Another full day! Richard began the day online again, but this time he headed out to finish the Columbia River Gorge ride before it got too hot. This took him from where we were, to The Dalles, at the eastern end of the ride. While he did that, I did food shopping and went to find a place to dump tanks. FYI, the Memaloose Campground can only be reached from 84 going West, and you have to go through a Rest Area to get there. Very confusing, but job accomplished.
We met up at a day use park in The Dalles and continued on a short way to the campground. This is a nice place, right on the shore of the Deschutes River. We had a bit of tension right on arrival because one of the pins for our sway bars got seriously jammed. We think a tiny rock got in there and rubbed until the metal formed a little ridge. We hammered it out just so we could see what was what, then we were able to borrow a metal file from a friendly camper and Richard filed off the nubbies. All better now, but I was tense. Richard kind of threw me in the water with my kayak and sure enough, that relaxed me right away. I really love that boat.
I paddled upstream to a little island and lo and behold, a huge beaver came out of the water, right up onto shore. He went about his business, not much minding that I was there, grabbed a big branch off a tree, and carried it with him back into the water. That was pretty cool. I can check off beavers and martens now from my mammal spotting list.
Both this campground and the Viento campground are situated right next to a railroad line. Not much they can do about that. Even with my hearing aides out, I can definitely hear the trains at night. It doesn’t bother us, but it probably would if we didn’t have solid walls. The sites by the river are very nice, with access to the river and lots of room. There are no campfires allowed, which is a definite plus for Richard, since they make him cough like he’s going to die.
Tomorrow we hope to make tracks northward into Idaho.
Total miles: 63.1 (with a back and forth on 84), 14.2 mpg, 2 hours 22 minutes.
