<\/a>Very nice in the shade in the river valley, but mighty hot in the sun. Might as well get used to\u00a0the summer heat that will be the theme of\u00a0the rest of the trip.<\/p>\n
Wow, this turned out to be kind of a busy day. \u00a0It started out mildly annoying because of I had to\u00a0drive 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\u00a0a gas station\u00a0in The Dalles<\/strong>. My tank\u00a0took the largest quantity of diesel\u00a0ever, 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\u00a0did 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!<\/p>\n Breakfast in The Dalles was very pleasant. I noticed on Yelp all the restaurants seemed to have wifi. It\u00a0turns out that\u00a0Google 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.<\/p>\n I had picked up a\u00a0Maryhill Museum of Art<\/strong>\u00a0flyer back at the rest stop I rested in before\u00a0Portland. My Dalles waitress said she digs the place, and that I should\u00a0take the bridge here across the river to\u00a0Washington<\/strong> and drive up that side. Great Idea!<\/p>\n The drive along the Washington side of the rive is a whole different experience from that on the Oregon side.\u00a0 I crossed back into Oregon\u00a0and soon left I-84 to head south into the interior.\u00a0As 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.<\/p>\n Two miles out of Heppner<\/strong>, I was tired of all these hills and curves and anxious\u00a0to get to my spot for the night. \u00a0I rolled over a crest of\u00a0a little hill\u00a0and 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\u00a0this I had to slam on the brakes like I meant it<\/em> 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,\u00a0the did their job in an emergency situation!<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Willow Creek RV Park<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n 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.<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n 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.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div> When I did to the campground I spent the first half hour shifting everything backwards to it’s former storage spot.<\/p>\n About the only good thing here is the\u00a0nice 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.<\/p>\n Beautiful night, but the overheating\u00a0van woke me up :(<\/p>\n Super pretty driving all day, but as with the other time I drove through here I am\u00a0really beat by all the curves at the end of the day. The 26 miles extra because I missed a turn didn’t help.<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Wetmore Campground<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n 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.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n I however am liking it just fine and am happy to be here! \r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n 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<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n 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.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n I however am liking it just fine and am happy to be here! \r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n 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<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div> 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\u00a0be a few more people.<\/p>\n So at some point the Forest Service made this a de-luxe spot, then for whatever reason nobody came…\u00a0For my part, at $2.50 a night I consider it a find!<\/p>\n 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.<\/span><\/p>\n First town up, Unity OR, about ten miles down the road. As always, traveling on a holiday has special challenges,such as all\u00a0the 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\u00a0happened to me.<\/p>\n 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. \u00a0They have wifi! So I was able to get up to speed on Durant news without hitting my phone data usage.<\/p>\n Then a pretty straightforward trip through the heart of Boise to get to Elton’s apartment complex.<\/p>\n Elton is up and gone well before the crack of dawn for his job. I eventually make it to Slow by Slow<\/strong>, his coffee place of choice. The Boise Art Museum<\/strong> is in a nice downtown park next\u00a0to the Boise River<\/strong>, and I hang out there for a while.<\/p>\n 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. \u00a0The Manual ISO<\/em> setting turns out to be\u00a0the missing ingredient to my understanding of the thing. Apertures and shutter speeds I get, but ISO is a little sophisticated for me.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0pitcher of Scrimshaw, which kicked our butts as we discovered the next morning..<\/p>\n No going out for coffee for me today. \u00a0I 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/strong> 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 …\u00a0for $0!!! \u00a0They have a municipal policy that out of staters get one free ticket. I Love Boise!<\/p>\n Back home to hang out til.Elton gets back. \u00a0It’s First Thursday Art Night, but we are not quite ready for fun yet and end up just getting Thai and going to bed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Beautiful day here by the river. Practically every group of campers\u00a0has a collection of water sport boats and boards – mostly wind surfers\u00a0and\u00a0sailboards. The Gorge is effing windy most of the time, so wind surfing is a big deal around … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-july-2016-nostalgia-tour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/a>
<\/a>\n
<\/a>
<\/a>Sunday<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/a>Monday – Thursday<\/a><\/h3>\n
Tuesday<\/h5>\n
Wednesday<\/h5>\n
<\/a>Thursday<\/span><\/h5>\n
<\/a>