Portland, OR to Spokane, WA
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Unlike many previous trips we did not plan to leave on a given day and then spend that given day doing all the things we needed to do to leave (food, supplies, camping gear, etc.). We took care of the grocery shopping the day before and Les had acquired the trailer a couple of days earlier. Having the trailer saved a lot of prep work since no tents, sleeping bags, lanterns, etc. we used to take when tent camping. I brought my pile of stuff over the day before as well, so once we were awake and dressed, we were pretty much ready to go.
The first adventure was backing out of the driveway, which Les handled with aplomb with some direction from Sharon. Then it was on to Costco for gas, and by 10am we were on the road.
It’s almost 900 miles to Yellowstone so the first 2-3 days of the trip involved driving there. Pulling the trailer, a reasonable speed (and best gas mileage) is about 62. It also takes up a fair amount of room on the freeway, so you have to be careful. Not to mention avoiding going into towns or gas stations with limited turn around capabilities.
As planned, a 10am departure got us through Portland with a minimum amount of traffic and headed out I-84 through the gorge. The weather forecast was very hit and miss so there was some concern. But the day was sunny with puffy clouds and about 60 degrees. The weather report for Yellowstone is high 30s and chance of rain or snow. So we’ll see how long this holds up.
Not much to report on day 1. We passed a series of trailers hauling huge wind turbine blades. 3 of them. You really don’t realize how big the blades are when viewing a wind turbine from a distance from up on a hill. Up close they are BIG. When the road got more curvy, the ‘oversize load’ trucks had to block both lanes since as the trucks went through the curves, the blades would extend out over the other lane.
We went through The Dalles, Boardman (where Marion and I spent a lovely night on an earlier trip) where we stopped for gas the first time, then across the Columbia and up into Washington through Kennewick and Pasco (where highways, railways, skyways and waterways converge according to a billboard), and up US 395 towards Spokane.
We tried to find an RV park past Spokane to put a little more distance behind us, but no luck. In the age of COVID, the RV parks (and campgrounds) are very full, even in mid-October. I called about 10 places, 8 of which didn’t answer the phone at all and the other 2 let me know they were full. But the 11th place or so did have a spot. Not quite as far as we wanted to go but better (at least to me) than just pulling into a rest area.
It was the Overland RV Park. The ‘park’ was basically a dirt lot just off the freeway down the road from the industrial park. But that didn’t stop it from being mostly full. We got the last spot. It was run by a good ‘ol boy and his good ‘ol boy wife (or girlfriend or sister or both, who knows?). They were both very heavy, especially her, which must have taken some effort given the lack of teeth. Very nice people and very helpful, so I don’t like to disparage them (too much), but I wouldn’t have let them alone with my child, or pet, or anything of value. The place looked like some of the residents might be permanent, given the RVs were up on blocks. But we weren’t staying long, and it seemed reasonably safe. The only downside was that the previous residents left our site with a sampling of cigarette butts and didn’t clean up after their dog, or maybe cat, which Les managed to step in but thankfully did not spread around the trailer.
Dinty Moore beef stew for dinner.
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