June 14, 2026 Best Western in Nelson, BC to Pearrygin Lake State Park, Winthrop, WA

Deb here again. We woke up to a beautiful morning, warm enough to wear shorts. We had breakfast at Marzano’s, the Italian restaurant that offered a special breakfast deal to Best Western customers.

After breakfast we drove through downtown Nelson and ventured across the bridge to the other side of the lake. What a beautiful location for a town. Nelson has 11,000 residents and I think I could be quite happy living there as well as Osoyoos!

Today’s goal was to get back into the US somewhere near Rt 20. Our route turned out to be spectacular, first traveling down Rt 6 to the border, where there’s a really tiny border crossing. The border agent looked through our van but was really pleasant.

The US side was quite a surprise, with mountains, trees, lakes and rivers. We started on Rt 31, going through Metaline Falls (cute town) and Metaline, then turning onto Rt 20 at Tiger. There was a rest stop there that included the General Store staffed by volunteers, which was really a museum of sorts with tourist info. We had a great talk with the volunteer there and ended up buying a few used kids’ books.

On Rt 20 we made a couple of stops, first at the logging flume historical site, which included a .5 mile walkway explaining the 5 mile stretch of wooden flumes that were built there in the 1920’s. Then on to Coleville (also a cute town), Kettle Falls, across the Columbia River and up over the next segment of 20. This time it was up and over Sherman Pass, which had a nice viewpoint spot near the top with an interpretive walk. 

Then on to Republic and through to Tonasket.  By this time we’d left the lush green forests and had entered a drier landscape with fewer trees.  At this point we got on 97 South and headed to Omak and Okanogan, where we turned off on 20 once again to Twisp and Winthrop. I hadn’t thought we’d make it this far today, but we kept plugging along and before we knew it we were in Twisp.

I’d read that Pearrygin Lake State Park was a good campground, so we headed here (just outside of Winthrop) and found they had lots of available campsites. The ranger gave us a site on the water and although it was 87 degrees when we arrived our max air fans cooled the van off nicely. After a walk around the park we set our chairs up in the shade near the water. I eventually went swimming and it was perfect.

Dinner in the van, blogging, reading and bed.