I got out of the van to check out on the house. The back door was locked. That is not what I had expected. Did the couple play games with me? I didn't have a sense to rush off, so I went back to relax some more. At 6am I took Sadie out to walk around the village. What a tranquil place this was. It was as if no one was in town at all! Just travelers or people going to work, and they all used the main road, Historic US30.
Jesse came out to walk Twinkie so I got out of the van then. He still looked very hung over. He let me in via the back door so I could shower quickly, being careful not to make any noise. I function so much better when I'm totally clean, and I will never turn down a shower while on the road.
I stayed in my van for another hour, watching as the town slowly came back to life. Crystal finally came out to get her van ready, and I hugged her again for the hospitality. I didn't bother them any further and drove off shortly after 8am, two hours later than normal. By then the main road, Historic US30 and then I-84, were busy. I stayed on I-84 as this road hugged the Columbia river.
The Columbia River takes on a different character east of Hood River. It calms down, the flow is now all coming from the east with no tide pushing up against it as it does west of Hood River. And most noticeably, there are less trees here. The surrounding hills were all dry grasslands. This looked much like the central California hills.
My first stop in the morning was in The Dalles, a small town that offered all the amenities. Again, I ate at McD's, shared a sausage egg McMuffin with Sadie, but also was determined to get her some high-qaulity dog food. She had been looking too thin and I was worried she was not getting enough nutrition on this trip with all the hiking she has done with me. She barely touched her Nutrisca dry kibble. I stopped at a small pet shop and bought a 16-pound roll of a chicken-turkey mix, which I cut up in slices for her every day. She liked this mixture, but I had to keep it in the cooler so that it wouldn't spoil.
I had heard about the wonders of the Dalles but didn't see anything that stood out in this town. It wasn't that big, either, with a listed population of just 13,620. People here were ranchers driving pick-ups, cherry growers selling their Bings, older people living their retirement years, and workers at the nearby grainery off the river. Umatilla was still a bit of a drive and I focused on just moving eastward, along the river. The Lewis and Clark markers seemed to be mostly on the Washington side, which I didn't cross over into. I got a good enough impression of how the L&C team managed along the way.
There was much construction along the interstate on this stretch. I was glad when I could pull over and look at the river. I saw one L&C sign outside Boardman that led to a place near where the team had shored for the night. A big grainery is there now. A couple was playing fetch with their dog (Sadie stayed in the van under a shade tree). The rocky shore was hot, there was trash along the shore, and the place felt abandoned. I didn't stay. Subsequent places along the riverbanks were dirty. I was very disappointed of the area around Boardman-Umatilla. This region was the only place in all my Oregon trips that did not appeal to me.
I wasn't sure where to go from Umatilla. Should I venture south, into Hermiston, and continue on into Pendleton and HElls Canyon? Or drive north into Walla Walla, WA where the L&C team stayed on their return east. (The exact location is north of the town). US12 covers this part of the county.
I stopped in a nice little restaurant-brewpub in Hermaston for a late lunch. I brought in my tablet, my gazetteer and any guides I had to study my next move. I had time, there was no need to hurry, but the heat made me try to avoid any more heat for as long as possible. This part of Oregon felt abandoned by the rest of Oregon. It felt more like Idaho or eastern Montana. It was a cowboy town with electric cars, a redneck town on the edge of progress.
At least the food and beer at Nookie's was very good, and my server Lucas, a blond young man, very attentive. My double cheeseburger was huge, was served like a frog head with olives as eyes, and a knife through its head. Sadie got the two slices of ham, both fried eggs, and half of one patty over the 24 hours we had this burger.
After this meal I promptly headed north on I-82, which crossed the Columbia River into the far southeastern portion of Washington State. This was not the official L&C trail and I turned around at the first interstate exit. Here the land was agricultural rolling hills with green crop circles that stood out from the dry brown grasses around them. Despite the dry grass, this land looked more lush than Oregon across the river. I found out that this part of Washington, and Walla Walla in particular, has a massive underground watershed.
When I turned around and faced the South again, I could still see faint outlines of Mount Hood in the haze. This also meant that this was the final farewell to the lush, green, wet landscape I had been in for four days. I was officially back in the high desert. I didn't want to stay
US730 goes through Umatilla and follows the Columbia river northeast in Oregon before it crosses into Washington. US12 then comes turns off east and heads into Walla Walla. It became lusher and greener, with far more trees than all of Umatilla County. It was as if life was coming back, and I was liking this. I felt an urgency to see this small town, and it did not disappoint. It was late afternoon, and a small farmer's market had opened in a side street off the downtown area, where I met a woman, a retired school teacher my age, whose husband was once the principal for the Pacifoc Grove Elementary School in the 1970s.
Walla Walla has its charm and it worked on me. But Sadie was restless and I asked the retired teacher where a good place to hike nearby was.
"Go to Bellington Lake!" said her friend. The lake was only two miles east of town. I didn't hesitate to try this out, to get some mileage in for both Sadie and me. Bellington Lake is a small reservoir popular with the locals, with a nice network of trails around the lake for walkers, joggers, birders and cyclists. There were many families at this small lake, and I quickly got Sadie on the lake trail to get away from the crowd. I didn't have that much daylight left.
At first the lake didn't seem all that enticing. There were too many people here, and the kids' scream echoed through the trees. But once we got away from the beach, we were all to ourselves. The lake's perimeter was bigger than it seemed! An hour later, with the sun now ready to set and the full moon rising, the wildlife began to come out. One by one the bird calls magnified. It was a chorus of twitters, chirps, gawks and whistles. One Great Horned Owl stood motionless on a dead tree branch above me on my return walk and stared me down. It seemed more curious of Sadie than of me, but even I had a short stare-down with the bird.
The near full moon was now rising behind the hills. What a moment to take in! The sounds of nature and the rising moon...priceless. This little lake is a haven for wildlife. It turned out to be sage advice from the local woman to tell me to come here. Sadie and I got our exercise.
IT was now dark as I returned to Walla Walla. I stopped in a brewpub, but the bartender told me they were closing early tonight due to lack of business. The place had been busier earlier in the evening. The last of the few diehards were still drinking, and I drank two decent beers and left for the van across the street. Tonight's camp-out was in front of the Travel Lodge, right on the main street. No one botheerd us.
MORE TO COME
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