Wednesday (Oct 23)
The same road I was too stressed enjoy at the end of yesterday was wonderfully pretty and interesting this morning. I am in the Palouse – a really odd landscape if you’re never experienced it. Dramatic rolling dried-out hills, but covered in fertile soil so that if you can get water to them they are incredibly fertile. The fields I’m driving through have recently been harvested and new furrows plowed, planting the next crop I assume. Because these are steep, bumpy hills rather than boring, flat fields, the furrows form the most amazing geometric whorls and patterns.
Also, and I remember this from before, the whole eastern two-thirds of Washington state is astoundly devoid of services outside a couple of cities. When you’re in Nevada or the Mohave desert you expect to find nothing and plan for it. But the Palouse has fields and barns and farmhouses so you expect to run into services as you always do in places where people live. So you drive along, expecting to run into a restaurant or at least a McDonalds, and certainly the occasional gas station … but you can go 80-100 miles without seeing anything like that. I was on the Kahlotus-Pasco Road for about 70 miles until Pasco and saw maybe 20 vehicles the whole time, and nary an establishment selling anything in the way of useful traveller services.
By the time I got to Pasco, as with yesterday, the too-bright sun was starting to addle my brain. That of course makes it much harder to focus on making good decisions on where to go to get unaddled, but I stayed calm and eventually found a perfect coffee spot in Kennewick. Again like yesterday, I probably spent a little too long at the laptop. Eventually I tore myself away, then hit the Safeway, then drove way too long into the afternoon glare along the Oregon side of the Columbia River. The sun has seemed extra bright and bothersome ever since I hit Lewiston and the wide-open spaces west of there.
I got too ambitious in my route-planning and made a couple of route errors. The first mistake: instead of simply dropping straight south out of Kennewick, crossing the Columbia and picking up I-84, I looped around a bend in the river and came to I-84 from the east. This took longer than it looked on the map, but it was pretty and fun and unremarkable but for the second mistake: taking Route 730 straight across a chunk of land where the interstate veered down a few miles. Looked good on the map, but what a terrible idea – the road was slow, it was NOT pretty, it was exceptionally slow moving, traffic lights, small towns, big trucks … which of course took forever to get back to speed after ever f—ing traffic light. Eventually I did rejoin the scenic interstate where I should’ve been all along and life was good for the last 50 miles until my campground.
This is my second consecutive night at an Army Corps campground. This sweet little spot is at the mouth of the John Day River. Along the edge of this stretch of the Columbia the bluffs come right to the edge of the water. There’s room only for the railroad track and the interstate and that’s it, so I was wondering there this campground could be! But then came the confluence of with the John Day – a nice chunk of level land where little river pours into the big river. It’s very pretty, obviously much loved by local fishermen, who can either venture out onto the Columbia or putter up the John Day. I had to check in at a front gate, run by extreeeemely slow people. I got a little twitchy – I wanted to hurry up and relax, and instead I’m watching this dude first ignore me, then stare at a computer monitor for way too long.
For the third straight night my camping site is pretty to look at, but very, VERY noisy. The setting is serene and bucolic, but there’s a busy railroad track and a very busy 4-lane interstate bridge 300 yards away, and the sound carries over that water unimpeded.
Thursday
My goal is the happening hipster hangout coffeehouse in downtown Hood River – last visited when I was here in Hood River to buy my van. I-84 really is a beautiful road and I am in no hurry, so today I am that guy, going 55 on the freeway, puttering along looking at the sights, getting passed by even the trucks all day.
As I bypassed The Dalles, I looked up the hill at the motel I enjoyed staying at years ago. I exit onto one of the “old highway” roads that run parallel to the interstate for a while, but I decide that I-84 is actually prettier – more wide open with a more panoramic view. The plan was to stay tonight at Ainsworth State Park. I get there and decide it’s not for me. First off, the tent sites really are tent sites, so I’ll have to pay something like $24 for hookups. For $10 more I can party at Edgefield for the rest of the day! So I switch plans, bump up Edgefield a day. Immediatly I am happy, as almost always happens when I stew for a while and make the right decision.
I do stop and enjoy Horsetail Falls for a few minutes, then on to adult Disneyland! I arrived two-ish, in plenty of time for happy hour. It was just a perfect fall day there – warm and not windy and best of all not crowded – the crowd difference between a weekday and a weekend here is dramatic.
I end up as usual, having too much fun. A beer or two lazing around under the trees and the piles of yellow leaves, then another beer or two up the hill at the Distillery, enjoying sunset on the golf course. Then change to the bathing attire and soak my drunken self for a while, then check out the music. As luck would have it, a very talented Reno guy – Tim Snider – was playing a solo set there tonight. He is now a Portland guy for the last year or so. It was real nice to see him. I hope I was not too annoying as the “drunken fan from the past”.
Friday
There was no one else in the Mens Hostel last night when I left for second happy hour, but there was a fellow there when I got back. He was very quiet – so quiet it was almost creepy, but hey, quiet is better than noisy! I got myself showered and cleared out of the hostel room by checkout time of 11AM and headed downstairs to have a $12 lox and bagel for breakfast. It was a little pricey for me, but it was just the ticket! I wifi’d for a while longer, then left my little paradise around noon.
Traffic in the Portland suburbs seems to nearly always SUCK! The freeways – I-84 to south on I-5 weren’t too bad, but once I exited on 99W it was stop and go and crappy the whole way :( not cool. Might as well be in LA for goodness sakes.
Everybody was chipper at Van Specialities today! They are no longer working with Outsidevan. Nobody seemed too upset by that, in fact maybe that was why they were were so happy! Litch ran his compression test and could not find a leak in my water system, so they winterized me and I’m good to go. I am pleasantly surprised to be loose on the world at 2PM on Friday!
I noticed on the Allstays app an “OP” symbol on the beach at Lincoln City. That means “Overnight Parking”, usually a casino. I am excited, because this would nicely solve the problem of where to park myself tonight, arriving late in the day to the ocean.
It is an hour or so drive down Route 18, the straightest route from Portland to the Pacific. Past good ole McMinneville to the coast. As advertised, near the intersection of 18 with 101 is the gigantic Chinook Winds Casino and Resort complex. And just like my app said, a little blessing for us budget RVers, is a parking lot dedicated to (free) RV parking. The lot is the side of a big hill, not graded to have level spots, noticeably slanted. That’s pretty annoying, but everything else is user-friendly. It’s an easy walk to the beach, or to any kind of food/shopping amenity you might want. I am very pleased with this find, and blessings to the casino folks for providing it, slanted though it is.
It IS Friday night after all, so after my lovely evening walk, I force myself back out around 10:30-ish to check out the dance DJ in the Rogue River Room at the casino. It was pretty cool. A wide slice of rural Oregon there, busting moves on the dance floor. It made me happy!
Saturday
Someday I really must buy some chocks and get myself some van-leveling technology. I do not sleep as well when my bed is slanted, and that’s just a fact.
I have an interesting breakfast at the Pig’n Pancake, right up the hill from the casino. Nice place, but they are always busy, slightly harried and cranky. I went big and got Razor Clams & Eggs! I was picturing a pile of some mussel-sized creatures, but turns out Pacific razor clams are huge. There were two tasty fried thing on my plate about 5 inches long. The food, coffee and wifi at the P’nP were all just fine, but the total experience is not particularly joyful – no one is having fun.
I called the Suislaw National Forest offices yesterday to find out which campgrounds are open. Many of my favorites are not open – Cape Perpetua, Eel Creek, but Tillicum Beach is! Because it’s Saturday, and this IS the coast, I worked myself into a frenzy of worry that the place would fill up early. This turned out to be wrong, but hey, that just meant I got to a great place early!
My entire day’s driving is to be about 50 miles, so I took my time through the lingering southern edge of Lincoln City, Depoe Bay, Newport, Waldport. I didn’t hurry, but I didn’t stop much either. I wanted to nail down a spot at Tillicum.
Not a problem at it turns out! I got there at 2-ish, and had a wide variety of excellent choices, even along the coveted “last row next to the bluff”! I sacrificed a little bit of view for privacy, but got a real nice site. Napped and fiddled around for a couple of hours, then spent a couple of hours exploring the beach. Beautiful day as it turned out!