Up early this morning but did not get on the road until 11. My pipe dream was to make it all the way to the West Coast today, but that would involve another 350 miles today after 400 miles yesterday. Nevertheless, after I saw how well the Defender was doing on the highway, I decided that I might try to make the coast, although that would entail my getting in close to 7 PM. But since I knew the camp and the roads getting to it, I figured that I could deviate from my standard rule, to get off the road by 5 PM or before dark.
The scenery on the drive turned majestic once we hit the Columbia River. After two hours of driving, I pulled off at an absolutely marvelous little park on the river in Rowena and wished that they had camping there, but they did not. Whatever, just a few miles down the road I saw another turn off to a state park right on the river and pulled in there to investigate. Although it was way too early for me at 3:30 to pitch camp for the night, this camp was just we too marvelous to pass up, so I signed in for the night and set up camp. Donner was practically thrilled with this decision since the camp is full of dogs and he met several of them who walked by the campsite. Once again, we are the only tenters here.
The view of the river in the mountains on the other side is breathtaking. Not only the view, but just down the hill from my campsite is a railroad track and the trains come by quite frequently, which I really don't mind. Haven't taking the Trans-Siberian railroad across Russia for 7 days, I am used to sleeping with train noise. The scene is the closest one that I have seen that resembles my own hometown in New York on the Hudson River, complete with mountains on the other side of the river and a railroad running just down the hill. Several times as I sat quietly just staring at the view and was thrown back decades to my own experiences in that scene setting. It was a unique experience for me, one that I have not experienced on any of my trips.
By the way, we are camped at 445 feet above sea level, quite a drop from the 9000 but I experienced at least once on this trip. The temperature this morning was about 30, but during our drive it hit 80. Quite a contrast. But i am not outting away my winter sleeping bag yet.
Tomorrow we will head three hours to the coast and camp at Fort Stevens State Park in Oregon, and then head on down the coast. I can'dawdle any longer because I have an appointment for Donner's official portrait on Friday morning in Vallejo, and it will take me that long to get down to the San Francisco area. I hope to stay in the Samuel Taylor state park just north of San Francisco in campsite 13, where i camped before, and which only has an opening for Thursday night. And the next morning, I have a one hour drive to the home of the photographer who will be photographing Donner, but only after he gets a bath. After that, we start the drive back east, with our first stop, Donner Memorial Park, just north of Lake Tahoe.
Ed and Donner are from lovely Memaloose Park on the Columbia River in eastern Oregon.
