Home again, home again, jiggity jog...

Jill loves the Columbia River Gorge. Click on the photo to see why. The two dams are The Dalles Dam and Bonneville Dam.


We are home! It is hard to believe that these past four weeks are gone, kaput, history. We got up this morning and realized that this was the final leg of our journey. The wicked weather of yesterday afternoon had abated, but it was still overcast and breezy.

I checked Weather Bonk to see what the wind forecasts for the gorge might be. The prediction was for 23 mph in The Dalles, 15 in Hood River and 10 in Troutdale. I decided we could tolerate such winds, although not without some trepidation.

We secured the coach. It occurred to me that there was no reason to make up the bed. That made me a little sad. Jill secured the inside of the coach, while I did my usual "pre-flight" inspection: checking tire pressures, checking oil and coolant levels, visually inspecting the coach and the toad, cleaning the windshield.

We hit the road about 8:35 AM, and although the winds were troublesome at times, we had no real difficulties. As the winds decreased, the weather became grayer and damper the closer to home we got. We finally arrived at our driveway at about 11:55 AM.

Reflecting on the trip, I have a few observations:

1) Sadie performed like a champ. She didn't give us one lick of trouble along the way. Every problem we had with Sadie was one I created; to wit, accidentally switching off the house power on the second day out, wearing out the light cord for the toad, because I neglected to check what "that noise" was all about when we bottomed out in Fillmore. Other than those two episodes, we did not have any problems with Sadie. She didn't even use a quart of oil in 3,000+ miles!

2) Towing a car is not as problem free as one might think. I am very glad we took Daisy Mae along, but after we blew out the right rear tire, I was less enthusiastic about towing. All things considered, having her along made the trip more enjoyable.

3) Living with your soul mate in a 240 square foot space is not only doable, but quite enjoyable. Jill and I never had a conflict during the trip. We were both sad when it was over, and we wonder what to do with all this space at home!!

4) This is a wonderful way to see the countryside. I think we both realized that we tried to cram a lot of sightseeing into a month. We agreed that we would like to make a trip to a destination, park Sadie for a week or two and just enjoy the serenity of a simple existence. Our trip to Hood Canal in August should be more like that.

5) Apparently, we spend more money at home than I thought we did. We actually did not withdraw any money from savings to cover our expenses on the road. It all came out of our day to day living money, even the fuel expenditures. I conclude that living this way, is pretty economical.

6) My wife is a magician when it comes to packing the coach, especially where food is concerned. We ate out of the food she stowed for most of the trip, only replenishing perishable items and some naughty little snacks. I can count the restaurant meals we ate on the fingers of one hand.

7) Would I do this again? I think we can be repacked by tomorrow afternoon!

Calm and rainy now

The wind is now dead calm. The rain is coming down steadily. It appears the front went through, bringing with it a spate of rainy weather. Tom and Jill have done it again. We had been looking forward to arriving home tomorrow to warm, dry weather, since we have had thunderstorms since we arrived in Flagstaff, two weeks ago. Now it appears that we have brought the bad weather home with us. Sorry folks.

I just checked the temperature and the barometer. The temperature has dropped about 25 degrees from the high before the front went through. The barometer had dropped quite low, too, but it is now rising again. I'm sure all of that means something earth-shaking to meteorologists. To me it means the we had a cold front come through, but now things are stabilizing.

Weather update

The anemometer on the top of the neighbors' coach has slowed to countable revolutions now, whereas it was a blur, when the front was going though. The rain has lessened, and we haven't heard any thunder in a while. The sky to the west does not look as threatening as it did.

Weather update

The wind has decreased a bit now, but the rain is coming down harder and harder. We now hear thunder, although we have not seen any lightning flashes, so we don't know how far away the strikes are.

Weather watch

Jill was just reading on the KPTV weather blog that a storm is due to pass through Oregon. The blog said that there is a thunderstorm powerful enough to spawn a tornado passing through the Detroit/Lyons/Silver Falls area of the state. A tornado watch has been posted and the people are being told to hide in a closet until the danger passes.

We have been parked on a hillside, overlooking the Columbia River at Rufus for about 3 hours. The weather has gone from hot (90s) and dead calm to a blow that is rocking the coach (even though we have the stabilizer jacks down) and huge rain drops pelting the weather side of the coach. The temperature has probably dropped about 15 degrees, although I don't have a reliable outdoor thermometer.

We had our awnings out on the sunny side of the coach, which is now the rainy and windy side of the coach. It took both of us and two neighbors to get the large awning rolled up.

I spoke to Patrick, our son, to wish him happy birthday. He said he heard on the radio that Portland could get quarter-sized hail today. Ooohhh, my poor plants at home! I will continue to post on the developments here in Rufus.

From conestogas to the mighty Columbia

Click the wagon to see our slide show for the day. The old timey buildings and such were at our RV Park in Baker City. There are several photos that Jill took along our way today.


This will be our last night on the road. We are currently parked in the Rufus (OR) RV Park. Now, if there was ever a fly-by-night operation... We pulled in and went to the office, only to learn that this is a do-it-yourself park. You pick out your campsite, put the money in an envelope and drop it in the slot provided. Having done that, we wondered how to get WiFi, so I could post yesterday's blog post. If you read the previous entry, you will know that I did not post yesterday, due to the inability to upload Jill's photos from the previous park.

Once we got settled here, I tried to log on to the WiFi network. I was able to get as far as the log on page, but then I needed password and user name. There was a phone number for the park host, so I called and got the necessary credentials and logged right on. So did Jill. This rather podunky-looking park has far superior WiFi to the park we stayed in last night. So, don't judge a book by it's cover, you know!!

We had a lovely drive today from Baker City. We climbed to 4,600 feet from the 4,000 foot elevation of Baker City and then descended to our current elevation of about 500 feet. Rufus is situated across I 84 from the Columbia River. If we crane our necks we have a view of the river from the campground, but not from our site.

The most interesting part of today's drive was crossing the Blue Mountains. The road is not as steep as the hills we found in the Rockies. That fact coupled with the lower elevation helped Sadie actually to pass several semis today, both going up and coming down from the summit. She just purred along. The climax of the Blue Mountain crossing was coming down the 6 mile 6% grade of Cabbage Hill, just east of Pendleton. That required downshifting and running on compression most of the way.

It seemed good to catch up with the Columbia River again at Boardman. It really is an impressive sight. We have thoroughly enjoyed the scenery on every inch of this trip, but there is something pretty exciting about seeing familiar terrain. So, tomorrow, we will drive the Columbia River Gorge highway on into Portland and then home to Clackamas.

It's not over until it's over...

Click the sunset to see a slide show of our travels. The sunset photos are a series we took from our coach in the Jerome, ID KOA on the evening of June 2nd. There are several of the Snake River Valley and other sights along our travels from Jerome to Baker City, OR. The buildings at the end are, in order: the city hall; another government building that houses, among other things, the water authority; an old building refurbished for office space; the recently restored Geiser Grand Hotel; and the St. Francis Cathedral. This post was actually made a day late, because I couldn't get the photos to upload at last night's park, which was otherwise lovely.


We thought we were done with sightseeing and just heading home, but today (June 3rd) relieved us of that misapprehension. We left the KOA at about 8:20 AM, heading west. The weather was beautiful, and Jill got some more great landscape shots. Sadie cruised along, much happier to be at lower altitude than the Rocky Mountains.

We arrived at the Mtn. View RV Park in Baker City, OR about 1:30 PM. Yes, we are back in our home state. The only downside so far is no more pumping our own gas. There was a thunderstorm this afternoon, but it wasn't too near us.

Neither Jill nor I had ever seen the National Oregon Trail Interpretive Center that is run by the BLM. So, we unhitched Daisy Mae and drove over there. (This gave us one more chance to use my Golden Age Lifetime Pass.) The Center is quite interesting. There are several dioramas of the lives of the people who traveled the Oregon Trail as they migrated westward in the middle of the 19th century. Perhaps, the most interesting part of the Center is the remaining ruts made by the wagon wheels of these intrepid pioneers.

On our way back to the campground, we made a tour through downtown Baker City. There are a number of architecturally very interesting buildings. The City Hall, another government bulding, several churches, and the Geiser Grand Hotel, which has been restored by the family that owns the building to its late 19th century grandeur. It is a working hotel, and it is quite charming. The restaurant serves meals that sound delicious for very reasonable prices. If we didn't have the motor home with us, we might have stayed there. We could even have brought Pogo with us!!

Back at the campground, I began trying to blog, but I could not get our photos to upload to Flickr. I will try again tomorrow or later this evening. I finally got so frustrated with that problem that I went outside and scrubbed the bugs off the front of Sadie. You gotta know I was frustrated to take on that job for the first time in a couple of weeks! Anyway, Sadie looks pretty nice for a coach that hasn't had a proper wash job for a month.

I can't say the same for Daisy Mae. She takes the brunt of everything that Sadie kicks up off the road. The LeBra nose protector that we installed before we left home has protected her from rock chips, but she is pretty dirty. Coupled with the naked wheel on the right rear as a result of the loss of the wheel cover when we had the blowout, the dirt makes Daisy Mae look pretty sad. She'll get a good wash and wax job and a new wheel cover, when we get home.

Tomorrow, we will head for Rufus and Friday we expect to make it home. Unfortunately, I have a "honey do" list (of my own making) about as long as my arm. So, as with all good things, our vacation must come to an end, but the memories of this trip we will treasure for a lifetime.

Escape from the blood suckers

The photo above was taken at Los Hermanos Mexican Restaurant in Provo. From right to left are Maughn, Tom, Jill and Carol. Please read the post and then click on the picture for a slide show of our travels today.

Yesterday was fun. We started with a load of laundry. Now, that sounds a little mundane, but bear with me. The laundry facility at the Lakeside RV Park was one of its better features, but the dryer was not the most powerful we have encountered on this trip. Jill had made contact with her cousin Carol, and we had a date for an early lunch with Carol and her husband Maughn. When the time arrived for us to leave the campground and drive to the restaurant, the laundry was not very dry, but we couldn't leave it in the dryer until we returned. So, we threw it in the back of the car and headed out.

If you are in Provo and looking for a fun place to eat with wonderful Mexican food, Los Hermanos at the corner of University Avenue and Center Street is the place. The food, the service and the atmosphere were all wonderful, but they couldn't match the company. We haven't seen Carol and Maughn since 2002, but we always have so much fun just chatting with them.

Somewhere along the way, mention was made of our damp laundry. After lunch, Carol said, "Why don't you come to our house and you can dry the laundry, while we continue our conversation." So, that is precisely what we did. Before we knew it, our 11:00 AM lunch had stetched out to 3:30 PM! At last we bade this dear couple good-bye and headed back to the coach.

Arriving in the late afternoon, we were overrun by a swarm of mosquitoes. I suspect none of them had eaten in several years by the ferocity of their attacks. We had been troubled by them since we arrived, but by yesterday afternoon they were either more numerous and ferocious, or our patience with them was wearing thin. We decided we would get ready to go last evening and head out as early as we practically could this morning.

We spent most of the evening tracking down and killing the several dozen mosquitoes that came in through the door when we made our entrances and exits during the evening. By the time we went to bed, all we could think of was getting away from mosquitoes. That, however, was not to be. We continued swatting at the little blood suckers, which had that nasty habit of going, "mememememe" in our ears.

To shorten the story, we were on the road by 7:05 this morning. After a fuel stop, during which I checked the oil and the tire pressure and air spring pressure, we were underway. Things went well, until we arrived at the exit from I15 to US 89. Actually, it was just as we passed our last opportunity to exit onto US 89. The traffic came to a standstill. We were not sure what was going on, since we had seen a sign saying that there was construction ahead.

Finally, I wised up and turned on the CB radio, adjusted the squelch and tuned to channel 19, the channel the truckers like to use. This was very enlightening. We learned that, in addition to construction, there was a roll-over accident, and a helicopter had landed on the freeway to evacuate the injured passengers. We also learned that we were in the wrong lane. As you can see from the slide show, changing lanes was no mean task.

I think we were in this mess for about 40 minutes, when I saw my chance to change into the right lane. Traffic began to move a little. Then we heard on the CB that they had cleared the wreck. Before long we passed the scene. There was a Lincoln Navigator on the back of a truck. It looked as if it had rolled over several times. We said a prayer for the occupants.

The rest of the trip was pretty easy. Sadie just purred all day. We arrived in Jerome, ID just before 2:00 and registered at the KOA campground, which is very nice. It also has reliable Wi-Fi, which accounts for this post, whereas I was unable to post from the Lakeside mosquito den, due to very iffy Wi-Fi service.

P.S. We re-Christened Veronica. In keeping with the Li'l Abner origin of Sadie Hawkins, we decided to rename Veronica "Daisy Mae." You old people will recognize that name as the name of Abner's true love.