Dear Family, Friends, and Diary,
On Monday, July 24th, we started with our most-northern Supercharging stop before heading south, toward home. In keeping with the wandering theme of this trip, we did not go direct. after rounding the north end of Lake Washington, we turned east over Snoqualamie Pass. For me, this was another reminder of past trips, from childhood trips to several work-trips to the Hanford laboratories. The scene was as spectacular as it always is, even if I failed to get any pictures this time.
We stopped for charging and lunch at Ellensburg, an Eastern Washington town that transformed from a stinky cattle town to a quaint university community. Dinner at The Pearl Bar and Grill was surprisingly tasty. (I generally have doubts about restaurants with "bar" in their names.)
From Ellensburg, we headed south, across empty countryside. We stopped once or twice, including a rest stop in Klickitat County, home of reportedly wonderful hay. OK, everyone needs a reason for home pride. For us tourists, the views of mountains and windmills was enough.
Approaching the Columbia River, we saw a sign to "Stonehenge" and could not pass it up. It turned out to be a monument to Klickitat veterans who had fallen in past wars. Nice view.
Finally, we made it to our home-for-the-night, the Celilo Inn in The Dalles, Oregon. It was a simple roadside motel, friendly, unexpectedly clean, and offerred a nice breakfast.Maybe best of all, it offerred a great view of the neighboring Columbia River dam and the grandly-named Bridge of the Gods. More pictures!
On Tuesday, I was up before dawn and drove across town to get Carla a charge and me a Starbucks coffee. It was early enough that I had plenty of time to catch up with diaries.
We did not yet have a goal or destination for the day, just the requirement to drive west through the Columbia River Gorge and then South, down the Willamette Valley toward home.
We packed up and said good-bye to the Celilo Inn, only to be called by the front desk a half-hour later to be told I had forgotten my computer power supply back in the room. We returned, hoping that losing an hour would not portend other travel glitches.
The drive was as we had hoped, filled with rock and river scenes that make the drive famous. It was worth the day extra to travel from Seattle to Portland via the looping detour.
As we passed through Hood River, we detoured off to the Columbia Gorge Hotel. The resort and hotel were built in 1921 to provide respite to travelers on the newly-opened Gorge River Road. Touring cars of the day were not the most comfortable and the road was narrow and twisty, so quality people needed a place to rest. Outside and in, the hotel seems to have aged well. Maybe we will try this on our next trip.
Farther down river, we stopped again, just for a quick picture or two. Eventually, though, we decided we really did need to make more progress on our return home, so we focused on driving.
Around Portland, there were big city traffic problems, but once we turned south on Interstate 5, the biggest problem was boredom and the only stopping was to feed Carla. In the Southern Oregon community of Southerlin, we found ourselves in a giant Supercharger station, with 51 "pumps". This must be the biggest in the state and I'm not sure why this little community warranted such an investment.
We ended up driving a few miles farther, to Roseburg, where we got a room at the Best Western. We have used BW as our default travel hotel chain, because we've found the hotels to be medium priced, but roomy and clean. The Roseburg offering was an exception, over-priced and under-maintained. The irony was that we had stayed here in 2019 and concluded the same thing, but had not remembered when calling to find a room. At least the motorcycle riders who shared the hotel were friendly.
We started Wednesday, facing 10 to 12 hours of driving/eating/charging before we could reach Fresno. And the co-pilot's heart was acting up. With that combination, we just turned south, to see how far we could make.
Step one was down to Medford for breakfast and electricity. Traffic had been OK, the sun was shining, and all hearts were behaving. It was a good start. I ordered Elmer's giant German pancake, a confection we never saw in the old country. Marianne undoubtedly had something healthier.
Back on the road, we drove and drove. Hills, twists, mountains, construction zones. Sometimes, I let Carla's "full self driving" handle the duties, but squeezing past huge trucks in curves at 70 mph seemed a challenge too far. Fortunately, the Model Y drives easily with a person at the wheel.
Mount Shasta showed up and escorted us for miles. I can remember this part of the drive from my commutes from the University of Portland down to home in San Mateo. The scene has remained inspiring for almost 60 years. (Driving my 1952 MGTD with the top down was particularly fun, even if my top speed was around 50 mph and the car was far from full self driving.)
About now, we decided we would need one more overnight before getting home. We were both getting tired too soon. Besides, we were still on an undefined trip and would get home a week earlier than originally planned. Anderson, just south of Redding, seemed an adequate goal.
We opted for the Gaia Hotel and Spa. The website description was inviting and the riverside location sounded pleasant. In fact, it was just what we needed. Our dinner hamburgers were old fashioned, made one-at-a-time, not in a remote factory. The room was large and clean, enough. I don't know how long the Gaia has been around. It did seem to be a bit mid-century, not free from wear and tear, but so much better (and cheaper) than yesterday's BW.
After waiting for the Central Valley heat to back off, we walked past hotel ponds and over to the Sacramento River where we chatted with one of the other hotel guests. Stopping our drive at 2:00 pm was definitely a good decision.
After that, it was a bit of Netflix for Marianne and YouTube for me and early to bed for both of us. Tomorrow would be a hot drive down the length of the Sacramento and San Joaquin farms and orchards.
Thursday, July 27th, the 21st day of our "about a month" trip and we headed south. By now, driving was a chore with no more mountains and curves, just miles and miles of fields and orchards. Nothing inspired a picture.
We talked about the best and worst hotel, meal, and attraction. The only clear winners were "Kobe" in Ashland as the Best Restaurant and the Shoreline Inn in Port Orford as the worst place to stay. (However, optimists that we are, we had to admit the bed was good and the vintage place was as clean as required.)
Back home, everything was fine. Gloria had done a great job keeping home clean and the gardens watered enough, although the roses were pretty well baked. That happens every summer in Fresno. Nothing that we noticed was broken, no small feat for our old house. We checked in with Vern and Joan and they reported that Cambridge Avenue was unchanged, except that half the neighbors were out of town on vacation. That, too, is very common in Fresno summers.
Lessons learned from this test trip?
- Minimize one- and two-day stays, in favor of week-at-a-time stops.
- Bring fewer clothes. Even with a roomy car, less is better. Schlepping heavy suitcases in and out of hotels and finding places in small rooms to use them, is just not worth the flexibility of choices.
- Research attractions ahead, so we spend more time seeing things, not just searching for places to stay and dine.
- Find a polite way to visit friends without home stays. Most homes do not have travel facilities in guest rooms. (Places to plug in gear, desk, hanger space, suitcase space, pillow selection, etc.) The length of home stays is governed by the "fish rule" - after a couple days, things spoil - so a violation of LL #1 in any event.
- Do go out of the way to visit friends and relatives, no matter if we have not met in person in decades. Call at the last minute if necessary. Of course, the other party has to answer.
- Pause from time to time. It's OK to have a day off to clean clothes and chill.
- Remember to exercise regularly, even if it is just walking. Our conditioning suffered in these three weeks.
- Other, TBD.
Now, after refilling the refrigerator, we need to work on preparing for a two-month trip. There are health appointments. clothes inventories, equipment checks (may need new iPhones that can work with a European service provider). There needs to be a few weeks of "boot camp" to drop the travel-gained pounds and regain conditioning enough for walking tourist-level distances. Europe requires that.
Stay tuned,
John and Marianne