Tuesday - We assume the traffic from the eclipse has abated, so we hit the road today. We wanted to let the 8:00 traffic settle, so we left the campground about 9:30, hoping for the best. We stopped at the local General Mercantile for Joe's soda. A group was there airing up their tubes to go down the Clackamas. Obviously, we didn't get the full benefit of our campground. Oh, to be young again.
We made our way to the 205, then I-5, then the 405, then the 30. The problem with the interstate traffic in Oregon is that they don't have enough interchanges, so at every interchange merging traffic backs up the freeway traffic until it has time to get spread out. So we hit some stop and go traffic on the 205 and I-5.
Once we got through metropolitan Portland, we were on Hwy 30, which had stoplights but moved along pretty well. We saw lots of logging trucks, lots of campers on the road. We passed the turnoff to Sauvie Island, which grows a lot of vegetables. Joe thinks we might have to come back there to drive that island, but maybe not.
We passed 3 or 4 bridges, crossing the Williamette and Columbia Rivers. We didn't know there were that many bridges, and they were all quite lengthy and tall enough to allow big ships to pass under. And we saw a few ships and barges.
We finally got to our bridge, which is 4.2 miles long.
There were tons of fishing boats out here at the mouth of the Columbia. We assume they were salmon fishing, but they literally were scattered all over the river. This first one looked like a charter, and everyone on there was well bundled up. Joe said he didn't think he had that many clothes with him.
We crossed the state line from Oregon to Washington somewhere on the bridge, around 1:00 p.m., and headed to Ilwaco, where our campground is located. The town of Chinook is about 10 miles south of Ilwaco, and we found a place to stop for lunch, with street parking, there, called The Roadhouse. Joe had clam chowder, with actual clam shells in the soup, but he said it was delicious.
We found our campground, which is a resort. It has a pretty fancy lodge, with game tables where we could have played cards, but all our card players have left us. We are in a very shaded spot, and the temperature was 61 degrees at 2:30 p.m. We may have to turn the furnace back on tonight. After we got set up, we rested a bit, then took a drive about 5:00 down the Long Beach Peninsula. But the sea mist was so heavy that we couldn't see the water, even from the beach.
Since we drove the Peninsula tonight, we don't have to do that again tomorrow (it's only 20 miles long), so we will concentrate on Cape Disappointment, Long Beach, maybe try to find the cranberry bogs here, and maybe explore some of the museums and the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center.
Report from the Brundiges, they hope to have their motorhome repairs finished tomorrow, and they can see the smoke in Junction City from the fires over by Sisters where they have begun evacuations. This may affect their route out of Oregon because their plan is to head to Boise. We wish them safe travels.
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