We hit the road…eventually!

18th April: Day 10

Today is the day that we fledge from our comfortable nest. Fly away from the ensuite bedroom with walk in-wardrobe, the central heating, the cat-swinging space, and our Adventure Facilitators, The Adams.

The Beast and the Tin Can are ready. And so are we, possibly.

The day started early, as Dean and Lori left before us for their trip to Indonesia, having us trusted to lock-up and alarm the house.

By 10am we were mustered, and managed the Highlands Extraction without incident.

Today we are headed to Maryhill State Park, a small, but perfectly formed park with camping on the banks of the Columbia River. It is still in Washington, but looks over to Oregon, as the river is the state boundary.

It was about 250 miles (sorry to all the NZers, had to let go of our metric ideals), but the driving is pretty effortless. Long straight scenic highways and lots of sensible driving (so also quite unlike NZ).

The campsite was and sunny with lot of trees, and bazillions of squirrels to amuse us. We struck camp (i.e. parked), grabbed a beer, and went down to the river to sit in the sun and play skimmers. Lots to see: massive barges on the river, the highway on the other side and the enormously long freight trains chugging through the gorge.

We crashed early. All this excitement is exhausting.

19th April: Day 11

Remember those trains I mentioned. They ran all night, sounding their horns/whistles/claxons (whatever they bl**dy call them) round every corner. Not very sleep inducing. But Hey Ho. Nothing major to achieve today and we had a very lazy morning.

To earn our lunch we broke out the bikes, and meandered around, finding the road up to Stonehenge. This is a WW1 memorial, built atop the gorge, looking up and down the river. It was built to replicate the original, but is fashioned from concrete, and is in an ‘intact’ state. It is, according to the blurb, the first national war memorial. Quite cool really, in a war memorial kind of way. The ride down much more fun than the ride up. We had an equally lazy afternoon. Later on we got chatting to George and Mary, a couple from Alaska. They are travelling in a sensibly sized truck camper, and came over to marvel at our behemoth.

20th April: Day 12

Our main reason for coming to Maryhill State Park was to visit the Maryhill Museum and Art Gallery.  Set up in the 1920s it occupies the massive house that a chap called Sam Hill had built but never lived in.  He was a a big road builder and had bought himself a massive slice of land here. Unfortunately things didn’t work out. However he was very well connected and lots of his buddies donated some very cool artwork.  Most notably there is a whole exhibition of works by Rodin. Who’d have thought it?

After our cultural infusion we meandered on our way. Today we head to Baker City, Oregon. 200 miles of interstate highway, but again empty, scenic and easy driving. On the way we crossed the 45th parallel, the halfway point ‘twixt North Pole and Equator.  We also witnessed our first live-action tumbleweed. Not expecting that in Oregon for some reason.

We are already a little weary of Country and Western music on the radio. This is only our second day on the road. Either we will go mad or be converted to their ways. Time will tell.

Baker city is an ex gold mining town on the old Oregon Trail. It is on a plateau at 3000ft, surrounded by mountains. Very beautiful but very cold. Even Nick put a coat on. Our home for the next 2 nights is a family run park about 1.5 miles out of town. We offloaded the Tin Can, as we are planning a trip tomorrow, and then walked to a local steakhouse.

The trains have followed us…

21st April: Day 13

The reason for a stop in Baker City (Pop. approx 10,000, so a bit of an overly grand title) is that it is close to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Museum. We whizzed up there in the naked truck, which is a veritable hare when not a beast of burden.

Hundreds of thousands of people made an horrendously tough 2000 mile journey to Oregon in oxen carts and on foot with the promise of a better life. The museum is a fantastic homage to them. It sits on a hillside, looking down on the plains, and has a few miles of (nicely paved, thank you) trails to give a taste of what the immigrants would have seen. Our journey with a 4 wheel drive ute, camper with flushing toilet, shower, oven, microwave, queen bed, flat screen TV with DVD, heating, air con and LPG generator, oh and 4G internet with access to Google maps isn’t quite so tough.