Rufus

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Out of Oregon, Through Washington, and Into Idaho

I opted for an early start today since I was looking at a drive of at least 5 hours to Worley, Idaho, where I plan to sleep for a couple of nights. I decided to get fuel before leaving since all Oregon gas stations have service. What luxury! 🙂

The drive along the Oregon side of the Columbia River was smooth and splendid. I slowly pushed north into eastern Washington where emerald hills gave way to olive scrub grass.

Kennewick was tricky. It’s downhill right through town with the speed limit going from 55 to 50 to 35 with no warning, in addition to plenty of turns and lights. I opted to start off slow and quickly shifted into a lower gear. I still had to jam the brakes at one of the very last lights that turned yellow just as I entered the ‘can’t stop now!’ zone.

Lunch was had at the Sprague Lake rest area, just in time to miss a mighty two minute hail storm! The view of the valley was wide open and I enjoyed watching a colourful train snake its way east.

Spokane was zippy, but not too harrowing. I then allowed the GPS to lead me onto secondary roads that wended their way through farmland… dotted with snow.

I crossed the state line into Idaho, with my ETA being ten more minutes, and I was ready to stop. But there’s a ton of construction around the casino and my GPS got confused. It told me to go straight and turn right onto I-95. There was a sign ahead of me saying ‘casino’ with an arrow pointing straight. I could only see construction below me, so I followed the GPS and went about ten kilometres south with it continuously ‘recalculating’ but certain that I was going the wrong way. I did a legal U-turn and came back up I-95, saw a sign saying ‘casino next exit’… and ended up right where I started from! The casino wound up being the mess of construction!

There was a sign for RV parking leading to a very unlevel gravel area. It was messy to get in and I had to pick my way around debris, but I finally got Miranda squared away on a couple of levelers. Driving the toad in and out of here isn’t going to be fun. I’m pretty sure the Demptster at its worst was better than the entrance into this place!

I went down to the casino to see if I had to register (no), look at the restaurants (nothing interesting), played $4 in the slots as payment for tonight’s parking, and ran out of there because I couldn’t breathe through all the smoke! I won’t be spending much time there!

Coeur d’Alene is a full 35 kilometres away from Worley. I debated whether or not to do an internet run tonight and decided on it just so I can plan my day tomorrow.

Sprague Lake Rest Area

Sprague Lake Rest Area

Sprague Lake Rest Area

Sprague Lake Rest Area

Sprague Lake Rest Area

Sprague Lake Rest Area

train below Sprague Lake Rest Area

train below Sprague Lake Rest Area

Sprague Lake Rest Area

Sprague Lake Rest Area

Sprague Lake Rest Area

Sprague Lake Rest Area

the snowy mountains of Idaho

the snowy mountains of Idaho

Miranda on blocks, so to speak

Miranda on blocks, so to speak

that's the Coeur d'Alene casino in the distance

that’s the Coeur d’Alene casino in the distance

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Giles French Park at John Day Dam

Here are a few pictures I took of Giles French Park when I went out to stretch my legs after the sun finally came out. The variations in the greens make for a striking landscape.

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This really is a great spot! We’re perhaps a half dozen rigs spread out over the entire area. I parked as far away from everyone as I could because every single one of the other rigs had a generator sitting by it. I don’t hear the gensets from my rig. There is only the steady drone of I-84 traffic and the regular clatter of trains. Both are ‘white noise’ to me. The trains don’t bother me in the least since they don’t whistle. They made the cats uppity at first, but once they saw I didn’t care they stopped fussing.

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Black as Night

My, it’s pouring out there… I have barely 0.1 amps coming in from my solar panel. I started the day very low, in the mid elevens, and I’ve been barely managing to stay above 12.0. I’m glad I have internet today since I don’t need any light to work on the computer! I’m happy I’m not traveling in this.

Looking at long term forecasts, I seem to be heading into sunnier, but colder, conditions. I know the batteries will get a good charge on the long drive tomorrow. So, I’m not stressing out about the low voltage today but it’s a good reminder that I need to be conservative because I’m going to have to start running the furnace at night.

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Finetuning a North Easterly Route

Internet at home is decent, so I have no desire to move on from the John Day Dam today!

I’ve been crunching some data and have decided that tomorrow will be a long day. I had originally planned two stops between here and Coeur d’Alene. I’ve decided to instead to drive straight there tomorrow; it’ll be a leisurely five to six hour drive. I plan to stay at the casino in Worley, which should allow me a couple of nights of parking. The intent is to unhook and actually drive into Coeur d’Alene on Monday and see what’s what.

(Time for a confession: I will never pronounce ‘Coeur d’Alene’ out loud because I can’t figure out how to do so in English!)

My next stops, in Montana, will depend on road conditions. And then it’ll be back to Canada, where I expect to land Thursday or Friday.

 

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The Most Random Wifi Signal Ever

I accidentally left Airport on when I got home from McDonald’s earlier and discovered that if I place my computer just so over the filing cabinet I have a pretty decent wifi signal! Tomorrow, I’ll try to find the source of the signal (it’s some sort of admin building) and get closer to it. If that works, I’ll be staying here all day to finish my taxes and send some more job applications.

Wifi on my new computer has been an absolute nightmare. Apple, who pioneered wifi technology, had the not-so-bright idea of encasing an antenna in aluminum!  I went to the Mac troubleshooting forums and discovered that I need two pieces of equipment to improve performance: an external antenna and an amplifier. Since I’ll be going back to cellular internet very soon and plan to get a similar setup for my next US adventure, I won’t be investing in wifi anytime soon.

I still think (know) that Macs are infinitely superior to PCs, but they are not infallible!