Mount Shasta, Saturday, March 13
could spend her spring break with her Dad, Chris and Polly, Casey, and THE TWINS!
We still had one more place we wanted to see along the coast: Fort Clatsop, at the end of Lewis and Clark's journey and where they wintered over near the mouth of the Columbia River before returning to St. Louis.
So on Thursday, March 11, we planned to drive the 220+ miles down there, visit the site, and then drive toward Portland, where we would stay and then get a reasonable start the next morning for the 5 hour drive to Ashland. But .... one problem.
The driver's side slide (the moving side of our main room in the motorhome) got stuck open. No matter how he tried, Gary couldn't get that motor to work and bring it in. The passenger side slide worked fine. Obviously we couldn't drive with the side wall sticking out as we went down the road. At first he thought he/we could crank it in, but after moving it about 3 mm in 10 minutes, and then having it slip back, that seemed unlikely. He worked on it about 3 hours.
I went up to the office and obtained the name of an RV repair service: Sonny's. Gary called them and, very gratefully, they arrived within an hour. Tom was able to identify the problem in the electrical system, a solenoid, that was defective. He fiddled with it somehow, the slide came in, and we didn't put it out again until we got it back to the repair shop in Temecula. But we didn't drive away from Point Hudson RV Park in Port Townsend until 2 pm.
We had a relatively uneventful drive but, unfortunately, had to drive the last 50 or so miles on a narrow, curvy two lane road in the dark (Oregon 30). We were glad when we found the campground at Sunset Beach.
The Lewis and Clark National Historic Park opened at 8 am on Friday, March 12, and we were there when it opened. The story of the expedition is a wonderful one, and one of our favorites. We hope to trace more of their route later this spring when we get to Montana and Wyoming. At the museum they had "on this date, i.e. on March 11, 1805 ..... " whatever was going on on the expedition.
The expedition was so thrilled when they finally got to the headwaters of the Columbia, but as they neared the mouth, on November 7, 1805, they were very discouraged as the strong sea tides prevented them from making it out into the Pacific ocean. They had traveled 4000 miles across the North American continent with a contingent of 31 explorers, mostly U.S. Army enlisted men, known as the Corps of Engineers. It was getting cold, and they explored the north side of the river including Cape Disappointment before they voted to cross to the south side where game was reported to be more plentiful. It took them about a month to build this log shelter, now called Fort Clatsop after a local Indian tribe. This is a replica.
We spent about 1 1/2 - 2 hours there, bought a great DVD of Ken Burns telling the Lewis and Clark story and then headed south along the coast to Seaside and turned inland to Portland on Hwy 26. After 90 minutes or so we transitioned to Interstate 5 for the long drive south. The original pick up time for Sierra was 3:30, but everyone was fine with our pushing it back a couple of hours due to our major delay the day before.
We skirted Portland and headed south to Salem and then Eugene. It had started drizzling early in the morning, and continued raining most of the day. We were safe and warm in Buster, and reduced our speed just a bit to stay safe. After we passed Roseburg, heading for Grants Pass, we started climbing and as we went over Sexton Pass at 1,970 feet the rain turned to snow. I was anxious, but Gary said the road was never slippery, and after about 20 minutes, we descended and the rain returned. We were able to drive into Lithia Park in Ashland at 5:40, just 10 minutes past the appointed time. Sierra and her mom and little sister arrived just minutes later and we were happy we made the long anticipated connection so easily. But this was before daylight savings time and it was starting to get dark with the prospect of snow as we climbed the Siskiyou Mountains south of us. We decided to stay right there in Ashland, and found a nice little campground in Glenyan Park, near Emigrant Lake. We settled in for the night and oriented Sierra to life in the motorhome!
It made sense that if we had a shower of snow at 1,900+ feet, there would likely be quite a bit more at over 4,000 feet which was what we had to pass over in the Siskiyous. Indeed, when we awakened on Saturday morning, March 13, we saw snow quite low down the mountain, at the 2,000 foot mark or lower. The forecast, though, was encouraging: clearing, with a high temperature in the 40's. So we just decided to wait until late morning, and give the sun a chance to clear the road for us by melting the snow off. It worked.
We left Emigrant Lake about 11 o'clock am, and had a beautiful drive over the Siskiyous to Mt. Shasta, another dormant and beautiful volcano in the Cascade chain (see top photo). But no road trouble.
We stopped at the town of Mount Shasta Visitor Center, and while the girls and I got some lunch at a Kentucky Fried Chicken (have to admit we like it once in a while), Gary talked up the Visitor Center staff about the volcanic activity in the area including that of the smaller Black Butte, seen on the left. Lake Shasta is on the right.
We continued on down Interstate 5. We had wanted to stop in Sacramento and possibly call a couple of my high school friends or take in something educational, like Sutter's Mill, but with our late departure we arrived at the inopportune part of the day and we were preoccupied with making good time, and getting Sierra home as fast as possible. Plus we had a surprise in store for the next day. We camped at Flag City RV Park in Lodi which was perfect: right off the Interstate.
Sunday, March 14
We lost an hour overnight as this was the week-end of the daylight savings time change, but we wanted to get an early start. So Gary and I set the alarm, and simply slid in the side where the girls were sleeping up front, and took off while they slumbered .... about 6:15 am.
I, in particular, was so impressed with the green hills along Interstate 5 in central California. Usually these are quite brown, but the rains over the winter had really done their work.
We made very good time, arriving 320 miles down the road (with Buster) by 12:30 pm. And where were we? Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, the north end of the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. We knew that both Liz and Sierra loved roller coasters so we thought a treat at the end of all that driving would be nice.
They went straight to the biggest coaster they could see: Katsu, and had to wait nearly an hour in line for it, but they loved it. Then they road the Viper three or four times; Gary could only take it once (see photo on right). It turns you upside down 5 or 6 times. None of this, of course, affected their appetites!
They road the Scrambler and Deja Vu,
and we shut the place down at 7 p.m.
At first we thought we'd already done so much driving we'd stay there, and drive the rest of the way on Monday morning, but we had such a big diversion with the roller coaster park (full disclosure: I don't partake!), that we thought we'd just drive the final two hours, presuming that the LA freeways might be a little less busy on a Sunday evening. Only partially true .... we ran into some slow downs, but pulled into Polly and Chris' house about 9:45, and everyone was happy Sierra was home. And so were we.
We had a few more days until our babysitting assignment began, so we took a little break. Stay tuned for the next post!
Julie, Gary and Liz
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