Category: Washington

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Portland Oregon/Vancouver Washington – Friends & Family, Cars & Planes

Out of the Danger Zone

If I’ve learned one thing in my time on the road, it is that it’s always good to have a prearranged hole to hide in when the civilians flood the parks. On weekends you can usually get by with a reservation made a bit in advance, but with holidays the demand is higher and even the private RV parks fill up a month or more prior. Three day weekends without a specific holiday focus are the worst, and the opening and closing bells of summer, Memorial and Labor Days lead the list of high traffic camping weekends.

Being a crafty sort, I had a scheme for dealing with the situation: pull a Cousin Eddie and squat in a friend’s driveway. I had a list of folks to connect with in the Portland/Vancouver area, and one was my old pal Dave. He owned a semi-rural property in Camas and managed to convince his wife that having a homeless guy living out in the yard for a week wouldn’t be as bad as it sounded, so I was in like Flint to avoid the Labor Day mob scene.

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South Central Washington – Columbia River Gorge

Land of Sharp Contrasts

My next stop on my route to Portland was an oasis called Crow Butte Park. By saying oasis I am being literal, as despite the copious water in the Columbia River this area East of the Cascade Mountains is quite arid. It’s remarkable how different the environment is when you cross that sharp, invisible line on the map: to the West evergreen forest with 100 inches of precipitation, to the East sage and scrub that can survive on a mere 5 inches of rain each year.

The transition point is near the town of The Dalles, but I had chosen a park 75 miles to the East on an island in the middle of the Columbia. If you look at satellite views of the area, it looks like one of those composite images made up of hundreds of round green dots, thanks to the widespread use of center pivot irrigation. It is water pumped from the river that allows this land to support life other than rattlesnakes and coyotes, and the campground is no exception. The primary job of the camp hosts here seems to be to move the sprinklers about that run every day, creating an improbable lush green corner on an otherwise crispy tan island. Continue reading “South Central Washington – Columbia River Gorge”