While everything else seems to be getting more and more expensive, at least camping is still reasonable!

We visited Russ Dean Family RV over the weekend as part of their On-Site Sale, and found some RV’s that are nicer than some apartments we’ve had! (Of course, working in radio that’s not saying much…!)

But year after year, while auto, gas, home and other prices continue to climb,  the price of campers, trailers and other RV’s stay rather reasonable.   Like many of us, if you’re a family of 3, or four or five people -or even more – you can still find a quality trailer or RV for not that much.  Especially for families, the RV industry has not really seen the price hikes many other forms of entertainment have.

Check out these pictures of some of the units we looked at while broadcasting live.  Most of these could be had for anywhere from $197 to $250 a month.   If you’ve got the itch to get back to nature, go camping, or just have some fun, go see the folks at Russ Dean Family RV in the Pasco Autoplex.  You’ll be surprised!  Even the smaller units have what are called “slide-outs” which increase the width and room of the unit by dozens of square feet.

And if you’re worried about “roughing it” away from TV,  most of them come with flat-screen TV’s, stereo systems, many have built-in central HVAC, and as for the TV, you can have them outfitted with a satellite dish.  Hmmm…NFL Sunday ticket while camping?

After nearly a two-decade absence,   BMW fans can now enjoy a local dealership again.

The Official Grand Opening Gala for the “new” BMW dealership in Tri-Cities was held Thursday afternoon, and it was quite the event!

BMW of Tri-Cities has been open for a little while, but the official grand opening showcased what is a first for the U.S.    Tim Bush, long-time Tri-City auto sales veteran, now has the first of what will be the brand new showroom style for all BMW dealerships in the United States.

Often referred to as the “jewelry box”,  the new look will be implemented across the country.     After leaving Tri-Cities in the early 1980′s for Yakima,  Tim brought the BMW dealership back to the Mid-Columbia to it’s new location just of the By-Pass Highway in Richland.   From his start over 3 decades ago with Tim Bush Motors off Jadwin in Richland, through several successful car franchises and dealerships, now Tim’s excited to have BMW back here in the Mid-Columbia.

Blake Bush, one of his business partners, told us Tri-Cities is the FIRST U.S. dealership to implement the new look-showrooms that BMW is building or refurbishing.   The service department can also service any make and model, and BMW plans to offer nearly 90 different vehicle models over the next few years.   This will include the new I-Brand electric vehicles coming soon!

The grand opening even featured a very rare appearance by the brand new 2014 335-I model,  which is not even available yet!   Blake told us it will be commercially available later this year, and BMW of Tri-Cities will be one of the first to get it!

The dealership also carries a full line of BMW gear, from clothing, to childrens riding toys, even bicycles and tents to go with your SAV!    If you see a BMW offering on TV, it will be, or will be coming soon, to BMW of Tri-Cities.

And, coming in August,  Blake said BMW of Tri-Cities will be holding the “Ultimate Driving Event,” where comparable competing vehicles will be brought in, and drivers will get a chance to drive them and compare to all the BMW models.   It’s just like the compare-and-drive commercials you’ve probably seen on TV.  You’ll get to take the wheel, and see why BMW truly is the Ultimate Driving Machine.

The dealership is open Monday through Saturday from 9-7,  service Monday-Friday 8-6 and Saturdays 8-5.    For more details call 943-9839, or better yet, see them on Aaron Drive just off the By-Pass Highway in Richland.

And keep watching our website and listening for details coming about the Ultimate Driving Event coming in August.

BMW also calls their sport vehicles SAV’s instead of SUV, because Blake says, they prefer “Sport Activity Vehicle”.   “BMW likes people to be active, and so do we!”    From the best-selling X-3 and X-5 models, to the latest SAV’s everything BMW makes can be found at BMW of Tri-Cities.

With the help of 5-year old Harley, our “model”, take a look at photos of the new dealership, and the Grand Opening gala.

I’d heard about it, now I’ve been amazed by it!

Not only are we celebrating your birthday if you’re a VIP by giving you one of the new Wendy’s Frosty Cones (A frosty wrapped in waffle cone coating!), but we invite you to see a truly one-of-a-kind soda machine.

Already in place at the store on Canal Drive in Kennewick, and in Pasco, and coming to other locations in the Columbia Basin, this soda machine is space-age!

Literally designed and built by the Ferrari car company, this machine offers 144 different drink combinations.   It has a touch screen displaying icons of dozens of beverages, from Coke, to Root Beer, from Powerade to Mello Yello.

You tap your selection, then it pulls up a sub-menu with the different flavors of that beverage!  I didn’t know until last evening that Mello Yellow comes in orange, grape, and other flavors!   There were varieties of popular soft drinks I never knew existed!

You can mix and match, and if you were to use every available beverage dispensed from the machine, you could choose from 144 drinks! We went there after my son Dhylan’s baseball game, and it literally took him 10 minutes to figure out what combinations of soda he wanted to mix together!

Go see the new machine at the Canal Drive Wendy’s and while you’re there, try one of the new Frosty Cones for a treat!     The Ferrari of soda machines – truly amazing technology.  Check out these photos.

I was on my way to Hermiston Saturday afternoon when I saw the smoke.

Heading to the Hermiston Super Oval for the Saturday night races, we came across the large brush fire on Interstate 82 south of Kennewick. About 90 minutes earlier, a mini-van caught fire from unknown causes.  The unidentified woman driver and three dogs in the vehicle escaped, but the fire triggered a 150-acre fire that took hours to bring under control.

The smoke was easily visible from Kennewick and across the river in Hermiston, It was finally extinguished around 5 p.m. My wife Angela snapped these pictures as we rolled past. The fire in one area was burning right up to the edge of the road and in some places appeared to have scored the newly-oiled shoulder!

Fire officials say hotter-than-usual weather over much of the last week has created drier than normal conditions. Northwest fire officials say this summer could be a busy fire season due to temperatures, weather and dry conditions.

Jennifer is our latest winner!

Each week we randomly choose a winner to receive a pair of tickets to an upcoming game at the Toyota Center. 

This contest will run all (regular) season long and each weekly winner will be put into a drawing for a chance to win playoff tickets next spring (for home games only). We will add your photos to our slide show and let everyone know you’re an Americans fan!

We are on a quest to find the coolest murals in Tri-Cities. If you know of a awesome mural in town let us know where they are in the survey below.

I’ve been nostalgic for my childhood lately and was remembering the way youth soccer used to be in Tri-Cities. My kids are too young to play now, so I can’t compare and contrast, but here are my favorite things about the way things used to be:

• The Patches – every year you played you received that year’s patch. Each year was colored and designed a little differently. You sewed them onto your white shorts like Boy/Girl Scout badges.
• The Uniforms – everyone wore white shorts. Your socks and shirt were for your city. Green was Kennewick, Red was Richland, Blue was Pasco, Light Blue was West Richland. If two teams from the same city played each other, the shirts were reversible. Kennewick and Richland were yellow inside. Pasco and West Richland were white.
• The Cheer Squad – every team had a team mom who created a large felt banner for displaying at the games. The banner depicted your team name and a picture of your mascot. The banners varied in quality, but they were all beautiful pieces of art.
• No Sunday Games – I know this was hard on Jewish and 7th Day Adventist kids, but it was so nice to play sports and not compromise your sabbath.
• The Names – kids would choose their team name when the team was first organized, but then the name stuck for the life of the team. Kids were usually grouped by neighborhood, so as long as you lived in the same area you were on the same team. That meant each year the team rosters were pretty much the same and it felt like a professional league. I started on Lightening in Richland, then went to Nighthawks in Kennewick until I finished by “career” with the Tigers. I was temporarily with the Ghostballs.
• Coaching – every year coaches went to special training to lead skill development. Teams usually practiced twice a week. Kids really developed a strong relationship with the coaches and their teammates. Everyone developed their skills because they had good instruction and practice.
• Competitive teams didn’t start until you were a teen – it seems like today anyone with talent is snatched up by a competitive league that requires dozens of hours of practice each week (and almost year-round). The cost is hundreds of dollars. Traveling long distances is required. The stress on kids and parents is ridiculous. If a kid doesn’t show talent (maybe because he/she has never had a good coach) they’re stuck on a free-for-all team where kids basically show up once a week and kick a ball around. This isn’t true of everywhere, of course, but it’s a growing trend in American soccer.

Do you have any old photos of the jerseys or the team banners? We’d love to share them on the website. Email to andrewkirk@townsquaremedia.com.

Meth labs in trailers and mobile homes is nothing new. But a semi truck?

Oregon State Police are investigating after officials responded to a report of a hit-and-run and reckless driving complaint on Highway 20 west of Burns, OR (about 260 miles south of Tri-Cities).

Police detained a semi-truck driven by 46-year-old Steven Allen Smith and 39-year-old Renee Golding — both from Jacksonville, Arkansas.

During the traffic stop, police determined there was a small, dismantled meth lab inside the truck! The lab could be quickly assembled for cooking the drug, then rapidly taken apart.

Oregon officials believe this is the first ever such discovery of a mobile meth lab inside a commercial vehicle. Smith and Golding were booked in the Harney County jail on a variety of charges. The vehicle was towed to a secure facility where a haz-mat team inspected, dismantled and decontaminated the facility.

The charter bus was out of British Columbia, heading there from Las Vegas.

Early Sunday, shortly after 10:30am, emergency crews from nearly 15 different agencies responded to the report of a crash involving a charter bus that rolled down a hill near Cabbage Hill not far from Pendleton on I-84.

The bus was carrying at least 40 passengers,  and apparently slid on the icy road, broke the guardrail, and rolled down a steep embankment several hundred feet.  Sadly, 9 people are confirmed dead, with at least 26 injured and in hospitals around the Northwest.

Authorities still have not released names, pending notification of relatives for bot the deceased and injured.  We have some photographs of the incident.  It perhaps serves as a reminder to drive extra carefully, and maybe even delay travel until conditions improve.  The Oregon roads were hit much harder than most of ours in the Columbia Basin.

This story even made national news on Fox, CNN and other sources.

(All photos courtesy Oregon State Patrol-Oregon State Department of Transportation)

Thanks to all of you for submitting your pictures from the event earlier this month. If you haven’t already, upload your pictures and check out the entire listener gallery!

Once again, our listeners have come through for the children!

Christmas for Children, the foster child toy and gift drive staged by Lutheran Social Services of the Tri-Cities, received tremendous support from people all over the area.  Especially last Saturday at Kennewick Ranch and Home.

Hundreds of toys were dropped off as well as numerous donations that will be used to brighten Christmas for a boy or girl.   Several thousand foster children ages 1 to 18 live in our area, and Christmas for Children’s goal is to see they each get at least one wonderful gift.   Judging from these pictures which were taken Saturday, that is going to happen.

These toys will be added to the numerous others that were gathered from drop-off locations at these great sponsors:

• UPS Stores Washington Plaza Richland, and Kennewick Plaza
• Lukes Carpet and Design Center on Gage in Kennewick
• Affordable Auto Liquidators on Clearwater
• Delta Heating and Air Conditioning Wellsian Way, Richland
• Cobalt Mortgage, Quinalt Ave Kennewick
• Washington Hardware and Furniture, Downtown Kennewick
• Gamache Landscaping and Nursery Columbia Park Trail
• Beavers Furniture Kennewick
• Copper Ridge Apartments Kennewick
• Rad Cab Taxi Service on Columbia Drive Kennewick.

Thanks as well from Newstalk 870 and our feature sponsor Ranch and Home!  Here are pictures of your generosity!

Monday of this week the fog that was supposed to burn off did not, leaving us with some pretty amazing light displays.During the holidays even traffic can look like Christmas lights in fog. We snapped these pictures during our evening travels around Kennewick. Check out the one that makes the traffic lights look like a face with red eyes and mouth!

It’s always one of the best spectacles in sports!Thursday night the Tri-City Americans staged their 11th annual Teddy Bear Toss  with Fred Meyer as the Ams took on Seattle.

While the game didn’t go as planned (the Americans lost a 4-2 lead and fell 8-4), it was a great night for the charities of the Columbia Basin. The 4,100-plus fans provided well over 2,600 stuffed animals that were tossed out when the Americans scored late in the first period.

The toys will be delivered to charities in our area bringing joy to little boys and girls. Thanks to ALL the fans from Fred Meyer, the Tri-City Americans and Newstalk 870.

Be sure to check out the upcoming Americans games against Portland on Sunday, Dec. 9,  against Everett on Dec. 11, and Portland on Dec. 28.

To celebrate Father’s Day we’re asking you to share a picture of dad along with a great quote from him. Above is what we’ve received so far plus a few from our office. On June 13 we’ll open voting and the picture/quote with the most votes by midnight on June 17 will win a new tent and grill. Regular contest rules apply.

We compiled some famous Dad quotes below:

Newstalk 870 and the Tri City Americans are looking for their ‘biggest’ fans!  And it could get you richly rewarded!

Just send us a picture of yourself at an Americans game at the Toyota Center, or a pic of you in your most creative Americans outfit, and you’re in the drawing. Each week, we will select a winner. They will receive a pair of tix for an upcoming game, AND (it gets even better), all winners go into the season-ending drawing to receive a pair of tix to every Americans playoff game (as far into the playoffs as they go)! All tix, including playoff games, are for Toyota Center games only. Send us your picture and you could win BIG with Newstalk 870 and the Americans.

According to a survey done by the Wall Street Journal, WSU has the ugliest football uniforms in the Pac-10.

Why? According to several graphic designers, the font, or style, of the numbers on the front and back of the jerseys.  The artists said WSU’s current look is ‘retro’ but the numbers are trying to be modern. Conversely, the Wall Street survey voted Oregon’s the best looking.  The Ducks, with their 17 kajillion different uniform combinations courtesy of the deep pockets of Nike, started the current rave of  uniform looks across the country.

Other schools making the ugly list included UCLA, Clemson and Baylor(!).  Rather interesting, because UCLA and Baylor are relatively unchanged over the decades. Another interesting note, an online poll at Northwest Cable News shows while the Cougars AND Huskies at 2nd and 3rd on the ugly list, 39% of the votes (more than  2-1 margin) felt Oregon’s were the worst. But you must consider, NWCN is a west side based media outfit, and no doubt a lot of the uniform votes were more directed at people who are not Duck fans, as opposed to perhaps their view on the uniform.

With all due respect to our friends in Oregon,  sometimes the Duck’s unis resemble the creations of an artist recovering from mixing alcohol and prescription medication. Our choice for best? Alabama and Penn State. When you’re THAT good for THAT long, it doesn’t matter what your uniform looks like…you just crush everyone. We have included some images of UCLA, Penn State, Alabama, and what WE think is the ugliest uniform, the ‘new’ look of the University of Maryland.

As of Tuesday, 118 people were reported killed by the twister, and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said he expected that number to rise as more bodies are uncovered from the rubble.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency reported that about 2,000 structures were destroyed by the tornado. Below are images of the widespread devastation.

[CNN]