Dear forum friends,
Ben and I are sitting composing this narrative together. We refresh our memories by reading my journal of the trip and talking with each other. When this series is complete I intend to include it with the journal.
Ben allowed five days to reach San Diego so that we would be there one day in advance of the ship. We didn't want to take any chance of being late and missing
it! If we missed it the loss would be ours; and ships don't wait. This ship would head straight out across the Pacific ocean for four days without a port of call, before it came to the Kingdom of Hawaii, (or the State of Hawaii), whichever
you believe it to be. There is controversy about that, and has been since 1893
. It seems to be heating up again. President Clinton wrote a letter agreeing that Hawaii had been sovereign in 1893, and probably should be so again.
We travelled happily on down highway 97 south, deeper and deeper into the United
States, following the course of the Okanagan River from Canada. This is a clear river about 30 metres wide, which flows medium swiftly. The countryside was partly sandy, with sagebrush and grass dotted desert, and partly river irrigated
apple orchards. The varieties of apples in each field were marked by signs: "Pink Lady", "Gala", and so on.
Two hours more and we had reached the great Columbia river which flows in a south-westerly direction. We left Highway 97, and crossed the Columbia by a high and handsome bridge near a big power dam. The watershed of the Columbia River is
in the Rocky Mountains of Canada. The Okanagan River that we had been following
in Canada and all along till now drains into the magestic Columbia.
We travelled on over a high plateau, the remnant of volcanic ash fields formed before the last ice age. This area was partly desert and partly grain farming, made possible by river irrigation. We passed "Dry Falls" when it was already dark outside, so we'll describe that amazing place in the story of our homeward journey when we were able to make one of our favourite stops. 0 About 8:30 pm we arrived at a little place, "Moses Lake," where we spent the night in a pre-booked
Motel 6, of course. Moses Lake is mainly a farming community. In the summertime
, local people and tourists enjoy the lake.
Mary moved the small luggage we used on the trip in and out of the motel because
Ben had pulled a muscle in his back before we left home. In fact for several nights before and also on the trip, Mary treated it with ice packs and massage. In motels they have ice machines for drinks, and we supplied ourselves with ice from those. By the time we entered Northern California his back was much improved.
Next morning we left liesurely at 9:30 because of the late arrival the night before. We usually tried to get to our motel before full darkness set in, (about 5
pm), and out again the next morning no later than 8, having already breakfasted
. This motel supplied coffee so Ben brought some back to the unit to share with
me. It was cold in the night, but we were cosy. In the morning Ben noticed that "black ice" had formed on the road, and on the sidewalk in front of the motel.
Despite his warning and taking care, I almost fell. After that I walked as though on eggs, and brought the bags to him one at a time to be stowed in the car.
We left the large, hard sided bags in the car where they were chained to the car chassis, and covered everything we left inside the car for the night with blankets.
Black ice is invisible. It can be very dangerous. We also have it where we live, so Ben was aware of how difficult it could make driving. At first the fields,
and every grass blade and low twig or bush were whitened and icily shining, covered with rime from the fog. There was fog on the highway. I wouldn't have wanted it any thicker, but this was still OK. Everybody cut their speed of travel
to suit conditions. Again, we travelled the high plateau with well-tilled fields, irrigation trenches and watering equipment on each side of us. Some of the long, skeletal, irrigation equipment was about 300 metres long, with huge open wheels every so often to move it along. Some other irrigation equipment looks to
me like dinosaurs. That's the kind that is also skeletal and shoots water out in long spurts. None of the equipment we saw was working. That's reserved for the hot summer time when things are rapidly growing and maturing.
Earlier there were cattle farms, and a stinking feed-lot. I detest the cruelty of feed lots. Still I eat a little beef each week, though. Finally there were only well tilled fields, and we made good progress. This land is good for hay when it's irrigated. There was still corn standing in the fields, its stalks, leaves and cobs all yellowed, and big blocks of golden hay piled up like walls.
The walls would soon be covered with plastic tarps to protect the hay agains the
snow, rain and wind.
We saw train tracks and a long, standing, green train. We planned to stop for coffee in Pasco, a small city of about 75,000 people. The land became much hillier. There were lots of heavy power lines, and the irrigation along here was from the Columbia River. After buying coffee to take along with us, from Starbucks
in Pasco we travelled down into the valley of the Columbia river, which we had
crossed at Pasco. This route goes across the Columbia, which afterwards combines with the Snake River, and then curls back. Therefore we crossed the Columbia
once again at a place called "Kennewick," which has about 80,000 people. We drove down river for an hour through the Columbia Valley. At this point it became
a narrow valley cut deeply into the plateau on both sides, so there were high walls on the narrow valley sides. It was almost treeless.
The Columbia river is the main highway for ships that come from the Pacific Ocean all the way up as far as Pasco through the help of locks. There are railroads
, and roads on both sides of the river. It is a great transportation corridor.
We were travelling on the Oregon side now. The south side. The other side was
Washington State where we came from. One of the things we saw on the Columbia was a big tug and barge, going up-river.
Ben usually checks with other other drivers about what to expect from the weather, and makes his decision about which route will be safest, no matter what we have planned ahead aof time, so we didn't continue to use Highway 97 to Biggs when
he heard about snow in the high passes. We avoided the danger by travelling the plateau instead.
After another hour we came to that place with that odd name of "Biggs". A lot of places in the United States have strange names. Biggs is really only a few houses, a couple of restaurants, a couple of motels and some service stations for
servicing the motoring traffic. We stopped at a "truck stop" restaurant where huge 14 wheelers pulled in regularly for lunch. This place offers showers, games
rooms, and anything that will make long distance truckers comfortable. There are phones for calling home or into their companies at every booth. The food in
such places is usually good and plentiful, but with too many fries or chips. Good home style desserts and pies like Mom used to make are available. I was tempted, but as I didn't want to come home much heavier than I started, and the ship
was where I really wanted to gastronomically enjoy myself, I refrained from trying any. :-)
Highway 97 crosses the Columbia at Biggs, and goes on to California. It goes up
an incline to another high plateau, and again, surroundings were wide, empty, partly desert and partly grain farming land. The highway wasn't heavily travelled
and it was a pleasure to drive. There was occasionally the line house with a
bit of land, but mostly the farms were large commercial operations. There were
few people to be seen except in the towns. That's why I haven't said much about
them yet.
Towards afternoon with the weather still good we approached Bend, Oregon, a city
of about 150,000 people. It's called "Bend" because it is at a bend in the Deschute River. Here there were already noticeably more trees. This is both a winter and summer sports town and has skiing, swimming, shooting the rapids, hiking,
and so on to offer. We like Bend. It has a friendly atmosphere. At Bend we stayed again at Motel 6. Since we were here before a highway bypass had been built to go around the town. This caused Ben some confusion finding our motel. He has an excellent memory and sense of direction and was feeling frustrated. We
ended up at a shopping centre outside of town. After getting directions there he
understood his troubles. We found the motel OK, ate supper in our motel unit which consisted of tea, pitta bread, hard boiled eggs, and apples, and then and settled in for the night.
Tomorrow we would try for lunch at Klamath Falls, Oregon, and then cross the state line into California. Our goal was a place called Redding, California.
*********End of Part Two*********
