Tag Archives: Oregon

The Long Drive with the Long Trailer

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I move my mobile mansion from Wenatchee to Lake Powell.

I’ve been traveling for the past week or so, starting in Wenatchee Heights, WA and ending in Phoenix, AZ.

Day 1I left Wenatchee Heights with my 5th wheel RV hooked up behind my husband’s Chevy pickup. The first day’s drive was relatively short: from Wenatchee Heights to Walla Walla, a distance of only 190 miles. Only a small portion of the drive was on a freeway (I-90); the rest was on back roads through farmland.

It rained for part of the drive, but never enough to make the road slick. I took my time. The trailer weighs in at 15,000 pounds and although it tows well, I can never really forget that it’s back there.

At Walla WallaIn Walla Walla, I stayed at the Blue Valley RV Park. It was a relatively pleasant place, with average sized RV spots, full hookups, picnic tables and grass. The trees were too young to give shade, but I bet they’ll be nice in about 5 years. The main building had a pool table, laundry room, and restrooms. Everything was clean and the place was quiet. I got some laundry done, wrote an article for AircraftOwner Online, and relaxed.

I had dinner at two excellent local restaurants: T. Maccarone’s and Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen. It was nice to have a change of scenery. I was there for four nights. The wine with my dinner at T.Maccarone’s is what sent me to Dusted Valley Winery for a tasting, where I bought four bottles of wine.

Day 2 of the DriveOn Friday night, I got the trailer hooked up again and mostly ready to go. I needed to be on the road early for the next leg of my trip: from Walla Walla, WA to Draper, UT (south of Salt Lake City), a distance of 606 miles. I was on the road not long after dawn. The route took me south almost to Pendleton, OR, then onto I-84 through Oregon and Idaho and down into Utah, where I picked up I-15. The landscape started with farmland, then mountains, then more flat farmland, then more mountains, and then finally into the Salt Lake basin. I’d driven the route before with my underpowered Ford F150 pickup towing my old 22-foot Starcraft. It wasn’t fun then; Saturday’s drive was much more tolerable. I stopped three times for fuel and twice for food. It was very unlike me to make so many stops; I usually try to get food and fuel on the same stop, but the situation made that tough. I rolled into Draper, UT’s Camping World parking lot at 6:15 PM local time, just 15 minutes after the store closed. I’d called the week before and knew I could park out back, so I did. I even got to hook up 50 amp power.

Ann TorrenceOn Sunday, @AnnTorrence picked me up for a drive to Ft. Bridger, WY. There was a Mountain Man Rendezvous there with hundreds of people in period clothes set up with period campsites. The “period” was apparently mid 1800s. Ann was there to take photos and research a possibly future book project. I was there to take pictures and look around and have a day off from driving. I didn’t take a single photo, although I carried my camera bag around all day. Well, that’s not true. I did use my BlackBerry to take this shot of Ann. She, in turn, used her iPhone to take a shot of me with my only purchase: a genuine raccoon skin, which I hope to turn into a hat.

After a very pleasant lunch at Cafe Trio in Salt Lake City with Ann and her husband, Robert, I went back to their house to relax on the front porch. @BWJones showed up and I finally got to meet him in person. After a tour of the garden, Ann and Robert returned me to Draper for the evening. Again, Camping World had just closed for the day. No one had left any notes on the RV or truck (which was still attached) and the power was still connected. Alex the Bird entertained us for a while.

Day 3Monday — Labor Day — was my last drive day. I drove from Draper, UT to Page, AZ, a distance of 370 miles. I got a very early start, pulling out of the parking lot at 6:30 AM local time. By the time I stopped for fuel two hours later, I’d already gone more than 100 miles. (I parked with the big rig trucks and discovered that my rig was about as long as theirs.) This part of the drive was mostly on I-15, but started east on route 20 to Highway 89, which took us all the way to Page. The roads were mountainous and there was a lot of climbing and descending. There were also a lot more vehicles on the road, making driving a bit more of a chore.

Thunderbird RestaurantThe only food stop I made along the way was at the Thunderbird Restaurant at Mount Carmel Junction. The place is a bit of a tourist trap, but it does have good “ho-made” pies (whatever that means). Odd thing happened when I tried to leave. They couldn’t give me a bill because the computer was down. Apparently no one knows how to do basic math. All I had was a piece of pie with ice cream and an iced tea. They apparently expected me to wait until the computers came back online. With Alex the Bird in the front seat of the car, that was not an option. Finally, my waitress disappeared into the kitchen where she may have used her “lifeline” to get help with this difficult math problem. The verdict was $7.79. I was afraid to count my change.

I arrived at the Lake Powell Resort just west of Page, AZ at around 11:30 local time. I’d been on the road for 7 hours.

Mike and PlaneMy husband, who’d flown up in his plane and spent a few hours swimming in the lake, met me at the lodge restaurant for lunch. Afterwards, we put fuel in the truck and parked it (temporarily) at Page Municipal Airport. I gathered my belongings — forgetting only two things, one of which was vital — and we loaded into Mike’s plane. Then we started the long (90 minutes), hot (90°F+), and bumpy (I almost got sick) flight to Wickenburg. The only sights of interest along the way — keeping in mind that I make that flight about 1000 feet lower at least a dozen times a year — were a handful of forest fires east of our Howard Mesa place and a heavy rain shower coming out of a remarkably small cloud near Granite Mountain.

Back in Wickenburg, we put the plane away and went straight home. Hot and sweaty, it was good to take a shower in a real bathroom.

I was asleep by 8:30 PM.

Cross-Country by Helicopter: E25 to BFI

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14.4 Hours over four states.

Cross-Country, Defined
For those of you who are not pilots, allow me to explain the term cross-country as used by a pilot. A cross-country flight is basically any long flight with a landing a certain minimum distance from your starting point. For airplane pilots, it’s at least 50 miles. For helicopter pilots, it’s at least 25 miles. So while this blog entry discusses a very long cross-country flight, we did not fly all the way across the country.

This past Thursday and Friday, I flew by helicopter with two other helicopter pilots, Ryan and Bryan, from Wickenburg, AZ to Boeing Field in Seattle. Bryan and Ryan did just about all of the flying. I sat up front being a nervous passenger when we were near the ground and playing with the radio and GPS. Brian let me make most of his radio calls on the first day, but I didn’t get to do much of that the second day.

It was a mutually beneficial journey. I needed to get the helicopter from Arizona to Washington State. Ryan and Bryan were both CFIs who wanted to build time in an R44 helicopter. It was way cheaper for them to fly with me on this trip than to rent an R44 from a flight school. There was also the added experience of planning and executing a flight through unknown terrain, with fuel stops and an overnight stop along the way. And the money they paid to fly my aircraft helped me cover the cost of this very long and very expensive helicopter flight. Win-win.

Corona Fuel

A very cool but very helicopter-unfriendly fuel island at Corona Airport in California.

Our flight path took us west, with Bryan at the controls, along state route 60 to I-10, across the Colorado River, and then along I-10 through Bythe, Chiriaco Summit, Palm Springs, and Banning; then back on 60 past March to Riverside on the 91. We stopped at Corona for fuel at what’s likely the coolest but most helicopter-unfriendly fuel island in the world. (We didn’t notice the separate fuel island more suitable for helicopters until we’d stopped and shut down.)

Here’s a video of our transition along the California coast through the LAX airspace on the Shoreline transition route. You might want to turn down the sound while playing it; lots of helicopter noise.

Then Ryan took us west on 91 through the airspace for Fullerton and Long Beach, with a Torrance low pass. (Robinson has entirely too many helicopters waiting for owners on its ramp and in its delivery room.) He then got clearance for the Shoreline helicopter transition of LAX space, which requires the pilot to drop to 150 feet 1/4 mile offshore to pass under LAX departing traffic. We continued following the coast up past Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Oxnard, Ventura, and Santa Barbara. By then, the marine layer was moving in, so we went inland for a bit. Eventually, we reached San Luis Obispo (and the chatty controller) and stopped for fuel and lunch.

Ryan at San Luis Obispo

Here’s Ryan on the ramp at San Luis Obispo before departure northbound. I shot this one with my Blackberry’s camera, so pardon the quality.

Bryan was back at the controls for our departure northbound. After a very close call with a large bird, we followed the path of Route 101 northbound. Most of the route was up a riverbed in a very pleasant valley. We got to Salinas and realized that any coastal route would be out of the question — the marine layer was creeping in even there. So we headed over the mountains, eventually ending up in the western part of California’s Central Valley. We stopped for fuel at Byron.

Ryan took over and we continued north over Rio Vista and Yolo, finally hooking up with I-5. We followed that through endless farmland — much of it flooded for a crop that apparently needs lots of water — over Willows Glen and Red Bluff, with more than a few crop-dusters flying nearby at altitudes far below ours. We stopped for the night at Redding, tied down the helicopter, and got a hotel shuttle into town.

We’d flown 8.8 hours.

Ryan Flying Near Mt. Shasta

Ryan at the controls as we near Mt. Shasta in northern California.

The next morning, we were back at the airport at 9 AM, preflighting and getting ready to go. Ryan would start the flight. We headed north along I-5, over Lake Shasta and past Mount Shasta, which was snow-covered and beautiful. We were now past Central Valley’s vast farmland and up in the mountains. We flew past Weed, Siskiyou Co., Rogue Valley/Medford, and Grant’s Pass. Much of this flying was in canyons, along the same route as I-5 and a train line.

Things turned a bit iffy as I-5 swung to the east. We were hoping to go north and catch it on the other side of some mountains, shortening our route a bit, but clouds sitting on the tops of those mountains made that a bit uncertain. So we dropped altitude, slowed down, and followed I-5. Ryan flew while Bryan and I kept a sharp lookout for the power lines we knew — from both chart and GPS — were ahead. We weren’t that low and there wasn’t any real danger, but we were certainly not coming out of that canyon anywhere except the I-5 corridor. We passed the powerlines with plenty of room. The road descended into a valley and we stayed up beneath the cloud bottoms. Eventually, the sky cleared. We continued along I-5 past Myrtle Creek and Roseburg and stopped at Cottage Grove State for fuel and lunch.

Then it was Bryan’s turn again. We continued up I-5 past Hobby, Albany Municipal, and McNary. Then we headed northwest over Sportsman’s, Hillsboro, and Scappoose. We crossed the Columbia River and headed north on I-5 again over Kelso Longview and Olympia, with nice views of Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier in the distance. Then on to Bremmerton, where we stopped for fuel. We probably had enough to make the last 20 minutes, but why take chances?

At BFI

Zero-Mike-Lima on the ramp at BFI. Another Blackberry photo. And yes, that’s Mt. Rainier in the background.

I flew the last leg with Bryan up front to handle the radio and give me directions. It was only a 15-minute flight, but the airspace was complicated, so I was grateful for the help. I set the helicopter down sloppily in the parking area. We’d flown a total of 14.4 hours.

It was a great flight. We saw so much that most of it is just a blur in my mind. With luck, these photos and videos will help me remember the trip for a long time to come.

Many thanks to Ryan and Bryan for accompanying me on this trip. I hope they learned a lot about cross-country flying.

Wheat Fields, Mountains, Valleys, and a Very Long Drive

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What I’ve been up to — and why I’ve been too busy to blog.

I haven’t been blogging regularly for the past week or so. That’s because I’ve been on the move.

Monday, July 28

Combine in ActionI spent the morning cleaning out my hangar at Quincy for departure the next day. Then I flew up to Chelan and met my friend Jim. He flew us in his helicopter to Spokane, ID for lunch and then on to Coeur D’Alene, ID where he’s based. He demonstrated a confined space landing by setting down in the parking area of his business property in downtown Coeur D’Alene to offload a bunch of stuff. Then we went to the local airport, fueled up, and picked up his wife for the return flight to Chelan. I got some great photos of combines in action on the dry wheat fields. We landed at Chelan with just enough time to chat with another helicopter pilot before it was time for me to fly back to Quincy.

Tuesday, July 29

I spent much of Tuesday morning preparing to leave Quincy. I had to disassemble my helicopter tow bar and stow its pieces in the back of my truck, then clear out everything else still in the hangar I’d been renting. I also had to drop off my last month’s rent. I bought some cherries and other fresh fruit, too.

I had just enough time for a quick shower before visitors started coming. Louis, who would fly with me later in the day to Seattle, arrived first. Then Teresa, Jim’s wife, arrived with Jim’s pickup. He bought the remaining fuel in my transfer tank — about 50 gallons of 100LL — for $4/gallon. A great deal for both of us, since I wanted the fuel out to lighten up my truck. We pumped the fuel from my transfer tank to Jim’s and Teresa departed.

Then Louis dropped me off at Quincy Airport and drove my truck to Wenatchee. I took my helicopter to Wenatchee to meet him and we flew from there to Seattle’s Boeing Field, on a marginal weather flight I reported in some detail here. After a chat with my mechanic there, Louis and his mom dropped me off at SeaTac. I had a pretty good halibut dinner at Anthony’s before I caught a flight back to Wenatchee. I was back in my camper by 9:30 PM, exhausted.

Wednesday, July 30

Wednesday was the big day. I packed up the camper, stowed Alex the Bird on board the truck in his travel box, hooked up the camper to the truck, and pulled out. I’d been in my campsite for just a few days short of two months.

Palouse FallsMy destination was Walla Walla, WA, about 150-200 miles away. I chose a route that kept me on back roads. I don’t think I ever saw so much wheat in my life. My chosen route took me past Palouse Falls, so I stopped in and got some photos. It was an interesting place and well worth the stop.

From there, I continued on to Walla Walla, with a stop at a drugstore soda fountain in Dayton for an ice cream sundae. I checked into the Four Seasons RV Park around 5 PM, set up the camper for a two-night stay, and went out to grab some dinner. I wound up at a restaurant called Luscious, where I had an excellent polenta dish and a glass of wine.

This is also the first day I gave my new SPOT Messenger a workout. You can track my progress for this entire trip on my Share page, http://www.tinyurl.com/FindMaria. You’ll have to page back using controls under the Waypoints list to see the track for that day.

Thursday, July 31

There was something about dinner that didn’t agree with me, no matter how tasty it was, because I was up at 3 AM, leaning over the camper’s toilet and choking it all back up. I hate to puke but what they say is true: you do feel better when you’re done. But I wasn’t operating at 100% the next day, which I’d set aside to explore opportunities in Walla Walla.

It’s no secret that I pretty much hate where I live right now. Wickenburg is a dead town, full of ultra conservative retirees who live there only half the year and don’t spend much of their money in town when they’re around. They don’t have an emotional investment in the town and don’t seem to care what happens to it. As a result, new businesses — other than those that cater to the budget-conscious — don’t last more than a year or so. There are few decent restaurants and very few shopping opportunities. If it weren’t for the newly built and then remodeled Safeway Supermarket and a handful of longtime other businesses, I don’t know how I could live there at all. To make matters worse, the Mayor and Council seem more interested in growing the town’s population base for the financial benefit of their families and cronies than building an economic base that includes good-paying jobs that’ll attract young, vibrant people. The Chamber of Commerce pushed for an in-town “bypass” that’s destroying downtown parks and other facilities and adding a “roundabout” that’s sure to cause daily accidents. I love my home and its immediate surroundings and it’s painful to see how they’re destroying whatever was good about the town. There’s nothing else here for us anymore. All of our friends in our age group have already left town. We’re the only ones left.

So I’m exploring possibilities and Walla Walla was high on my list. I spent some time checking out the very pleasant historic downtown area, where it was nice to not be the youngest person on the street. Then I went over to the airport to meet with the airport manager about moving my flying business there. She was extremely helpful and enthusiastic and said a lot of things that made me believe I’d be welcome there. (What a refreshing change that was.) There would certainly be a lot more opportunities in that town than where I’m based now. I also checked out a few wineries — there are dozens in the area! — although I couldn’t do any tasting with my stomach so iffy all day.

By 4 PM, I was exhausted. I went back to the camper to relax and wound up staying in for the rest of the night.

Friday, August 1

On Friday, I needed to get an early start. I was expected in Salt Lake City at 6 PM. I’d be spending the night at the home of my friend and editor, Megg, and her family. Utah (MDST) is 1 hour ahead of Washington (PDST) so I’d already lost an hour. Trouble was, I needed to visit the post office to see if a General Delivery letter (containing a large check) had arrived. So I got as much prepared as possible before 9 AM and drove into town again. The check was there. I stopped at an excellent bakery that had been highly recommended by a Twitter friend and bought a fruit tart to bring to my friend’s place. Then I gassed up the truck.

Back at the camper, I was all ready to hook up the trailer when I realized that I was missing a leverage bar I needed for the hitch. I wasted an hour searching for it, then gave up and went to Home Depot to buy a replacement. That little fiasco cost me another hour. I didn’t get on the road until 10:30 AM.

That meant I had to take highways. I drove down to Pendleton and hopped on I-84 eastbound. And thus started a very long, very grueling day of driving. The trouble is, my 1994 Ford F150 8-cylinder pickup truck, when towing, is no match for hills and mountains. On flat areas (or downhill, of course), I could get it up to 65 MPH. But as soon as I started to climb, my speed deteriorated. Down to 35 MPH. Trucks were passing me.

And the roads through eastern Oregon and southern Idaho are very hilly.

I plowed on, stopping only for fuel and some fast food that I ate while driving. The hours slipped away. I was just entering the Salt Lake basin area when the sun set. It was about 8 PM. After making two wrong turns, I pulled up in front of Megg’s house just after 9 PM. I’d been on the road for more than 10 hours and was exhausted.

Megg fed me and helped me bring Alex the Bird’s cage into her dining room. By 11 PM, I was asleep in her guest room.

Saturday, August 2

We got up early and hit the farmer’s market in downtown Salt Lake City. This was, by far, the best farmer’s market I’d ever been to. Plenty of fresh produce, baked goods, and other items you’d expect to find at such a place, as well as other non-food items that generally dominate most other farmer’s markets in this country these days. Megg had her 5-year-old son, Cooper, along and we joined Megg’s friend and her 5-year-old son for coffee and scones at a shady table in the park. I felt as if I could have spent the whole day there — it was so pleasant.

AlbionBut we headed out to the Snowbird ski resort area, where we took a hike in Albion Basin. The area had been recommended by photographer and Twitter friend Ann Torrence, who linked to a photo of the place that made it irresistible. The three of us hiked about 2 miles round trip to Cecret Lake (also spelled Secret Lake). I took a lot of photos; this is one of them. The place was amazingly beautiful. Again, I think I could have spent the whole day there. But we didn’t have a whole day. In fact, I was hoping to be back on the road by 1 PM.

The departure time slipped as we went to the Snowbird Ski Resort and took the tram to the top of Hidden Peak. I’m so out of shape I was huffing and puffing at 11,000 feet. We headed back to Salt Lake City where I scrambled to get everything together. It was 3:30 when I said goodbye and hit the road again with Alex.

My goal had been to reach Page, AZ before nightfall. That simply was not going to happen — especially with the way my truck was climbing hills. I wound up in Beaver, UT, where I had dinner at a truck stop before pulling into an RV park for the night. I didn’t unhook the trailer or pop out any of the beds. Instead, I just plugged in the power cord, opened the sofa, and snuggled up in a comforter with a pillow.

Sunday, August 3

Reflecting PoolI pulled out of the RV park at 6 AM sharp and continued south on I-15 to SR 20 to US 89. It wasn’t until I got to Mt. Carmel Junction that I stopped for breakfast and fuel. I was back in familiar territory — the turn at this junction leads to Zion National Park. After breakfast, I continued down through Kanab, stopping to take a photo of a reflecting pool alongside the road along the way. Then I continued east and was very pleased to see the silhouette of Navajo Mountain off in the distance.

I arrived at the Glen Canyon Dam visitor’s center at 10:30 AM. Mike was already there with his truck and Jack the Dog. We had another breakfast in Page, then went to the airport to chat with the folks I’ll be flying for there, and finally to the campground, where we were told we were “lucky” to get a spot. (There’s more to this story, but I don’t feel like going into it now.) We spent the rest of the day picking up a few things for the camper and then just taking it easy. We had dinner in town, then came back to the trailer and watched a movie on my laptop before falling asleep.

Monday, August 4

We did a lot of chores that morning. We had to button up the camper to move it to another site (which we were “lucky” to get) that was suitable for monthly use. It turns out, the only thing that made it suitable was an electric meter, so if I sucked too much electricity, they could charge me for it. The new site is right near the road, which I’m not happy at all about. But I’m hoping it’ll be close enough to the office to connect to the WiFi network there.

We left Mike’s truck with the trailer and climbed back into my truck with the stuff I wouldn’t need anymore — including Alex’s cage. Then the four of us headed home. We’d gotten about 15 miles south of Page when Mike realized he’d forgotten his cell phone. We went back to fetch it, then bought milk shakes that were way too big (and way too expensive) for the ride. At 2 PM, we were in Flagstaff, where we stopped for a Thai food lunch. We were still full from the damn milk shakes, so we wound up taking most of the food home with us.

We were in Wickenburg by 5:30 PM. I fetched one of my cars from my hangar and came home.

Busy enough for you?

So that’s a whole week and then some, all accounted for here. You can see why I didn’t blog regularly. Hopefully, this long post will make up for it — if you could last through it all.

We hit the road again on Friday morning, when we fly to Seattle to fetch the helicopter and bring it down to Page. I hope to be able to share more stories and photos with readers then.

Until then, remember that you can track my progress for most of my trips these days on my SPOT Share page, http://www.tinyurl.com/FindMaria. Use controls under the waypoints list to scroll back through previous days.

And be sure to check out my photo gallery for larger images of what I’ve shared here: http://www.FlyingMPhotos.com/.

Last Day on the Road

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I finally make it to Quincy.

[When we last left our intrepid traveler, she’d settled down for the night in a campsite alongside a stream in Oregon, where she sipped good coffee and listened to a light rain falling on the roof of her travel trailer. You can read about the first day of her trip here and the second day here.]

I’ll be the first to admit that although I pushed hard and covered a lot of miles on the first day of my journey from Wickenburg, AZ to Quincy, WA, I pretty much slacked off on the second day. I blame that on two things: I was tired from a poor night’s sleep and the rainy weather made driving difficult and tedious. So when I pulled into the campsite in an Oregon State Park, I didn’t really care that I’d only covered about 400 miles that day when I should have been able to make it all the way to Quincy.

But that left my third day with a very easy goal. I was only about 250 miles from Quincy and could easily cover the distance before lunch.

I got back on the road at 7:10 AM. It was still overcast and rainy and the clouds seemed to dip down onto the highway. I drove through a light mist, wondering if it would become real fog. There weren’t many other vehicles on the road, which was a good thing. There was construction at various small bridges, bringing the road down to one lane. If a bridge was on an uphill climb, whoever was behind me was forced to slow to my climbing speed, which was seldom faster than 40 miles per hour. I think the truck was more tired than I was.

After a climb to the Blue Mountain Summit, I started seeing warning signs about an upcoming 6% grade. The signs were kind of funny. The first proclaimed, “First Warning! 6 Mile 6% Grade Ahead!” The second said pretty much the same thing as a “Second Warning.” Huge signs set forth maximum speeds for trucks with 5 or more axles — the really heavy ones were limited to just 18 miles per hour. This was obviously serious business.

Before the hill, there was a turnoff for a scenic view. I could see that the clouds ended just ahead and could imagine a view from the mountain over a broad valley. I knew that if I’d been in my Honda without a 3500-lb trailer behind me and a parrot in a plastic box next to me, I would have pulled off to take in the view. But in my current situation, all I wanted was to get to Quincy and set up camp. So I kept driving.

After a “FInal Warning!” sign, I began the descent. The cloud bank ended abruptly at the top of the hill, revealing a huge area of rolling green hills. In the distance, I could clearly see the bulk of Mount St. Helens rising, snow-capped, out of the ground. A tiny cloud hovered near its summit; it might be steaming again. The view was breathtaking, but I had to concentrate on the task at hand: keeping the truck at or below 50 mph on the steep downhill grade without burning up the brakes. I passed a truck and two runaway truck ramps. About a dozen cars passed me. Then I was at the bottom, continuing northwest toward Pendleton.

You may have heard of Pendleton, OR — it’s where Pendleton blankets are made. A piece of trivia for you: Pendleton blankets were much prized by the Navajos, who commonly wore blankets as part of their clothing, in the late 1800s. The Fred Harvey Company convinced the Navajo people, who are known for their excellent weaving, to begin weaving rugs instead of blankets — so they could trade the rugs for Pendleton blankets. These beautiful, soft wool blankets can be found in just about any trading post in the west.

I’d been in Pendleton once before, during my 2005 road trip, eager to take the factory tour. Unfortunately, the factory was closed that week for vacation. (My luck.) I was not going to try again that day.

But I did need gas and I wanted to top off the propane tanks. I’d be using propane to cook in the camper and I didn’t want to run out, since I couldn’t lift the tanks to put them in the truck. I watched the highway signs and pulled off at an exit with a Shell station that had both gas and propane. I was the only vehicle at the pumps and both attendants came out to service me. (Oregon, like New Jersey, is full service fueling only.) One guy pumped the gas while the other actually cleaned my windshield. Then I repositioned my rig and one guy added 6 gallons of propane to my tanks. I was surprised; I thought it would have taken more.

Then I was back on the road again, continuing northwest on I-84. Past Hermiston, I got on I-82 northbound. I crossed the Columbia River for the first time just downstream from the McNary Dam. The water approaching the bridge seemed to boil with currents and columns of mist rose from the downstream side of the dam. The Columbia was at flood stage because of snowmelt in the mountains.

Now I was in Washington state.

The area around me had become more and more agricultural after descending from Blue Mountain. It was a mix of farm field and orchards — including what I’m pretty sure were cherry trees. Most of the Columbia River Valley is cultivated. While Idaho may be famous for potatoes, I passed a sign somewhere in Washington that proclaimed that local county produced more potatoes than anywhere else in the country. Take that, Idaho.

I made the mistake of taking directions from my GPS to get through the Richmond area. The GPS, which is set up for off-road travel, didn’t give accurate and timely directions, so I missed a turn. I wound up detouring through Benton City to catch State Route 225 north to State Route 240. This farm road (225) was narrow and wound through hills. Pretty, but not the kind of road I wanted to be dragging my rig through.

I took State Route 240 to State Route 24 to State Route 243. Along the way, I crossed the Columbia again, passed the community of Desert Aire (which features a private runway), and the farm community of Mattawa, which is also known for its cherry orchards. Route 243 followed the Columbia River and I could easily see the flooding — just the tops of the tall green trees that had been on the shore poked out through the water. Then I got onto I-90 eastbound. Twelve miles to George, where I exited for northbound State Route 281. Just five miles left.

I pulled into the parking lot for the Quincy Golf Course at 11:45 AM.

The site I’d asked them to hold for me was occupied. I didn’t really care. I was tired and just wanted to get the camper parked, disconnected from the truck, and set up. I spent the next two hours doing just that.

Now, the next morning, I’m about 80% settled in. The camper is completely set up, with both beds extended. I put both mattresses on the back bed where I’ll sleep and set up Alex’s cage on the front bed. I’ve got a full hookup here, so I’m all plugged in. This will become important when it gets hot and I need the camper’s air conditioning. It also makes it possible to use the microwave, which our off-the-grid camping makes useless. It’s weird having unlimited access to water — I’m so accustomed to conserving it, especially when I’m away from home. It was a real treat to take a good, long shower. I also put out the awning, which will give me shelter from both sun and rain.

The campground’s five hookup spots are now full. I’m very glad that I got here when I did.

When Your Cell Phone Can’t Connect, Try Texting

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I discover that when my cell phone can’t connect, text messaging may still work.

As I reported in another blog post, I was recently stuck in a location that had an intermittent cell signal. At one point, I’d have 3 or 4 bars (out of 5). But a moment later, without even moving, I’d have the No Signal symbol in its place.

It was vitally important that I communicate with my husband, Mike, before settling down for the night. If he didn’t hear from me, he’d worry and he might take some kind of action. I needed to tell him where I was and assure him that I was okay.

I was a campground, where I hoped to spend the night. Although I was towing a pull-trailer and could have disconnected the trailer from the truck and driven to a place with a better signal, that would have been a huge pain in the butt, especially since it was raining.

After multiple attempts to connect by phone, I started wondering if I could use text messaging. I use that feature of my phone quite a bit — mostly to post tweets on Twitter when I’m traveling. I seldom text anyone else. But on that trip, I’d gotten into the habit of sending a quick text message to Mike to update him on my location. Now, with a spotty cell reception, I started wondering if I could communicate with him by text message.

So I tried it. The phone said I had no signal, and when I tried to send the message, it warned me that the message had not gone through. But it also said that it would attempt to send the message as soon as it got a signal. And less than a minute later, the message was sent. I sent a few more to fully explain my predicament and assure him that I was all right. Then I went about my business, setting up camp.

I didn’t receive a response, so I started worrying that perhaps he hadn’t received the messages. So I composed another message asking for a response and walked over to where the reception seemed better than at my site. I got two messages from him. Two-way communication had been established. Mission accomplished. (Really, though.)

Mike’s not big on texting. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that he hates it. He’s not a good typist on a computer keyboard, and his phone isn’t set up for texting since it doesn’t have a alphabetic keypad. (He has a Raz’r; I have a Treo.) So his texting skills are minimal. I know he wasn’t happy about communicating with me like this, but it did work, so I don’t think he can complain.

As for me, I just find it interesting that I could send and receive text messages — with a delay — when it was impossible for my cell phone to make a voice connection. I’m going to keep that little tidbit in my bag of tricks in case I find myself in a similar situation.