Casino Camping at Tulalip

We left our comfortable full-hook-up site at Lake Pleasant RV and headed north to see a new part of Washington. We'll be casino-camping for the next three nights, and we were blessed with the perfect weather for that. Hanging out in a casino parking lot with no hook-ups is a great way to keep camping costs down. And winning some extra cash on the casino's free play money is another bonus.

We are now at Tulalip Casino in Marysville. This town is known as Washington's "Strawberry City," so we went out in search of the freshest berries.

They don't come any fresher than the ones that are still on the vine! We couldn't believe how many strawberries there were. Biringer Farms opened their U-pick farm the day before we visited. Even with the weekend crowds, there were berries everywhere. Most people were buying ten pounds or more. But we don't have the room to freeze any right now, so ours was the smallest purchase we saw today.

We had strawberry crepes as soon as we got them home. Unlike the berries we are used to buying at the grocery store, these are red all the way through to the center. They would make delicious strawberry freezer jam!

Biringer farms also had many rows of marionberries, boysenberries, raspberries . . . These bushes won't be ripe for a couple more weeks, but they are loaded as well.

While in Marysville, we shopped for other things besides berries. You might remember that Denisa's bike gave out at Cape Disappointment several weeks ago. We finally made the replacement purchase this day.

Considering that our bikes are subjected to the weather and road grime from riding on the back of our car every day, we have decided against buying expensive bikes. We also don't want to tempt anyone to steal them. So we bought Denisa's new bike at Walmart.

We took it out for its maiden voyage on the bike path that actually starts at the casino parking lot. After years of dealing with old brakes and gears, it's nice to have a bicycle where everything works like new!

Our free camping spot at Tulalip Casino parking lot has been great with cool days and nights. By running the generator for an hour or two each day we can charge our batteries that run our refrigerator. We love our residential refrigerator with its big storage and full-size freezer--until we boondock with no electrical hook-ups. 

We had lots of company in our casino parking lot. With two large parking lots available for RV parking, we were surprised that every space filled up on Saturday night. That means that over 50 RVers were parked around us. It looks like we're not the only people that like a little free casino camping.