus is an attractive, modern campus spread over 350 acres near the center of town. The town appears to be a clean, active Western town in cowboy country, but with the common affliction of a lot of small rural towns . . . too many downtown stores empty and for rent.

However, Carole did manage to find an antique store. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) we arrived after the store was closed.


The weather was warm and sunny, unlike the Seattle area and that was a welcome change. However, the wind was blowing and we were told that the wind always blows here. Maybe we'll be lucky and the wind will calm down for this weekend's celebrations.