Monday, October 24

Some of what follows will be long and no doubt boring. But on the bright side, for some it will be an object lesson in why you don’t want to have a free-spirited adventure on the boack roads after all.

We left Salem Monday 10/24. On our way we stopped in at Sam's office to pick up our mail, then headed for the Columbia Gorge. We paused briefly at Vista House at Crown Point, north of Portland, to take in sweeping views of the Columbia River. 

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Vista House

View of the Columbia from Vista House

True to our back roads ethic, we followed the river on two-lane Route 30 instead of taking the Interstate. One of our stops was at Multnomah Falls, fed by waters from Multnomah Creek, falling 620 feet on its way to the Columbia.

Kate at Multnomah Falls

We passed three of the five dams on the Columbia, stopping at the largest, Bonneville Dam. 

Bonneville Dam

The Bonneville Dam and all the dams on the Columbia were constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Included in its construction is a fish ladder, enabling salmon safely to bypass the dam while swimming upstream to spawn. There is a public viewing area for viewing the fish as they battle the current to reach their destination. It's the time of year when coho salmon are making the journey -- we were able to see some of them as they made their way.

Bonneville Dam Fish Ladder

During our travels from time to time we've been (sometimes almost literally) following in the footsteps of the Nez Perce tribe, Lewis and Clark, the "overlanders" who migrated west over the Oregon Trail, and the explorers who founded Astoria representing John Jacob Astor as he attempted to create an American fur trading empire in competition with the British, the French, and the Russians. Most of the westward exploration and migration sooner or later culminated in navigation of the Columbia.  It's been fascinating to us to listen to recorded books about these adventurers while driving and hiking through the exact territory they traversed.

By the time we neared The Dalles (In old Canadian French:"a stretch of a river between high rock walls, with rapids and dangerous currents") the landscape began changing from green and moist to flat and dry.

Columbia Gorge Changes to Columbia Plateau

Reaching the Columbia Plateau, we camped at the Deschutes River State Park, where the Deschutes joins the Columbia.  

Old Railroad Trail

In the morning we hiked on the Old Railroad Trail along the Deschutes (nice and flat). Speaking of railroads, the area adjacent to the Deschutes Park has more train traffic than we've ever seen or imagined. During the 18 hours or so of  our stay there must have been more than a dozen freight trains in every direction, running east to west, west to east, north to south, and south to north. In contrast, the Columbia seems to have very little boat or barge traffic.

Leaving the Deschutes, we drove across eastern Oregon on a dry, flat plain with sagebrush and crops ranging from poplars (world's biggest irrigated tree farm) to potatoes. We stopped in Echo, Oregon, near the site where Astor's men John Day and Ramsey Crooks were ambushed and stripped naked by Indians, walked naked for four days in cold weather along the river now known as John Day River, and by sheer happenstance bumped into another group of Astor's men canoeing where the smaller river joins the Columbia.

World's Biggest Irrigated Tree Farm

Echo, Oregon -- A Walk Down Memory Lane

Echo, Oregon -- Grave of Overlander Who Died Here

 We decided to travel to Boise, our next stop, using a tiny back road rather than the much faster Interstate. It was a choice resulting in some interesting consequences. We traveled Route 395, a nearly deserted two lane highway through beautiful Columbia Plateau country.  

As the afternoon began to progress toward dusk and we climbed the long, gentle hills, we slowed down. And then we slowed down some more. Suddenly our top speed on the uphill stretches was 20 or 25 miles an hour. It was getting duskier. There was no other traffic on the road, no inhabited dwellings in sight, no cellular phone service. So we held our breath and inched along for the next 20 miles until we reached the campsite where we planned to spend the night. Closed for the season.

We inched back down the road to the one town on our route, Ukiah (named after the Ukiah in California, we learned later, by one of the first settlers here, who grew up in Ukiah, CA and missed his home town). 

By this time it was dark. We drove into town and it too was dark. And small. It seemed like the town that time forgot. At one end of town there was a Forest Service Rangers' Office. We decided to pull up in the parking lot there near the rest room, pull down the shades, and hope we could stay the night without getting arrested or mugged. We had no idea what was wrong with the rig, and no idea how we were going to find out in Ukiah, Oregon.

We hunkered down for an uneasy sleep.

In the morning, I called my mechanic in Palo Alto to discuss possible causes of our problem and options for dealing with it. He said it could be dirty or wet air filter, vacuum in the gas tank (fix by loosening the gas cap), or a fuel filter clog. In any case, he said we wouldn’t damage the engine by driving the rig.

At the Forest Service office, Ranger Stephanie referred us to Danny, who she said was the best mechanic in town. ("Town" was a liquor store, a small grocery store, a cafe, a gas station, the Antler Inn, and two junk yards -- graveyards for rusty old pickups and various parts of motorcycles and trailers.) We found Danny, a 53-year-old fellow with a red face, in the dark and dingy office of the gas station/store of which he is proprietor. 

Danny's Gas Station and Store, Ukiah, OR

Danny told us he hadn't "mechanicked" for 25 years. He was pretty sure our problem was bad diesel. This led him to complain that ALL diesel in Oregon is bad, because the government has stuck its nose in and required so many stupid things that it's a wonder any vehicle manufactured after his own 30-year-old models will even run. This led him to more general complaints about government interference, which led him to the fact that the government is constructing a vast network of FEMA camps which are in reality secret internment camps intended for Second Amendment advocates after Hillary Clinton is elected ("They call them FEMA camps, but if they're being constructed to help people, why does the razor wire all point in?")

Danny referred us to Tommy, who he assured us was an excellent deisel mechanic.

Tommy, down the road a piece, lived in a trailer in one of the town junk yards. It was now 9 am, but he was apparently still asleep in his trailer on the edge of the junkyard, so we bided our time having an enormous breakfast at the Thicket Cafe, adjacent to Tommy's junkyard. I myself had a Thicket scramble (four eggs, ham, cheese, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes). 

Back to the National Forest office. Ranger Stephanie said if we break down and have to come back, she has snacks for us and she can kick her granddaughter out of her bed and give us a place to stay at her house.

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Antler Inn, Ukiah (Note the trademark antlers)

By 11:00 Tommy was up and at 'em; we found him sunning himself with a friend outside the Thicket. 

Tommy, like Danny, appeared to be in his 50's and also had a red face. It developed that he, too, was long retired from mechanicking. He was sure that the problem with the rig wasn't bad diesel, but it had to be condensation -- water in the fuel line that would work itself through. The remedy was to keep the fuel tank full at all times so that condensation couldn't form, and to buy gas only at truck stops where it was unlikely to find "old" diesel that had water in it. Then again it could be a clogged fuel filter inside the fuel tank -- clogged because of the inevitable crap in the impure diesel that they make these days, thanks to the government requiring inclusion of biodiesel in the mix (bad diesel after all). He said the Dodge dealer in LaGrande was definitely going to be able to replace the fuel filter, but it would require draining the tank.

Tommy and his friend sent us off with this parting comment: "You'll enjoy the drive. Just watch out for the elk -- they like to challenge cars." We didn’t see a single elk. It occurred to us that Tommy and his friend enjoy telling clueless tourists about the aggressive elk on the road ahead for their own entertainment. Not much else to do in Ukiah, Oregon.

Limping the 75 miles to LaGrande, we found that there is no Dodge dealer there. We did find a mechanic who specialized in foreign cars. He said our problem was no doubt a clogged EXTERNAL fuel filter (outside the fuel tank). This loss of power thing happens all the time to diesels, and that's almost always the cause.

There was some discussion (almost but not quite rising to the level of argument) in the cab of the rig as we sputtered along, about whether to stop and have one of these experts try out his theory and do repairs, or whether to forge on all day at 25 to 50 mph on the interstate with our flashers going, hoping to make it to Boise. It was not lost on us that we were literally on the Oregon Trail for the whole day -- the trail where people in rigs a little smaller than ours had occasioned problems with broken axles and attacking Indians, and where we were passing places with names like "Desolation Gulch" and "Starvation Creek." I don't know why, but I myself was driven by a manaical "Boise or Bust" commitment. Perhaps it was because I had a miniscule amount of experience with auto mechanics when I worked in gas stations 50 years ago, and I had a sense of the imperfect science likely being applied by the typical mechanic in rural Oregon. Kate and I usually share the driving duties, but on this day I kept my white knuckled grip on the wheel for the entire trip, refusing to stop for anything for fear of losing the tiny bit of momentum we had going for us.

We had to sputter along at 25-50 mph tops for the 225 miles from Ukiah to Boise. The holy grail: Our plans called for next visiting Kate's nephew Nick, who is a certified Mercedes mechanic. On the phone Nick said he was sure he’d be able to figure out how to fix our problem.

  

We found that an "Oversized Load" truck convoy was our friend on the trip. On the uphills, of which there were many, we could only make 30 mph. Ahead of us would be a big pickup truck with flashing orange lights, the trailer truck with the wide load, then another truck with flashing orange lights -- and then us, hazard lights ablaze. We felt protected -- part of something larger than ourselves. On the downhills on the downhills the convoy (including us) could pick up speed and move as fast as everybody else.

When we reached Boise we headed straight for Nick's German Auto Repair shop and deposited the rig. We piled a healthy proportion of our belongings into Nick's pickup and headed home with him.

We were greeted very cordially by Nick, wife Jocelyn (Joss), and kids Ossian and Clementine (CC) -- and by Jocey’s visiting mother Linda, who got booted out of her room to make space for us. We were treated like royalty -- dinner, laundry service, the works – largely courtesy of Linda.

Nick and Jocelyn's House in Boise

View of the Neighborhood from the House

Joss, Nick and Ossian

CC and Nick

Nick and Kate

We had such a wonderful time with the Boise Canrinus family that we stayed longer than we had intended. We walked several miles on pathways on the outskirts of Boise including a river walk along the Snake. The outskirts of Boise are on the move -- there's a huge influx of population underway; entire neighborhoods are materializing seemingly before our eyes.

Kate played monopoly with the kids.

Don did dog walking duty with Cisco, Lola, and Thomas.

Kate went to school with Ossian one day and saw him participate in a special science class.

Sorting out the relationships, Ossian decided to call Kate "Great Aunt" and Don "Great Grandpa."

 The whole family went to see the show featuring live birds of prey at the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise. 

Nick found the problem with the rig in the space of a half hour. We had a cracked turbo resonator, whatever that may be. Exactly what I suspected. Turbo resonator replaced, the rig has a new spring in its step, and we're ready to roll.

We loved our time with Nick and family, and look forward to visiting again.