Thursday September 12th 2019

The temperature on the coast was in the low sixties as I packed up for travel this morning. This afternoon in the Columbia River Gorge east of Portland, the temperature peaked around eighty. It sounds like today is the last great day for a while. Tomorrow will have a little rain and each successive day through Sunday will have a little more. The weather is forecast to start improving on Wednesday, just in time for my next travel day on Thursday.

I departed the Astoria KOA around 10:40. The trip southeast along US 30 was interesting, but attention demanding. The road went up, down and around enough that I couldn’t enjoy the scenery. About half way to Portland, I turned north across the Columbia River into Washington to pick up Interstate 5. Traffic on Interstate 5 was very heavy, but it provides access to the north end of the I-205 beltway around Portland to the east. It saved me from having to drive through the heart of Portland on Interstate 84.

I completed my travel day around 2PM. My cell phone didn’t get charged last night, so it died along the way. My phone’s clock display is my main source for the time, so I was a bit lost. I even had to listen to FM radio on this journey. Listening to podcasts on my dead phone was also out.

I’m back at the Cascade Locks KOA for the next week. This is the same RV park in the Columbia River Gorge that I stayed at on my way into Oregon in July. I hope to see some of the salmon spawning at the hatcheries while I’m here. There are also a few more waterfalls to explore and I may take a drive up to Mount Hood. The mountain appeared to have less snow cover today than I recalled seeing in July. That is probably not surprising, but there has been a little snow fall at altitude already. All of this, of course, is weather permitting.