Saturday (Jul 2)
Beautiful day here by the river. Practically every group of campers has a collection of water sport boats and boards – mostly wind surfers and sailboards. The Gorge is effing windy most of the time, so wind surfing is a big deal around here – Hood River and The Dalles.
Very nice in the shade in the river valley, but mighty hot in the sun. Might as well get used to the summer heat that will be the theme of the rest of the trip.
Wow, this turned out to be kind of a busy day. It started out mildly annoying because of I had to drive west five miles to get back on the freeway going east. My “running on Empty” light has been on since yesterday afternoon, so stop #1 must be a gas station in The Dalles. My tank took the largest quantity of diesel ever, which I guess means I was as close to running out as I ever have been. That said, I think I still had 2-3 gallons – 50-ish more miles in me. Also, the state-required station attendant did the best job ever of cleaning my windshield! I am pretty thorough about cleaning the driver’s side, but no so much on the passenger side. There are probably bug splats on the from last fall over there :) He got ’em all!
Breakfast in The Dalles was very pleasant. I noticed on Yelp all the restaurants seemed to have wifi. It turns out that Google gives whe whole town wifi, as some kind of pilot project. It was ok wifi too. I look forward to the day when cities stand up to the cable companies and the phone companies and give us all free wifi.
I had picked up a Maryhill Museum of Art flyer back at the rest stop I rested in before Portland. My Dalles waitress said she digs the place, and that I should take the bridge here across the river to Washington and drive up that side. Great Idea!
Even the trip to the bridge was eventful. I passed a big shiny new Les Schwab tire place with not much going on. I turned around and came back to it and asked about the wait. The manager said I could get my tires rotated and be out in 20 minutes! On the Wednesday before the holiday in Portland there were hour waits everywhere, but on the Saturday of the holiday no wait at all in The Dalles … go figure.
The drive along the Washington side of the rive is a whole different experience from that on the Oregon side.
- Oregon side – On a busy interstate at the bottom of the bluffs, almost at water level with the train tracks between you and the river.
- Washington side – On a sleepy two-lane road at the top of the bluffs, spectacular views of the river and the interstate. There’s train tracks over here also, but you’re waaay above them.
Maryhill Museum was quite fun. The centerpiece of the place it the Queen XXX of Roumania room on the main floor. Very interesting. There’s an outdoor op-arty sculpture that I took a couple of videos of.
I crossed back into Oregon and soon left I-84 to head south into the interior. As soon as you leave the river valley you’re in endless high rolling hills that remind me very much of the Palouse in eastern Washington.
Two miles out of Heppner, I was tired of all these hills and curves and anxious to get to my spot for the night. I rolled over a crest of a little hill and there was a large deer just standing in the middle of the road staring at me. For the second time in the six years I’ve been driving this van this I had to slam on the brakes like I meant it to avoid hitting something, and again it responded! Here’s to Les Schwab – 80 miles after the took all the tires off and put them back on, the did their job in an emergency situation!
WHUFU page for: Willow Creek RV Park
The only other time in my life I came through here, I thought this place looked completely inviting as I pressed on past, so here I am four years later checkin' it out!. As soon as the sun goes behind the hill it's going to be awesome for 40 minutes or so. Nothing happening here. Sedate white people with American flags and dogs. There is apparently a path to the lake since some dudes headed off with their fishing poles and came back in a couple of hours.
tonight:
The only other time in my life I came through here, I thought this place looked completely inviting as I pressed on past, so here I am four years later checkin' it out!. As soon as the sun goes behind the hill it's going to be awesome for 40 minutes or so. Nothing happening here. Sedate white people with American flags and dogs. There is apparently a path to the lake since some dudes headed off with their fishing poles and came back in a couple of hours.
When I did to the campground I spent the first half hour shifting everything backwards to it’s former storage spot.
About the only good thing here is the nice view of the reservoir. They put me down on the bottom edge, which is good because it’s away from almost everybody else, but bad because it’s an aerobic walk up the equivalent of seven flights of stairs to get to the fucking bathroom.
Sunday
Beautiful night, but the overheating van woke me up :(
Super pretty driving all day, but as with the other time I drove through here I am really beat by all the curves at the end of the day. The 26 miles extra because I missed a turn didn’t help.
WHUFU page for: Wetmore Campground
Developed yet rustic and primitive, if that makes any sense. It's laid out nicely, but seems terribly underused and under-maintained. There are non-working no water spigots and a "No Water" sign. The fact that the Forest Service charges only $5 tells you what you need to know about the condition of the place.
I however am liking it just fine and am happy to be here!
Yellow Pine Campground is 1/2 away, much bigger and more open, but also underused and under-maintained. Six campers in a 40 site place on Fourth of July
tonight:
Developed yet rustic and primitive, if that makes any sense. It's laid out nicely, but seems terribly underused and under-maintained. There are non-working no water spigots and a "No Water" sign. The fact that the Forest Service charges only $5 tells you what you need to know about the condition of the place.
I however am liking it just fine and am happy to be here!
Yellow Pine Campground is 1/2 away, much bigger and more open, but also underused and under-maintained. Six campers in a 40 site place on Fourth of July
Very odd, twilight zone-ish feel to this campground, like it’s the ruins of a former civilization. The feeling continued on the short hike to the bigger campground nearby. The trail was paved, bounded by long runs of split rail fences that somebody put a lot of work into, yet it was overgrown and clearly underused. Yellow Pine Campground was quite large, but weed-grown and strange. The one dude I talked to said the water was shut off “for testing”, and he thought that if there was water there might be a few more people.
So at some point the Forest Service made this a de-luxe spot, then for whatever reason nobody came… For my part, at $2.50 a night I consider it a find!
Monday – Thursday
Ahh, wake up so gently and pleasantly in the quiet and mottled, shifting green shade. Got back that hour of sleep the beating sun deprived me of yesterday. I do the whole long form, enjoy my perfect privacy until 12:30-ish.
First town up, Unity OR, about ten miles down the road. As always, traveling on a holiday has special challenges,such as all the restaurants being closed on Sunday. So, back to my fallback option of terrible gas station coffee and a muffin. Still no phone bars, Elton must be wondering WTF happened to me.
Another 65 miles down the road I get to Vale OR, what passes for civilization around here. My phone starts chirping – a message from Ed that Kevin Durant is going to the Warriors (woo!), and one from Elton nicely asking WTF? The Startlite in Vale is open, and I had quite a nice time there. Being the only place open in 50 miles, they were busy. Pie seems to be their speciality, but I’m on a breakfast mission. They have wifi! So I was able to get up to speed on Durant news without hitting my phone data usage.
Then a pretty straightforward trip through the heart of Boise to get to Elton’s apartment complex.
Tuesday
Elton is up and gone well before the crack of dawn for his job. I eventually make it to Slow by Slow, his coffee place of choice. The Boise Art Museum is in a nice downtown park next to the Boise River, and I hang out there for a while.
Back to the complex, head down to Elton’s office, the community roomof the complex where the wifi is better. We work and he teaches me a bit about my expensive-ish camera. The Manual ISO setting turns out to be the missing ingredient to my understanding of the thing. Apertures and shutter speeds I get, but ISO is a little sophisticated for me.
I hit the hot tub for a while … because I can. No events of note in Boise tonight, so it’s the pizza place for us. Good pizza, and a nice big pitcher of Scrimshaw, which kicked our butts as we discovered the next morning..
Wednesday
No going out for coffee for me today. I really want have some kind of plan for how far I need to get every day between here and Milwaukee on Tuesday, so I work the French Press and head down to the condo clubhouse where the air is cool and the wifi is sweet. I spend a pretty hard four hours with my AAA maps, Google Maps, Allstays camping app and a spreadsheet figuring this shit out. The good news is that I feel like I have a clue now.
Boise does a Wednesday outdoor music thing, and it is happening right next to a Basque bar/restaurant that Elton likes. That’s out plan! We go there, have a beer with our meal and another on the patio next to the music … until a song that bores us gives us permission to bail. He takes me on a walking tour of the five or six blocks of downtown Boise that are hippin’ happenin’ (seemed very cool really). We ended up at another of his fave places, a brewery where we decided on a fatal pitcher of beer. Why? … Because it’s only $10 for a 60 oz pitcher, so how could we NOT?
Thursday
We are both injured by all of last night’s beer. We suffer on our own paths through out the day until he gets home from work and sure enough, turns out both of us are kinda hungover.
Because Life Sucks, he has to go to work at the crack of dawn anyway. I wake up slowly and decide to try District Coffee this time. I much prefer it to the other place. When I leave the parking ticket dude has just finished putting the ticket under my wiper blade … for $0!!! They have a municipal policy that out of staters get one free ticket. I Love Boise!
Back home to hang out til.Elton gets back. It’s First Thursday Art Night, but we are not quite ready for fun yet and end up just getting Thai and going to bed.