Western US Trip – Day 1

Portland, Washington, Mt. Adams Wilderness

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I set out from home at 12:30. Daniel wasn’t sad until just at the end. But he put on a brave face. Marion did too. It felt pretty weird leaving them when I didn’t “have to”. I’ve been away on two and three week trips before, but always for work. Marion gave me a nice smile and a wave on my way out and shouted, “have fun”. That made me feel better.

I arrived at Les’ house where I was greeted warmly by his semi-estranged wife (“he’s in back…”). Les was busily cleaning his shower (for later use I guess). The Dolphins-Vikings game was on, and it got exciting briefly but then Miami choked and it was all over.

Of course we didn’t repack the truck. We just threw his stuff in on top of my stuff. We’re going to use the time honored “last in, first out” algorithm famous in computer science textbooks. Things we want will naturally migrate to the edges. Things we didn’t really need to bring will end up on the bottom in the middle. Sort of Darwinian.

We set out at 1:30. First stop, Washington Square Shopping Center. Not much in the way of scenic beauty but we successfully purchased Les some jeans and me some $5.00 sunglasses with a lovely nuclear wasteland yellow tint. We were unsuccessful however in the purchase of road flares. Hopefully, this will not be a problem.

Then, Hwy. 217 to I-5 to I-205 to SR14 in Washington. We were now officially “on the trip”. We arrived in Stevens, where we bought groceries in preparation for hitting the back roads. This was a lesson we learned on a previous trip when we were two hours or so down some forest service road, miles from anywhere and I was starving. This generally results in “negative behavior” on my part and a serious inability to make a decision.

Leaving the grocery store, the slinky Les brought, sensing peril, made a valiant but ill-fated leap for freedom as we left the parking lot, throwing itself out the window, into the gutter. However, it was unable to get far on foot. After retrieving the slinky, we ventured off the main road towards Carson. At this point, we had no reason to believe that our maps were anything but accurate. Somewhere north of Paradise Creek Campground (which looks kinda nice) we went astray trying not to go to Trout Lake.

Now, Trout Lake, apparently contains a small black hole, whose gravitational pull drags unsuspecting travelers to within 15 miles. By applying full thrust we were able to maintain a 15 mile distance. But, try as we might, we could not seem to achieve a greater than 24 mile distance from Trout Lake.

Now we were about half an hour down gravel roads and what should come our way but a white Porsche. This seemed a little strange and we commented on what kind of moron would take his Porsche down a road like this. Just as we did so, a second Porsche passed us. Red this time. And as I was commenting something like, “what is this a Porsche festival?”, sure enough the third one (another red one) went rolling by. I don’t know what the odds of finding three Porsches in a row down some gravel road in southern Washington are, but we did.

At this point, the maps failed.

For a brief time, road signs guided us. But then we reached the fateful crossroads, where the choices were, No Name Road, Steamboat Lake, and the ever popular Trout Lake. In our ongoing efforts to avoid Trout Lake we chose the only wrong road. But at the time we did not realize it. We traveled happily down this road for the whole side of the first Santana album when the road forked, with no signs. This was the first indication of trouble. Undaunted, we continued on the right hand fork.

For the next 12 miles or so, no matter what we tried, we traveled with Mount St. Helens in front of us, Mount Adams to the right, and the trees growing ever closer to the ever narrowing roadway. So it was not a great surprise when the road switched back, went down a ravine and ended at the cul-de-sac. No doubt, the beginnings of a nice housing subdivision but we didn’t stop to investigate. Had we only known, this would have been an ideal place to collect firewood.

So, in less than 5 hours of our starting off, we had managed to get lost. There were no signs or indications from our map to tell us where we were. Left with no alternatives, we headed off to Trout Lake.

Within a couple of miles we passed the sign for Big Tire Junction. What could it mean we thought? Les suggested that perhaps someone had left a big tire in the road. Sure enough, moments later, we arrived at the big tire in the road, nicely landscaped with a bit a shrubbery. And not too surprisingly it also turned out to be a junction. Also not too surprisingly, it was 14 miles from Trout Lake. So, we headed off in the opposite direction to Cougar, a mere 53 miles away, and, inadvertently I’m sure, left off our map.

Next we hit the intersection that was 40 miles from Cougar, (which we finally discovered on another map), and 40 miles from Randle which was where we’d been heading all along. Still, with this information, we were unable to locate ourselves on the latest in map technology. 20 miles later at the next junction, we were 37 miles from Randle and of course 24 miles from Trout Lake.

Finally we were on a road the good folks at Rand McNally felt warranted representation on the map. How we got there and where we had been, we had no idea. And at this point, we weren’t really buying the map anyway but it seemed like a good sign. And since the light was failing and since this road supposedly had campsites on it, we were in high spirits.

We reached Takhlakh Lake turnoff and headed for it. Roughly every 50 feet, were signs for other lakes, tempting us to turn off and go there. We were sorely tempted but resisted fearing demon spirits were trying to lure us into trouble. The lake turned out to be very pretty, with Mt. Adams (our old friend) in the distance. We found ourselves a lakeside campsite, successfully erected the tent in short order, and successfully cooked a meal of ravioli and hot dogs, Diet Coke, and cookies.

As we were getting ready for bed I happened to look up and noticed a sky full of stars. We decided to take a walk down to the lake and found a small stump actually in the lake that we sat out on for half an hour or so. I haven’t seen the Milky Way for a long time. In the night we could look out of the top of the tent and see the stars and a very bright moon. I didn’t know it at the time, but this night would be the last time I slept warmly in the tent for some time to come.

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