Thursday, April 7
Morning broke sunny and bright, at least in part of the sky. Chilly with a breeze blowing off the snowy hills, I looked out my window and saw snow had lightly blanketed the ground overnight. We had agreed to meet Ron and Melissa at 11am, so foregoing our morning coffee, we left the campground and town with enough time to make it over the pass. The pass was actually clear, though wet, and fortunately travel was not a problem.
Our visit with Ron and Melissa was wonderful; it had been a long time. We were pleased to see their daughter, Sarah, whom we hadn't seen since her wedding so many years before (oldest daughter will soon be 20); she stopped by to drop off her two youngest sons for class with the grandfather. Melissa, Duffy and I left teacher Ron with his small class of home-schooled students studying Spanish and drove down the hill to town for lunch at a quaint little diner. It seems there's never enough time to fully enjoy a visit after so many years, but we certainly packed in the conversation.
From the Woodbury's home, we dropped down the hill to the library where we both caught up on computer work, Duffy for business, and me surfing the web out of curiosity. About 4:00pm we finally left Pendleton traveling westward on I-84.
Our destination became, not home as originally planned, but a state park listed in the AAA Camp Guide as Memaloose State Park 11-miles west of The Dalles. We figured this would get us a little farther down the road to home without being too rigorous a drive. We picked up dinner to go in The Dalles planning to eat once we set up the trailer in the campground while we still had some daylight.
Well, dinner was cold before we ate it at almost 9:00pm. Our Garmin gave me two listings for the Memaloose State Park, one west of The Dalles, the other east of Hood River. Both listings, it turned out, led to the same place, a location on Hwy 30. What we didn't know was that Hwy 30 is the historic Columbia Gorge Highway that winds in hairpin turns and switchbacks up the bluff to the top of the cliff several hundred feet above and overlooking the Columbia River below. Not long after saying to Duffy that I wanted to visit the view point in the morning for photos, I noticed that Miss Nuvi, our GPS, directed us past the flag on “her” map that indicated the site of the campground. The only marking we saw on the way by that marked spot read “Private Road.” We kept going on this historic two lane, cliff-side, white knuckle drive until it brought us back down to river level just before the town of Hood River. We might as well have eaten our dinner at he restaurant for all the good it did to drive to the campground before dark. It made no sense to backtrack to find that elusive campground, something we'll have to do on another trip when we feel like sleuthing. Our “next trip” list is getting longer.
On we went westward to Viento State Park (“viento” is wind in Spanish – they've got that right, blessedly this day is an exception) situated between Hood River and Cascade Locks on the Columbia River. It's right on the Columbia with only a train track between us and the vast expanse of river. We've come to expect train tracks and frequent nighttime train traffic near campgrounds – the two seem to go together. Being sound sleepers helps.
The consolation – we have a shorter day tomorrow. Over the past few days we've gained two hours in time zone change and later setting of the sun. The partial consolation – our dinners were not yet stone cold. So here I sit on my narrow trailer bed typing away while I listen to music on my iPod with the electric heater keeping us snug. This is the life.
Until next time,
Pam
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