The drive was more interesting than I thought, since there were some pretty high mountain passes to go through and some pretty steep grades (10%). I really had to remember how to drive in the mountains. We basically just followed the Snake River valley through Idaho after that, and arrived at a campground in Boise that I'd seen online. It was right on the river and our campsite was immediately adjacent to a walking trail (rails to trails) that I believe went for about 50 miles so we took a few walks on that. Ran a few errands, groceries, dinner, then camped in the jeep because I was too lazy to set up the tent and wanted to get an early start in the morning. Oh, stopped for gas at a pretty remote truck stop and noticed that they still had a MasterCharge sign instead of MasterCard hanging there. I looked it up and they changed the name back in 1979.
May 27 was the day of mistakes, but we'd been pretty trouble-free to this point so I guess that's OK. First, we were just going to drive from Boise to close to Portland, then down the coast the following day. However, we stopped for gas in Baker City, Oregon. There is a great little park we saw on the way out of town so we stopped and walked around for a while. I guess Baker City was the gathering point for the huge cattle drives back in the day. Max really liked sniffing around this park so we lingered a bit. We hit the road again and after about 45 minutes I started getting a real strong sense of Deja Vu. Then I was trying to look on the map on my phone to see how far we had left, and it was longer than when we stopped. Of course, I had just driven 51 miles BACK EAST which was why things looked so familiar. Back almost to Idaho, it was the "Now Entering Mountain Time Zone" sign that clicked it. By the time we made it BACK to Baker City, it was time for lunch, so we grabbed some Tacos and stopped at our favorite little park there for a meal, rest, and walk. I was not in a hurry to get back on the road this time. Max enjoyed a roll in the soft grass and we hung around and talked to some locals for a while.
So, we've been staying at all these campgrounds with all these RV's, and it takes quite a bit of time to set up and break down camp each day, whether that's tent camping, truck camping, cabin, hotel, etc. That is part of why it is so enticing to stay in one place for multiple days. However, I had been looking online, first just out of curiosity to see how much a little travel trailer would cost. Unfortunately, not that much. Low enough, in fact, that over the past week I had convinced myself that "Hey, this might be something we could do". Now, I have very little experience with towing things, or even have any idea how much the Jeep will tow, but we had been on the road so long and I was I guess looking to change things up. My mind even started wandering to where we could take it once we got back home. So, I found this travel trailer listed on CraigsList up in Spokane that looked like what we needed, called and talked to them, and decided to go up and have a look. I had not even intended to go into Washington but 3 hours later (after a very long day on the road including my backtrack) we arrived at Darrin and Shellie's house in Northeast Spokane. The trailer looked like everything they said it was, they just needed a few hundred dollars for bills and really just wanted it out of their way (friends kept wanted to stay in it for months on end), and they were hospitable enough to offer to let us stay in it that night. So we did, and it was pretty comfy.
Thursday May 28 was the day I owned a travel trailer. Got up early, hit Home Depot for a trailer hitch ball of the right size, loaded up, and hit the road. I had envisioned this being great, we could just stop and walk around back and we would have a place to cook, chill, sleep, whatever. It was only 14-feet long, and the Jeep seemed to handle it just fine around town. However, before I got a chance to hit the DMV to get travel papers or U-haul to get the wiring fixed, we encountered a hill. There are apparently lots of hills out here, some of them even fairly large. Like the Rocky Mountains, for instance. So, this trailer idea may not have been the best. But, I had seen from researching this online that there were a number of people in the Portland area looking for small travel trailers like this. On to Portland for a very slow, somewhat nerve-racking drive. It really went fine, but cut my gas mileage in half and we were limited to about 60 mph on flat and 35-45 on hills. This was not the light, carefree travelling I had in mind. So, halfway to Portland, after trying to give it a fair shot, we called a lady who had a couple of postings on CraigsList and arranged to meet that afternoon.
After backtracking from Spokane, we followed I-84 down the Oregon Trail, through the Columbia River Valley, to Portland. Other than being pretty slow going, this was a GREAT drive. Scenic river views, towering cliffs, Mt. Hood, Dams discharging huge volumes of water from all the snowmelt coming downstream, the biggest wind farms we'd seen yet, almost on every hillside. Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures because I was towing the trailer. I had gotten myself pretty nervous about towing the trailer the night before since I had never really towed anything before, but it wasn't exactly rocket science. We made it to Portland without incident, parked the trailer, and reassembled our cargo in the jeep.
Mount Hood:
So, the lady Mary that needed the trailer met us in downtown Portland and we sold the trailer that we had owned for less than 24 hours and slept in once. Oh, well, we do like to keep things fresh. Now we were in downtown Portland, in rush hour, with no idea where we were going to sleep, so we just started driving West since I wanted to end up along the coast, I thought the next day. I wasn't having much luck finding a pet-friendly hotel so we kept driiving, and before long we had left Portland and were heading for the coast. I had actually wanted to spend some time in Portland because there are so many parks and I had always wanted to visit Powell's Bookstore. But, many of the parks are pretty rugged so Max would not have been able to go very far, and Powell's of course does not allow dogs, so maybe that will be a trip for the future. From downtown, I went across the Burnside Bridge, which I knew because there is a very famous skateboard park under it. I actually visited it on a trip to Seattle 10 years or so ago, and it was really the only landmark I knew. Powell's Bookstore is actually on Burnside Drive, so we at least drove past it. It is a full city block and multiple stories. I'm sure people come and just spend days there.
The drive out of Portland to the coast is also one I really enjoyed, especially traveling so light now. Oh, I filled up on gas because we were getting a bit low and was glad I did because there were no more gas stations for many miles. We almost ran out earlier, since I wasn't used to the trailer knocking us down to 10 mpg. We truly coasted in on fumes, after a wild goose chase for a gas station that existed only on Google Maps but was in fact a huge empty field the military uses as a bombing range. Fun. Anyway, the drive to the coast west of portland is a completely different environment, different vegetation, everything. It gets pretty remote fast out of Portland. We drove into the sun and enjoyed the drive, arriving at Seaside, Oregon, which is a little beach town and seemed like a perfect place to run into the Pacific before turning south. We found a room at a very nice Best Western and since it was so late talked them into a very low rate on an oceanfront room with a kitchen and everything. And a dishwasher! I never thought I'd be so excited about a dishwasher. Max could watch the doggies walking by on the Promonade while I fixed dinner. Then we watched the sun set into the Pacific, first from our porch and then from down on the soft sand.
I allowed myself to get a little low as the sun set, as I saw it as symbolizing the end of this stage of my life. But, on the other side, I see the Trailer as being symbolic of baggage from the past, which I experienced, unloaded, and then moved forward (and in this case, in a way that helped other people). So, that's the plan, and really the only option: stay positive, look for new opportunities and experiences, and move on.
Then right before going to sleep I learned that Brett Wattles, my friends Matt and Burr's dad, passed away. He's been dealing with cancer for the past couple of years so it wasn't out of the blue or anything but you always think you're going to see someone that one more time. Eventually you're wrong, which is why we have to experience everything and spend time with those we love and appreciate the world around us all the time, because you never know.
The trip has not been totally what I expected in some ways and everything I hoped in others. Here, at the point where we bounce off the pacific and continue down the coast, I have a much better idea of where to go from here (on the road and in life). It has been a roller-coaster this week, but now I feel centered, positive, and enthusiastic (most of the time). I am ready to venture down the long road back into the world. But first, we slow down and focus on enjoying the Oregon and Northern California Coasts with many, many beagle walks. We've done too much driving the past few days and not enough stopping, walking, sniffing, and camping. So on with the adventure...
The trip has not been totally what I expected in some ways and everything I hoped in others. Here, at the point where we bounce off the pacific and continue down the coast, I have a much better idea of where to go from here (on the road and in life). It has been a roller-coaster this week, but now I feel centered, positive, and enthusiastic (most of the time). I am ready to venture down the long road back into the world. But first, we slow down and focus on enjoying the Oregon and Northern California Coasts with many, many beagle walks. We've done too much driving the past few days and not enough stopping, walking, sniffing, and camping. So on with the adventure...
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