Epic Road Trip, Nevada to Oregon
After parting ways with our Burning Man campmates we did some touristing and ran some errands in Reno. As we were deciding which way to go from there, a friend invited us to join her at Lake Tahoe, so we headed that way. A late night of cleaning playa dust out of the ambulance led to us arriving in Tahoe after midnight, so we crashed in the ambulance and met my friend and her campmate the next morning.
We spent a couple of days around Lake Tahoe. There was hiking, time on the beach, and gazing at the sunset. We had some good food, some comfortable decompression time, and the novel experience of a timeshare presentation (for free breakfast and $100 gift card!). One fun hiking moment had us choosing between paths to "Cascade Falls <--" or "--> Desolation", giving me a strong Choose Your Own Adventure / RPG feeling. We opted to avoid Desolation :)
Leaving Lake Tahoe involved driving back through Reno, where we spent another night. I played some poker again. In the morning we proceeded up through northeast California. We stopped when crossing the Pacific Crest Trail for Emma to do some hiking, with an eye towards a much longer PCT hike in the future. At Cave Campground we walked through a lava tube which was really cool. For our overnight we made it up to Eagle's Nest RV Park, a place that had advertised free post-burn camping for burners and whose website said they had metered electrical hookups, but upon arrival they cajoled us out of twenty bucks for a flat rate hookup. I was too tired to argue, but probably won't stop there again.
Around this point in the trip Emma started to do some serious planning of the stops she wanted to make in Oregon and Washington. Unfortunately, we figured out that most of the places she wanted to see had schedules that didn't match up with our travels at all. Many of the places were only open one or two days a week!
On the way from CA to OR we stopped at the Tulelake County fair, which was fun and silly. There were prize winning baked goods that we weren't allowed to eat, prize winning livestock that Emma turned into a five year old in the presence of, and the most appalling religious anti-sex propaganda booth I've ever encountered in person. I took one of each of their flyers, which Emma couldn't even stand to read, and plan to post about that separately. We continued north up to Crater Lake National Park and made it just in time for the last guided hike of the season. Fun fact: the non-snow season at Crater Lake lasts about three months; they have often-impassably-deep snow cover from October through June. We hiked up to a great lookout, learned some things about trees and birds, took some photos, and then headed north out of the park.
Or, at least, we tried to head out of the park. Switching from all-8%-up-grades to all-8%-down-grades quickly illustrated that my fuel gauge was misbehaving at steep angles, and we ran out of gas on the way out of the park. Luckily for us, I carry an extra gallon of fuel for emergencies. Unluckily, the nearest gas station was 16 miles away, and the nearest we were sure would be open was 25 miles away, since it was pretty late at night. Both of those numbers are significantly higher than my average MPG. So, in goes the fuel. We get up to speed, and I see the most beautiful sight of the trip... two signs, "Altitude 4000ft" and "4% down grade next 8 miles". Terminal coasting velocity for the ambulance on a 4% grade is about 45MPH. Plenty fast enough that I wasn't afraid of being rear ended by an inattentive motorist. Now, the scariest part of the trip... Driving the ambulance at 45MPH without power steering. The brake cylinders hold plenty of fluid for a complete stop, so I wasn't afraid of failure to stop, but having direct mechanical control of the steering was nerve wracking. On the bright side, the dead zone in the middle of the wheel was gone. We made it to the 16 mile station with the idea that we would just overnight there if we needed to. It turned out to be unnecessary as it was a ski resort in the off season with a phone at the station for calling a maintenance person down to sell us gas. He seemed cheerful and happy for the break in the monotony. We set out for western Oregon (having decided nothing in eastern OR or WA excited either of us enough for a 6+ hour detour) and spent the night somewhere along the way.
The next day we drove up to Portland, where we both had touristy plans and a friend had invited us to use their driveway. Next journal entry will cover Portland and Seattle.
PS: This entry covers September 9-14, 2015.
We spent a couple of days around Lake Tahoe. There was hiking, time on the beach, and gazing at the sunset. We had some good food, some comfortable decompression time, and the novel experience of a timeshare presentation (for free breakfast and $100 gift card!). One fun hiking moment had us choosing between paths to "Cascade Falls <--" or "--> Desolation", giving me a strong Choose Your Own Adventure / RPG feeling. We opted to avoid Desolation :)
Leaving Lake Tahoe involved driving back through Reno, where we spent another night. I played some poker again. In the morning we proceeded up through northeast California. We stopped when crossing the Pacific Crest Trail for Emma to do some hiking, with an eye towards a much longer PCT hike in the future. At Cave Campground we walked through a lava tube which was really cool. For our overnight we made it up to Eagle's Nest RV Park, a place that had advertised free post-burn camping for burners and whose website said they had metered electrical hookups, but upon arrival they cajoled us out of twenty bucks for a flat rate hookup. I was too tired to argue, but probably won't stop there again.
Around this point in the trip Emma started to do some serious planning of the stops she wanted to make in Oregon and Washington. Unfortunately, we figured out that most of the places she wanted to see had schedules that didn't match up with our travels at all. Many of the places were only open one or two days a week!
On the way from CA to OR we stopped at the Tulelake County fair, which was fun and silly. There were prize winning baked goods that we weren't allowed to eat, prize winning livestock that Emma turned into a five year old in the presence of, and the most appalling religious anti-sex propaganda booth I've ever encountered in person. I took one of each of their flyers, which Emma couldn't even stand to read, and plan to post about that separately. We continued north up to Crater Lake National Park and made it just in time for the last guided hike of the season. Fun fact: the non-snow season at Crater Lake lasts about three months; they have often-impassably-deep snow cover from October through June. We hiked up to a great lookout, learned some things about trees and birds, took some photos, and then headed north out of the park.
Or, at least, we tried to head out of the park. Switching from all-8%-up-grades to all-8%-down-grades quickly illustrated that my fuel gauge was misbehaving at steep angles, and we ran out of gas on the way out of the park. Luckily for us, I carry an extra gallon of fuel for emergencies. Unluckily, the nearest gas station was 16 miles away, and the nearest we were sure would be open was 25 miles away, since it was pretty late at night. Both of those numbers are significantly higher than my average MPG. So, in goes the fuel. We get up to speed, and I see the most beautiful sight of the trip... two signs, "Altitude 4000ft" and "4% down grade next 8 miles". Terminal coasting velocity for the ambulance on a 4% grade is about 45MPH. Plenty fast enough that I wasn't afraid of being rear ended by an inattentive motorist. Now, the scariest part of the trip... Driving the ambulance at 45MPH without power steering. The brake cylinders hold plenty of fluid for a complete stop, so I wasn't afraid of failure to stop, but having direct mechanical control of the steering was nerve wracking. On the bright side, the dead zone in the middle of the wheel was gone. We made it to the 16 mile station with the idea that we would just overnight there if we needed to. It turned out to be unnecessary as it was a ski resort in the off season with a phone at the station for calling a maintenance person down to sell us gas. He seemed cheerful and happy for the break in the monotony. We set out for western Oregon (having decided nothing in eastern OR or WA excited either of us enough for a 6+ hour detour) and spent the night somewhere along the way.
The next day we drove up to Portland, where we both had touristy plans and a friend had invited us to use their driveway. Next journal entry will cover Portland and Seattle.
PS: This entry covers September 9-14, 2015.