November 5, 2013

           Day 13.
           Something is wrong here with my blog collating system, so I'm going to enter November 5th as shown in my handwritten version. If this contains the contradictory or confusing, it is probably just out of sequence chronologically. If you notice the differences in style and how the hand-written versions are focused differently, good for you. Here goes, enjoy.

Morning:
           At 5:10 AM it is snowing in Burns, OR. The plan is to make Yakima, WA, 337 miles from here and four days behind schedule. It will be two weeks on the road if I arrive there tomorrow. The snow is not staying on the ground, if it continues to melt, I will head up toward John Day. (John Day is a nothing place, just another travel tradition.) See here the early morning cold-weather startup. Cold weather does not scare me, but you can't make me like it.

           By 7:30 AM the snow is changing to rain, so away I go. Within the hour, I realized I was optimistic. You see, Highway 395 is a paved over bush trail, scenic but grueling. In fact, on this trip, it is the most scenic and most grueling patch so far. I’m writing ensconced in a nice warm Burger King in Yakima, so you know I made it. See photo. Yes, writing, as the laptop is completely blooped.
           Two items missing on this trip were Internet cafes and mittens, or mitts they are called out west. Cheap computers and wifi killed the café business, although the way they were overcharging, I wonder how they lasted even so long. Thus, there are no convenient stops along the way to grind out the blog. The only stops where I could get on-line were libraries, which is unreliable and they often close early. The second missing item was mitts. After wasting 10 – 12 stops and several hours, I gave up trying to find a pair in the Pacific northwest.

           I searched from Provo, UT, to John Day, OR and could only find countless displays of gloves, but no mitts. At several points I offered $50 for a pair (West Wendover, Winnemucca, Burns, and four different shops in John Day.) No takers. I offered to pay anyone who could make me a pair, but there was nobody that skillful on my path. The bottom line here, folks, is that a man wearing gloves in the winter isn’t getting any damn work done. You figure out what I mean. No, handwarmers don’t work with gloves, and neither to those type with the flap for the handwarmers. Those are a bad design, cooked up by somebody who knits, not somebody who tries to wear them.
           North from Burns, OR, is a super summer drive, but I was only able to continue by a bit of good luck. The snowplow had cleared the northbound lane. I can proceed through snow, but at a much slower pace. Traffic was sparse. There was one jerk in a pickup who stopped at every little town for a beer, then sped past me at 90 mph between them. I expected to find him in the ditch, and I expected I would not stop for him.

           Most unusual, if you’ve never seen them, are the weather patterns in the internal valleys. That is valleys between the Coast and Rockie Mountains. The road is a series of climbs over a range of hills every 20 – 30 miles, then a cautious descent into yet another valley. I lost track as it took me six hours to go the 126 miles between John Day and Pendleton. It was cold and wet, but not icy.
           The storms occur in the hills, not the valleys. You often see snow falling ten miles away all around. That could be the reason the roads run straight and exactly down the middle of these valleys. I define a canyon as a very narrow valley. That is where the storms can be raging while you drive in the sunshine.

           I spent and extra hour in John Day, where I met a spry gal at the Shell station with a competitive streak. When I mentioned I was a semi-famous writer, she claimed to be a semi-famous pump jockey. Whatever that is. When I bluntly asked if she was single she said yes—but a nanosecond too late. It was more of a hint of a delay, but folks, women who are really single don’t have to think about it. She was my type to and extent. But she’d have to lose the snot ring.



Daytime:
           North from John Day was another series of chilly passes, causing the Honda to gobble the gasoline at elevations over 4,000 feet. Without mitts, my fingers got bluish so I had to place handwarmers directly in my palms. This dries out your skin and turns the outer layer a blackish color that won’t wash off.

           I finally broke into the hilly open country and it got 20 degrees warmer. I drove over the Columbia, which is just as wide as the Mississippi. A lot of people don’t know that. Eastern Oregon has always mystified me. It is beautiful, rolling wild country with huge soft hills.            Clearly, it all belongs to somebody but it is not so clear why. All good land in the USA has become so expensive, most people can’t just “own” it. You have to put it into some type of production. There is no sign of cultivation here, and if they are ranching, where are the cows?

Evening:
           Now back on home turn, I hopped the freeway and made Yakima between 3:00 PM and dark time. The total cost from Winnemucca to Yakima was $89, mostly gasoline. There is something about Yakima that keeps bringing me back every 42 years. First stop: the library.

           Why there? Because I didn’t recognize a thing. I remember some places, like Front Street, by name. But a ten minute drive around brought back nothing. Then I saw Naches Avenue, and was struck by how the trees have grown. Forty years ago they were seedlings and I keep thinking it takes 100 years for a tree to get really big. I remember them as seedlings. Since I could recall names, but not sights, I hauled out the city directories for 1970-1971.
           I quickly found the old haunts, addresses, and orchards. Time allowing, I’ll drive up there tomorrow and visit memory lane. I used to work those orchards for $2 a day plus room and board, waiting for the money my parents had promised me for university. Which never came. Basically, I worked that summer for bus fare back. While the rest of my class was backpacking around Europe.