Off into the Desert

October 9-14, 2016

Fresno was fun not because it's Fresno, but because I was able to meet with an internet friend there.  Seeing someone in real life that you've interacted with online is a little like meeting a first-time friend that you've known for years.

After a day or so I headed down to Bakersfield and discovered that the small leak in the transmission had become something closer to a steady trickle.  Rather than add a quart of fluid every 100 miles I decided to get the leak checked out.  I googled the reviews for nearby shops and chose what seemed to be the best one.

It turned out well although he didn't have the space to lift my rv, he knew the 'sister garage' across town did.  He gave them a call and sent me off with directions.  When I got there I found that they were holding the lift open for me so they could do an inspection to figure out what was leaking.  The answer was "everything".  Fearing they would need to pull the transmission and knowing they were about two weeks out they called another shop they trusted and sent me over there.

Brandon was fabulous.  He pointed out all the places that Rigadoon was leaking and said it could be repaired without pulling the tranny - a one day fix.  I left, he ordered the parts and the next day they put new gaskets in.  Although hanging around the shop for two days wasn't much fun I did get to chat with another customer who told me about his time in the war and as a trucker.  Very cool.

A couple days later and I was on my way over the Tehachapi Mountains.  The one cool thing about this route is that it takes you near the Tehachapi Loop, and engineering marvel that allows trains to climb a steep grade by make a shallower loop around a hill.

Yep, more hills.  I was so worried about the transmission that I missed the exit to the truck stop where I was planning on spending the night.  No worries, right?  It's late in the day and I'll just stop at the next one - it should be cool enough by the time I get there....

So I don't why it didn't occur to me that the desert is going to be hot in October, I mean, it's October!  Leaves are falling, the jackets come out, it's autumn for heaven's sake.  Except that autumn in the Mojave Desert hovers happily around the 90 degree mark.

I am baking while driving into the sun and can only hope the cats have found a cool place to ride.  There is no shade and no way was I going to stop and sit in the sun to do anything so I soldiered on to Boron and the next truck stop.

As I was pulling in desperately hoping for shade I realized that those big semi trailers provide more than enough respite from the sun for a tiny little camper.  We tucked into a spot next to a big rig and settled down for one of the loudest nights yet.

Did you know that trucks run all night?  Yeah.  And they continuously come and go as well.  Butch was terrified but a long, loud night was much better than sitting at 100+ degrees for several hours.

At least we had a nice sunset.

What the Hell Was I Thinking?

October 6-8 or so, 2016

National Monuments are amazing places and a unique resource that allows everyone to experience the world as it was before modernization.  Modernization such as internet access.  The kind of access you want to have when you've put off getting a paper map and rely on your phone for directions.  Without this access you resort to finding the nearest big road and hoping you choose the right direction.

And you end up in unexpected places.  Like Susanville California.  There is nothing wrong with Susanville but the road to get there goes through farm and hilly territory with no services along the way.  And you don't find this out until you pass the closed gas station in Adin (population ~300) and see the sign that says 'next services 67 miles'.

Yeah.

So I look at my gas gauge and decide I can go just about 67 miles before I'm out of gas.  Shortly after this decision I discovered the "hilly" part of the journey.  Yeah, 67 miles on flatish land - I'm less confident about the mileage when going over mountains.

Happily I made it and discovered that I have about two gallons left when the tank reads "empty".  Still, not a risk I care to take often.

From Susanville I went towards Yuba and eventually ended up in Sonora.  This is where it gets really stupid.  From Sonora I drove towards Oakhurst along Highway 41 intending to go to Yosemite.

Highway 49 is an insane road full of serious ups and downs as it travels through the foothills of the Sierra Mountains.  Pretty as all get out but at 20 mph much of the way that was one of the longest driving days I have had.  There aren't really any places to stop since the towns along the way are tiny and wouldn't welcome an overnight camper even if I could find a parking lot big enough and level enough to stay in.  Beautiful drive but I think this was the beginning of the end for my transmission.

I got to Oakhurst, add fluid to the tranny and started up the hill into Yosemite.  After about a half hour of creeping upwards I decided that I wasn't having fun and regardless of how beautiful the park might be, I would be tense and unhappy the entire time I was going up and over mountains to get to the lovely places - if I even made it all the way to the gate.  I turned around and headed towards Fresno.  There were still a lot of hills in the way but they got smaller the farther I went towards the ocean.

OK.  Time for a new plan.

It Gets Real(er)

Leaving Portland on the 30th of September marked my first forays into places I hadn't been.  I headed west towards Mount Hood intending to spend the night there.  Turns out that the nicest places are marked as government campsites (pay) and the less nice places have scary roads.  How scary?  I started down one which almost immediately degenerated into a scrawny path with no way to turn around.  It's along the side of the mountain so I don't mean there was underbrush blocking a turn, I mean there was a steep hill on on side and a dropoff on the other. At first I drove along assuming that at some point there'd be a parking area or trail head that would allow me to turn.

Then I reached the rock.

The road/path scooted around the edge of a large boulder that was blocking the path and that would have been okay except for the tree that had fallen right next to the boulder.  Earlier travelers of the path had driven over the tree several times so there was kind of a way through but damn it was skinny.  I somehow managed to wiggle through without hitting either the tree or the rock and kept going.  About ten minutes farther along there was a pullover section that was big enough for me to turn around without falling over the side of the hill so with a huge sigh I headed back towards the main (well. not dirt path) road.

Then I reached the rock, again.

Curiously in the space of 20 minutes I had managed to completely block this thing out of my mind.  Once again I tried to thread my way through and was almost there when it seems I angled away from the tree a bit too soon.  Nasty scraping sound but I was not going to stop there to look at it.  I eventually reached the road, headed back towards the highway and decided I didn't want to stay near Mount Hood after all.

Eastern Oregon is stunning and perhaps the most awe-inspiring section is around Warm Springs.  The road turns a corner to hugely open views of a deep canyon with a scattering of houses at the base.  Sadly no pics but the drive down into and back out of the canyon is amazing.

I stayed on the road until Bend and discovering that there were no places to stay (for free) I went a little further to the Deschutes National Forest.  I saw a sign pointing to the Lava Cast Forest and on a whim I decided to check it out.

This is where I made the decision to never again go somewhere without first researching it.

A mile or so along the road it suddenly becomes a poorly maintained, seriously washboard road that limits speed to less than 10 miles per hour in many places.  Especially in an rv.  The boys and I jiggled along for a very long time and never saw any more signs for the forest.  Fortunately my gps got a signal and my phone realized that I was not in Salem but in the middle of a forest.  On Lava Cast Forest Road.  At this point I had no idea if there was really something to see ahead or if the entire drive had cool stuff along the sides that I wasn't recognizing as cool.

Having no clear reason to keep going forward, I turned around and headed back, figuring I'd go as far as I could before it got dark and stop there for the night. The way back never seems to take as long as the outward journey and I reached the paved part of the road at dusk.  We pulled off the road into a wide spot and I spent the next half hour trying to find all the things that had jiggled off the counter while driving.

I still don't know what the lava cast forest is.

The Misty Mountain

September 20-22, 2016

Three days on Mount St Helens is probably not enough time, but it was all the fair weather she gave me. After leaving my friends' house on the 19th I hightailed to the rest stop nearest the turnoff to head up to the National Monument.  I wasn't hopeful the next morning after awakening to a thick fog that hid even the nearby freeway but I headed for the hills anyway.  A grueling 1.5 mile climb to the Johnston Ridge Observation Center later I was greeted with this:

Front view.

The view from the side.  The crater is to the left.

The fog was kind enough to stick to the lowlands and give the visitors a clear view of the crater complete with steam coming from the vents in the center.  37 years ago that was a pointy mountain until she collapsed, sending many tons of her mountainside tumbling down into what was previously a deeper valley.  Over the years rain and snow have begun carving into the looser rocks and soil of the landslide creating a hellscape:

All around there are hummocks - chunks of the mountain that were deposited as the mudflow ran into the valleys:

These used to be inside a volcano

And here is the Toutle River, patiently carving her way through the 200 or so feet of rock and ash that was dumped in her path.  I'm pretty sure this is how the Grand Canyon got started.

Despite having 59 days of warning earthquakes not everything was taken out of the area.  Scientists expected a much smaller blast area and unfortunately some of them lost their lives when the mountain erupted.  The area was actively being logged and a few pieces of logging machinery didn't fare well either:

As I was coming down the hill from seeing the logging equipment The Mountain looked as though she'd had enough of the sunny day and started collecting her rain cap for the storm that would unleash that evening.

It poured all night long and I left early the next morning to head to Vancouver.