Day 5, way late
Day 5
So, day 5 of my journeys was filled with mishap. Montana dislikes me, apparently. It was cloudy and ominous as I approached the western half of the state, and I feared the upcoming and inevitable mountain pass. Also, Missoula was the point at which I planned to deviate from the major routes 84/90, which come together there, and to instead zoom onto route 12, giving me a little medium-size-road driving time.
Well, I drove about an hour past Missoula before I realized that I had bypassed the junction with 12. Then I looped back, and found the junction road, heading south, keeping in mind that I had to veer west at some point.
And then after about half an hour I noticed that I had not yet turned west, so I looped back again, and eventually found the turn, right where I had previously stopped for gas and thought to myself “awright, which way from here?”
It could, of course, have been, not that Montana disliked me, but rather that I was listening to a book on tape that distracted my already-impaired direction-finding higher brain functions (though leaving my reptile brain, with reflexes and traffic signal info, completely free to focus on driving, thankyouverymuch).
In any case, once I hit Idaho, everything turned around. Had a nice campsite, cooked myself some clam chowder (w. chunk of yummy fancy bread from the market in Missoula), read a little, and slept well. Then, in the morning, I stopped at a nearby trailhead and hiked just a mile in to find my very own hot spring! Thanks to J. Crook for the info on where it would be . . . I got there early enough, even though it was on a Saturday, to have the place all to myself. Passed about 6 hikers on my way out, all with buckets and flip-flops and towels, confirming that I just missed a rush. Muscles soothed and psyche repaired, I hopped back in the car, threw some “Last of the Mohicans” soundtrack into the tape deck for my fun curvy descent down the other side of the mountains, and let it ride.
When I finally reached somewhere that my phone could get a signal again, I called my contact in Portland, Mason Rippey (little brother of one of my highschool pals) . . . only to find that the number I so cleverly wrote down before I left home was, in fact, his work number. It being a Saturday, there was no one there to answer it. I then called Matt in Seattle, the highschool pal in question, to get Mason’s home contact info . . . no luck. I would later learn that he was in B.C. all weekend on a fishing trip, randomly planned and executed by business partners of his company, or some similar boondoggle zaniness. Third try: Andy, also in Seattle, generally organized guy. He did, hurray, have Mason’s number.
So I left a message, caught up with Dad, stopped to relax along the Columbia River (at a weird park; downstream from some kind of industrial doohickey and upstream from a corrections facility! Fun for the whole family!), and found a state park to camp in. Just two hours out from Portland, last night on the road, nothing to do, so I popped into a starbucks/mcdonalds at Hood River, OR, and used the wireless there to get a head start on apartment-hunting. Good thing I did, too, cause it serendipitously led me to . . . well, that’s a story for the next posting.
For now, pictures!
Stopover in Missoula to clean out the westward-ho-mobile, a bit. Notice the carefully placed entertainment options: Old-school tapes (many from HS) in the tupperware in front of the seat, about $30 worth of books-on-tape in the container on top of the box. Also not pictured (I was gonna take a pic of the original setup, with diagrams and arrows . . . that woulda been funny. Oh well.) are Dave's satellite radio hookup, loaned for the drive, and my CD player.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406668/in/set-72157594248794564/
Hah! You thought I meant normal CD player on the dashboard, or at worse a portable CD player that you have a little tape-player extension thingy for. Nope, my friends, this is cheapo travel, here. I had my "boom box" all set up in the passenger seat, speakers detached and placed strategically near the cockpit, powered by a cig lighter-to-electric plug adapter thingy! It was great for Twernbold's mix CD, star wars soundtrack, and one other album I listened to . . . then it went into "storage" with the rest of my belongings, behind the cockpit.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406711/in/set-72157594248794564/
Chill independent hotel north of Yellowstone, from which I did some writing/editing. I think I mentioned it in my last post.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406632/in/set-72157594248794564/
Crossing a lovely mountain stream near the highway in Idaho . . .
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406986/in/set-72157594248794564/
Not sure what's going on here. Is it a trail marker? Is it a female tree doing a photo-shoot in the woods? Either way, I'm SCANDALIZED!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406911/in/set-72157594248794564/
Ooh, what's this strange mist rising out of a pool near the stream? I needs must investigate!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406862/in/set-72157594248794564/
It's a natural hot spring! Woo-hoo! Great, steamy water to soothe those aching driving muscles.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406824/in/set-72157594248794564/
That is, once I figure out how the timer on my new camera works. Oops.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406798/in/set-72157594248794564/
Dueling "Welcome to Oregon" signs
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406594/in/set-72157594248794564/
Hmm. Eastern Oregon sure is . . . umm . . . flat.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234407005/in/set-72157594248794564/
And an homage to the many lives lost so that I could make this momentous journey. Poor little guys.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406559/in/set-72157594248794564/
So, day 5 of my journeys was filled with mishap. Montana dislikes me, apparently. It was cloudy and ominous as I approached the western half of the state, and I feared the upcoming and inevitable mountain pass. Also, Missoula was the point at which I planned to deviate from the major routes 84/90, which come together there, and to instead zoom onto route 12, giving me a little medium-size-road driving time.
Well, I drove about an hour past Missoula before I realized that I had bypassed the junction with 12. Then I looped back, and found the junction road, heading south, keeping in mind that I had to veer west at some point.
And then after about half an hour I noticed that I had not yet turned west, so I looped back again, and eventually found the turn, right where I had previously stopped for gas and thought to myself “awright, which way from here?”
It could, of course, have been, not that Montana disliked me, but rather that I was listening to a book on tape that distracted my already-impaired direction-finding higher brain functions (though leaving my reptile brain, with reflexes and traffic signal info, completely free to focus on driving, thankyouverymuch).
In any case, once I hit Idaho, everything turned around. Had a nice campsite, cooked myself some clam chowder (w. chunk of yummy fancy bread from the market in Missoula), read a little, and slept well. Then, in the morning, I stopped at a nearby trailhead and hiked just a mile in to find my very own hot spring! Thanks to J. Crook for the info on where it would be . . . I got there early enough, even though it was on a Saturday, to have the place all to myself. Passed about 6 hikers on my way out, all with buckets and flip-flops and towels, confirming that I just missed a rush. Muscles soothed and psyche repaired, I hopped back in the car, threw some “Last of the Mohicans” soundtrack into the tape deck for my fun curvy descent down the other side of the mountains, and let it ride.
When I finally reached somewhere that my phone could get a signal again, I called my contact in Portland, Mason Rippey (little brother of one of my highschool pals) . . . only to find that the number I so cleverly wrote down before I left home was, in fact, his work number. It being a Saturday, there was no one there to answer it. I then called Matt in Seattle, the highschool pal in question, to get Mason’s home contact info . . . no luck. I would later learn that he was in B.C. all weekend on a fishing trip, randomly planned and executed by business partners of his company, or some similar boondoggle zaniness. Third try: Andy, also in Seattle, generally organized guy. He did, hurray, have Mason’s number.
So I left a message, caught up with Dad, stopped to relax along the Columbia River (at a weird park; downstream from some kind of industrial doohickey and upstream from a corrections facility! Fun for the whole family!), and found a state park to camp in. Just two hours out from Portland, last night on the road, nothing to do, so I popped into a starbucks/mcdonalds at Hood River, OR, and used the wireless there to get a head start on apartment-hunting. Good thing I did, too, cause it serendipitously led me to . . . well, that’s a story for the next posting.
For now, pictures!
Stopover in Missoula to clean out the westward-ho-mobile, a bit. Notice the carefully placed entertainment options: Old-school tapes (many from HS) in the tupperware in front of the seat, about $30 worth of books-on-tape in the container on top of the box. Also not pictured (I was gonna take a pic of the original setup, with diagrams and arrows . . . that woulda been funny. Oh well.) are Dave's satellite radio hookup, loaned for the drive, and my CD player.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406668/in/set-72157594248794564/
Hah! You thought I meant normal CD player on the dashboard, or at worse a portable CD player that you have a little tape-player extension thingy for. Nope, my friends, this is cheapo travel, here. I had my "boom box" all set up in the passenger seat, speakers detached and placed strategically near the cockpit, powered by a cig lighter-to-electric plug adapter thingy! It was great for Twernbold's mix CD, star wars soundtrack, and one other album I listened to . . . then it went into "storage" with the rest of my belongings, behind the cockpit.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406711/in/set-72157594248794564/
Chill independent hotel north of Yellowstone, from which I did some writing/editing. I think I mentioned it in my last post.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406632/in/set-72157594248794564/
Crossing a lovely mountain stream near the highway in Idaho . . .
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406986/in/set-72157594248794564/
Not sure what's going on here. Is it a trail marker? Is it a female tree doing a photo-shoot in the woods? Either way, I'm SCANDALIZED!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406911/in/set-72157594248794564/
Ooh, what's this strange mist rising out of a pool near the stream? I needs must investigate!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406862/in/set-72157594248794564/
It's a natural hot spring! Woo-hoo! Great, steamy water to soothe those aching driving muscles.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406824/in/set-72157594248794564/
That is, once I figure out how the timer on my new camera works. Oops.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406798/in/set-72157594248794564/
Dueling "Welcome to Oregon" signs
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406594/in/set-72157594248794564/
Hmm. Eastern Oregon sure is . . . umm . . . flat.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234407005/in/set-72157594248794564/
And an homage to the many lives lost so that I could make this momentous journey. Poor little guys.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406559/in/set-72157594248794564/