Lewis & Clark Trail SP (2)

The hillsides in eastern Oregon and Washington were a lot browner than I remember, but somewhere around Walla Walla, we saw those same fields of vibrant yellow mustard.

This was a one night stand, getting from Oregon to Idaho with a convenient stop in eastern Washington. We’ve stayed here once before and it is very pleasant for this purpose. I wouldn’t stay more than one night, and I wouldn’t go out of my way. Last time we were here, the whole area was flooded. The tiny river that now shows sand bars and a gentle current was full up to the top of the banks, causing me to question whether we were in danger of getting flooded out.

Fluff threat: LOW

Last time there was a warning about “extreme fluff danger” from the abundant cottonwoods. This time we were safe from dangerous fluff and got to enjoy lots of blooming wild roses.

Self satisfaction in fluff storage: HIGH

Speaking of fluff, I am really pleased with myself over a specific storage item. Carrying stuffing for amigurumi crochet animals is trickier than you might think. That stuff expands like crazy. I have an entire dry bag dedicated to fiberfill and I don’t want to have to go into the roof box every time I’m ready to stuff a body. So I google searched, trying various combinations of descriptor phrases that would lead me to some kind of squeezable cylindrical container where I could compress a whole bunch of stuffing into a small space. I finally landed on a makeup brush container that can adjust its height depending on the size of your brushes. I can therefore stuff both tubes to overflowing, push them together, squeeze them down the volume of one of the halves, and lock them in place. Storage efficiency makes me unreasonably giddy.

River level at what I presume is its normal state

After a yummy dinner of Vadouvan chicken with mango chutney, mustard seed rice, and green beans, we walked around the limited and overgrown campground trails and checked out the state park displays across the road. Lewis & Clark really got around. So there are many things named after them. Got it. They stayed in this location for a while, so there’s a handy little park which makes for a nice midway point for an otherwise daunting jump. I’d even stay here again.

Overgrown trails, but better to push through wild roses than poison oak

Note to us for the future: if we do stay here again, Richard needs to get over his high standards for morning walking and just do laps around the parking lot or something. We left the next morning and Richard didn’t do a morning walk before a four hour car drive. He was dysregulated all day and that made the end of the day at the other side unnecessarily stressful. If I can accept that I need to do Yoga every day, like it or not, Richard can learn that he needs to speed walk in the morning on every travel day, interesting trail or not.

Total miles from Viento: 207.2, 22.4 mpg (big head wind!), 4 hours 35 min. Site 5 no hookups. Good dump with potable water, $5. Ok cell service for both, better for ATT. Didn’t hear road noise or train.