Summer road trip 2009, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and back.

I have to apologize right at the beginning for not getting off to a good start documenting this trip adequately. I missed a couple good photo opportunities and didn't adequately document some of Shadows interactions with various people we met along the way.

We started out from home at 4:30 AM a few days before the 4th of July holiday with high hopes of avoiding the holiday traffic. We wasted no time in getting across the California wine country and heading north on I-80, I-505 (Sacramento bypass) and I-5. I knew it would be killer hot in Redding CA if we got there too late, we passed through a little after 8:00 AM and it was already past 80* and rising fast. We headed up into the Trinity Mountains and Mt. Shasta. We ducked off I-5 about half way up to give Shadow a chance to stretch his legs on an old side road for a mile or so. I've given up on trying to make good time when traveling with him. Between the gas stops, potty and exercise breaks we average about 50 mph on major highways, that means for a 12 hour drive we can go about 600 miles.

We turned off I-5 at Weed CA and headed for the east side of the Cascade Mt's. on Hwy 97 and had another exercise break at the 4500 ft. level off a Forest Service road. The woods up there are dry and the ground rocky so it can be rough going when you are off the road. Shortly after this stop we came to the north slope of these mountians and I was amazed to see Mt. Mcloughlin, I had never seen it from this distance and this clearly. It was an amazing day and we were off to a great start.

We headed into Oregon and stopped at the north side of Klamath Falls. I filled up with gas and looked for lunch. I didn't feel like Burger King or McDonalds and pulled up to a Blimpie Sub shop with some outdoor seating. Perfect for a sunny 75* day with a light breeze. Shadow waited at the outdoor table while I got my order. The woman behind the counter was really nice and cleaned the meat scraps out of the slicer and put them in a bowl for Shadow. As we were scarffing down our lunches she brought him some cool water to wash the scraps down. If you are ever traveling through Klamath Falls I HIGHLY recommend this Blimpie Sub shop, the foods good and the people are great. It's on the north end of town above the Shiloh Inn, just beyond the Burger King. I wish I would have gotten her name and a picture of her with Shadow.

About 20 miles north of Klamath Falls is a park I have driven by several times but never stopped at. I had promised Shadow some Dog Fun on this trip, not just logging miles so I pulled in to check it out. I could see there were nice pine trees, groomed grass and a river near by, what I really found was Shadow's personal paradise!! This is Collier State Park and dogs are only allowed on leash but we were nearly alone so I blew off that rule and let Shadow run loose. We headed through the trees and grass towards the Williams River which was nice but just around the corner is where Spring Creek joins the river and Shadow went nuts. I have NEVER seen him so exuberant - that's the only word that comes close to describing his behavior. He ran up and down the bank on the small trails, in and out of the water up to his chest and splashing around. Every time he changed direction he would leap into the air with a grin on his face.



He charged around like a little kid in a candy store not knowing where to go next. He came out of the creek into the grass and threw himself on the ground and rolled around on his back so violently he actually fell off the bank back into the water! This is just before he went through the grass and into the water. I THOUGHT he was a pretty smart dog but he did this twice so I may need to re-think that opinion..

Here is a shot of a VERY happy dog!!



After a 30 minute romp we headed back to the Blazer with the promise to stop again on the return trip.

As we pulled out of Redmond OR we ran into stop and go traffic and I saw a temporary road sign on the side of the road that said "Accident Ahead". In nearly 40 years of driving I have NEVER seen a road sign like that! It was a bad one for sure, two of the vehicles involved went by an hour later on flat bed trucks. In all we we crept along or were stopped for an hour and a half and for a distance of 8 miles. At times I just turned the Blazer off and we would sit for 10-15 minutes before moving again. I could see the locals jumping off the highway and going out through the farmland but I didn't know the roads back there so we just sat. We finally made it to Biggs Junction at the Columbia River and called it a day with just over 650 miles under our belts.

Oregon makes it VERY frustrating to travel through unless you are on I-5 going up the west side of the Cascades. All normal NON-freeway highways are posted at 55mph! That is a ridiculously low speed when you have hundreds of miles to drive on nearly straight roads that are in good condition with little traffic. Obviously whoever sets the speed limits in that state has NEVER driven Highway 97 from one end of the state to the other! I found I could set the cruise control at 62 mph and the state police showed no interest in me at all. I think they agree with my assessment of the Oregon speed laws.

We headed up the Columbia River on I-84 then north across Washington on Hwy 395, I-90 and into Idaho. Once I cross the Washington/Idaho border it takes all the willpower I can muster to stay reasonably close to the posted speed limit. I have traveled this route many times starting back in the late '70s when I was living in Newport OR. Everyone should see the high desert of Oregon and Washington once, after that you might as well drive it at night.

We reached our destination, Sandpoint Idaho on Lake Pend Oreille (prounounced Ponderay) at lunch time. I parked down town and we walked about half a mile, I ate lunch and we walked the half mile back to the car. I knew Shadow had a bunch of pent up energy from the morning in the car and might be a hand full when we pulled into my mothers place north of town. She's a cat person and has little use for a rowdy big dog. I wanted to be sure Shadow made a good impression. The last time we visited he was a nice young mid sized dog but it had been over 2 years since she had seen Shadow and he had grown 5 inches taller and 40 lb heavier. He is now a BIG dog! For the next week I would do some repairs and maintenance to my mothers home and Shadow and I would head up into the mountains to hike, explore and hopefully find a small parcel of property to buy with the idea to build a small home on it in the future.

A couple times we headed up the Pack River which is about 8 miles north of my mothers property. The Pack River road is paved for the first 4.5 miles then the next 4 miles or so are well oiled and pretty smooth, after that it becomes a Forest Service road and is gravel with pot holes, washboard, large rocks and climbs up into the wilderness. This is the sign where civization ends.

This is what it SHOULD read-



Our first day up the road we took a few hikes off the main road. The first was on a marked Forest Service trail that lead up from the road. It was a "two track" trail-that means it looks like a road and actually was once. Shadow likes running a two track trail but he REALLY prefers a single track like a narrow game trail. We found one about 15 miles up and parked the Blazer. About a mile up it became pretty overgrown and I decided I wasn't going any further, much to Shadow's disappointment. On the way back down Shadow took a hard right and went up a very steep single track trail that ran along a granite rock ridge. I followed for a while and gave up. I knew there would be a great view from the top if I reached it but I had left the camera in the Blazer back at the road. I made Shadow come down and we went further up the river to a trail that lead down to the rivers edge. As we arrived at the water we spooked a mule dear doe that had used the same trail to get to the river for a drink. Shadow splashed around in the cool river pools for a while, then we headed back down the mountain for some dinner.



Several days later we found ourselves back up the Pack River and this time I took the camera out of the car. Here's the view from the top of the granite ridge. The mountains in the far distance are 30 miles away on the other side of the valley. It was worth the climb and Shadow didn't want to stop there.

At the top of the granite ridge the mountain continued up into the timber. The single track split and Shadow wanted to follow it to it's end. He didn't know it went on for many miles! I'm sure he was thinking "I'm sure the elk went this way, come on- we can catch 'em!". We followed the single track another half mile before I turned back.



The way down was very steep and I had to caution Shadow to go slow, he tends to charge along without regards to how gravity affects his mass. He had reached the bottom of the granite ridge as I was still only half way down struggling to keep my momentum in check. I yelled after him to try and slow me down if I started rolling out of control.. I don't think he was listening.

After the granite ridge we went further up the valley to the trail that leads to Chimney Peak.



It was too late in the day to try and reach the peak but there was plenty of time to do a couple miles on the trail. As we started up from the trail head we met a man with his two teenage sons coming down. I noticed that they all carried large revolvers on their hips. I assumed they were at least .44 Magnums-anything less powerful would just anger a grizzly bear. I like northern Idaho, kids are still raised the way I was-to have a healthy respect and understanding of nature, a knowledge of woodcraft, the confidence to get out and experience the world and to be proficient with firearms in case things go badly.

We saw some elk sign on the trail, in fact on nearly every hike we took but it was all old, in fact the poop was so old it didn't have enough smell to interest Shadow. We did come across a large pile of relatively fresh bear dung, too large for a black bear, that's for sure. This picture is titled "Hey, there's a BIG pile of POOP over here!!"



After hiking up a couple miles we headed back to the trail head. From there we went up the north side of the river several hundred yards to some nice pools and Shadow got to add a new word to his already large vocabulary, SLICK! We hopped from rock to rock to log to rock and had a great time. He started to wade into a large pool that was formed over a single large flat rock as it's bottom, it looked like it might be pretty slick and the current was moving pretty fast. I warned Shadow that it was SLICK but he didn't understand what that meant just yet. The current dropped him like a sack of hot rocks hard on his ribs when it washed his feet out from under him on that SLICK rock. He freaked out and thrashed around trying to regain his footing. He made it out of the pool ok but a little surprised and shaken. We went down stream a short distance and came to another pool that had a similar flat rock bottom, as Shadow began to wade into it I said "That looks SLICK to me" and he stopped short and backed out carefully. Learning new things is GOOD!!



One day we headed out to Clarks Fork a small town east of Sandpoint to go up the Lightning Creek road to do some hiking but the road was severely damaged by the spring runoff and was under repair-expected re-opening in Nov. '09. Not soon enough for us! We crossed the Clarks Fork River and headed up into the wilderness east of Lake Pend Oreille. Unfortunately I made the bonehead move of the trip and forgot the camera at the house. We had some great hikes in areas I hadn't been into for nearly 40 years - we used to hunt elk up there when I was a teenager. A weather front had moved in, we had a few rain showers and heard a few thunder claps east of us in Montana. That sounds like it's far away but we could easily see well into the next state from our vantage point on one of the peaks. I think all the elk had moved down and we must have been the only warm blooded things up there because the mosquitos were quite aggressive. We headed back down to a trail I saw on the way up. It is a marked Forest Service trail but is a really nice single track. We headed down the trail a mile or so. Shadow would have kept going until he reached the end not realizing there would be no way back up to the vehicle. I need to work on his sense of "Global View" so he can understand the bigger picture and the consequences of choices. I'm not really sure HOW I'm going to do that but it's a good idea.

We had many great hikes in the mountains and Shadow learned a little more about the world he lives in however some of the most important lessons are learned much closer to home. He has heard me say "Skunk, LEAVE IT" many times as we smell the road kill on the highway near home. I had hoped he would associate the smell and what I said and connect the two and perform the expected behavior. No such luck, a skunk family had taken up residence under a small storage building in the woods behind my mothers house. One evening after his dinner Shadow wanted out for his evening poop. I followed him to the edge of the woods as he headed out to take care of business. He suddenly stopped by a small bush with an excited look on his face. I headed over towards him and as I got about 8' from him he pounced at the bush with both front feet like he was trying to get something to play with him. Then I saw it. This little guy did NOT want to play with a big dog.



The skunk squirted, Shadow jumped back and the stink drifted my way. We both ended up in the shower in short order. It would have ended MUCH worse but we had two things in our favor, the skunk was young and his stink was probably not fully developed and the bush blocked much of the spray. Shadow still spent some time rubbing his face in the grass and smacking his lips trying to get the taste out of his mouth. From then on he was much more cautious when he went in that area of the woods.

All good things come to an end eventually. We had to head back to so I can keep my day job. We packed up the Blazer and headed out at about 4:30AM to a full moon over the pines.



The logical thing would be to backtrack our route for the quickest way home but I chose the "Road Less Traveled" because it's ALWAYS more interesting.

As we pulled out of Sandpoint and headed across the 3 mile long bridge that crosses the lake the sky was beginning to lighten a little. We headed south on Hwy 95 to Couer d'Alene for a tank of gas and a bag of ice for the cooler. Rather than take a right onto the I-90 westbound freeway we went south down Hwy 95 expecting some nice 2 lane travel. I was disappointed for the first 25 miles or so as that section had been widened to 4 lanes, straightened and smoothed to the point of loosing it's personality. Just before we reached the tiny town of Worly we hit a time warp and jumped back to 1973, the last time I drove this road. The road went back to a narrow 2 lane and Worly had not changed at all other than the vintage of the cars parked in front of the homes! As we drove south the pine covered mountains became more rounded, eventually becoming hills. The pines thinned out, replaced by the grass and wheat fields of the Paluse country of eastern Washington. We left Hwy 95 at Idaho #6 which shortly turned into Washington #272 at the border. This is an amazing road through the green hills and valleys. It would have been great fun in a sports car or on a motorcycle but you would have to really be on your game. There are few warning signs and it seems every rise in the road hides a corner on the other side with no warning as to which direction it goes or how sharp it will be. I enjoyed it tremendously, Shadow slept- until we came to the town of Paluse not far into Washington. He always gets up when we slow down, afraid he might miss something really cool. In this case he would have, Paluse is another time warp. This picture of the Dodge dealer could have been taken in 1967.



That's a restored '66 or '67 Dodge Charger in the show room and a Dodge Polara in remarkable condition on the side of the building.

This stash was a block away. Someone has a thing for old VW van campers.



This scene cracked me up. Same concept - light years apart in execution.



The main road into town is only a few blocks long with the city park at the end. It was 7:00AM and we were almost alone in town. I stopped at the park so Shadow could eat and stretch his legs. It's a really nice park and dog friendly, he spent the next 15 minutes running full tilt through the grass then slamming on the brakes to sniff where some dog had peed the day before.



After breakfast we loaded up and headed deeper into the Paluse country working our way south west towards Walla Walla.



Out the west side of Walla Walla we were back into the high desert again. We stopped at a nice city park in Bordman OR for a leg stretch and potty break. I carry 1 gallon zip lock baggies for just such occasions but the park is on the very edge of town and Shadow headed 100 yards out into the pucker brush for a little privacy. We were on I-84 for a few miles before we turned off the beaten path again. Here's an interesting shot of renewable resources done right. Those trees on the side of the freeway were planted in the mid to late '80s. It started as a test of about 20 acres when I first saw them. Now they run for miles and miles, all planted in neat rows. Some have already been harvested and the area replanted. This used to be just dirt and brush with little value, now it provides wood pulp for paper. I don't know what species the trees are but they grow very quickly.



We turned off I-84 at Arlington OR and headed south on OR #19. There was very little traffic. The terrain changed from farm land to desert to rock canyons and back several times. It was a very nice change from the monotony of the freeway.



We stopped in Condon for lunch at an old school, small town burger drive-in called the "Twist and Shake". The women working there gave me some dog treats for Shadow. I was pleasantly surprised by this part of Oregon, I was expecting much more high desert and a much less interesting drive. The only tourist group that seems to know or appreciate this part of Oregon is the hard core bicycle touring nuts. I saw several pairs of riders making their way across these hills, some of which were quite steep. I could not imagine the effort it takes to make it up these hills on a bike loaded with camping gear.

As we headed south out of Condon there was less desert and more trees. In one valley we ran into a swarm of locust, it wasn't a large swarm but was not much fun for the north bound bicyclist we saw. We passed the Bear Hollow state park campground, it looked really nice but was completely empty. We were in areas that had no cell phone reception and not even any FM radio available. I fully intend to get back there and spend some more time. I could have continued further down into central Oregon but it was time to start working our way west again so we took a right at the John Day River and headed toward Prineville.



We stopped at the Donelly Service Creek recreation area for a leg stretch. Did I mention that Shadow knows that term now, "leg stretch"? The John Day River is famous for steelhead fishing and white water rafting.

We entered the Ochoco National Forest, I had never heard of this area before. It is beautiful grass valleys with pine covered mountains. This area is an American treasure that few have heard of. I can't wait to see it in the spring or fall, winter might be a little harsh up there. The road was often steep and twisty, you can gain or loose a thousand feet of elevation in a mile or two. We hit civilization again just east of Prineville OR and continued on to Redmond and Hwy 97. I have really begun to hate the drive from Bend south to just north of Klamath Falls, it's long, straight, boring, and slow. We DID stop at Collier State Park again and Shadow had a BLAST, AGAIN!! This time it was in the evening and we were attacked by mosquitos. I saw a sign on the highway urging the locals to vote for mosquito control-SIGN ME UP!! For some reason I don't find it surprising that only the FEMALE mosquito's suck your blood...

We spent the night in Klamath Falls at the Super 8 on the north edge of town and hit the road early for the push home stopping for leg stretches and gas only. We made it home by lunch time. Shadow was glad to be home and little Bear was excited to see us. He thought he wanted to go with us but he's getting very old and doesn't travel well at all these days. I felt bad about leaving him behind but it was for his own good.

We never got to do any tent camping, the mosquitos were too bad to enjoy it. Next time we will go after August when the mosquitos are gone.

It has taken me a couple days to write this and Shadow has been a little mopey. Once you spend time in the mountians, walking around town or at the Coast Guard base seems pretty lame. We really need to find that piece of property and get out of CA.

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