📓 Journals Graham's Road Trip CA-WA

[GrahamClark_60-68]

Day 3 (last day of my roadtrip). Def not the best day of the 3 but still some scenic beauty and an interesting drive. Until....the RAIN. More on that later. Anyway, had about 7 hours of drive time to Kirkland and targeted getting in around 1pm so I planned an early morning getaway from Callahan's around 5am. Since I could barely sleep that night thinking about my car in the parking lot, getting up that early wasn't all that hard.

 

[GrahamClark_60-68]

Day 3 continued: So after my 5:15am-ish departure, I was treated to a wonderful sunrise mountain drive, appropriately accompanied by Rascal Flatts "Life is a Highway".

 

[GrahamClark_60-68]

I was having such a good time that I completely forgot about a gas stop. Yikes! Found myself in the middle of nowhere on fumes. Fumbling frantically through Apple maps, I located the ONLY stop for like 30 miles. Lucky LUCKY! Turned out to be a town called Wolf Creek, OR. Funky little convenience store/gas station complete with antlers and heads on the wall (you can tell I'm a city slicker) and not much else. But definitely saved my bacon!

On my way out of the store, I did notice this interesting little tavern right across the street and snapped this shot. Found out later it's historic (or so the website says). May have to check this out on another trip when I have more time. Website link tells more if you're interested.

The Historic Wolf Creek Inn

The historic Wolf Creek Inn, located in beautiful Southern Oregon, offers overnight guests a simply unique experience. Inn and tavern services available. Come be a part of Oregon history!

wolfcreekinn.com

 

[GrahamClark_60-68]

So after a nice peaceful and pleasant drive through scenic mountains and very little traffic, it got boring and straight again. I think this was north of Eugene. And then it got exciting again and not in a good way, when a guy ran across the freeway in front of my car. Mind you this was probably 3 lanes of freeway and shoulder lanes on each side with a barrier in the center. I was in the far left lane and saw him running (and not all that fast) from right to left, crossing in front of my car and hopping over the middle barrier. I wasn't really that close to hitting him (because I was scanning and saw him start his cross from quite a distance) but the car behind me seemed annoyed that I was braking for seemingly no reason. But still... welcome to Portland. (Actually I think it was Salem). But once I hit Portland the name of the game was TRAFFIC, and TRUCKS, and PLEASE get me across this bridge across the Columbia River and into Washington as quickly and safely as possible! Spoiler alert: I made it!

 

[GrahamClark_60-68]

But then, RAIN. Dang it, no rain was forecasted when I began this journey 2 days earlier so what's going on here? First a light mist. Ok, can deal with this. Then lots of traffic, semis, and blinding spray. Not great. Also during this time I noticed the rain sensing wipers don't sense all that great, at least compared to other cars I've owned. Seems that once they've determined that it's raining hard (it wasn't at that time) and they need to go full tilt with no pause between sweeps, once the rain and mist lightened up, the wipers stayed at high speed and I found myself having to turn them manually back to the slower speed.

That was, until, the MONSOON. Starting coming down in buckets, some standing water collecting on the road, and maybe I was dreaming but I felt my Goodyears were becoming disconnected from the road, especially in the rear, and getting a bit squirrely at 75 mph or so. Backing it down to 60 seemed to correct this Anyone have thoughts on this?

Anyway no pics here as I spent the next 2 and half hours focused on a VERY busy, unpleasant and tiring drive, in the rain and in traffic. Finally lightened up around Centralia, WA and I got a little peace. Then the roadway went completely to sh-t and I knew I was getting close to Seattle. :-(

 

[GrahamClark_60-68]

And that's a wrap on this road trip! Made it into Kirkland and pulled into my palatial imitation apartment building (sorry, Fletch fan here) right at my scheduled time of 1pm. Awaiting its more permanent, and equally palatial, private garage accommodation at the end of the month. Hope y'all enjoyed the ride!