Thursday,
August 13, 2015 Trip odometer
3,300 miles Mitchell, Oregon
What a day! I drove into Utah with
high hopes, as the two pre-downloaded Utah caches were within a quarter-mile of
each other off the same exit, close to the Wyoming border. This was an
over-a-cattle-guard-on-the-off-ramp onto a dirt road exit. A dusty climb for
Bruce up that dirt road, and I parked looking at the steepness of the terrain
with some chagrin. Once more I was wearing my once-good dressy Crocs. Not even
thinking about rattlesnakes, I leapt out of the car and searched for a route to
the likeliest spot for a cache. The name was “Corner Post,” there was only one
of those corners so typical of Western barbed wire fences in sight, reinforced
with boards with nice sturdy wooden posts, and the Garmin pointed right to it.
One route looked doable, a short
slope down to a wandering path that slowly descended from the road then up to
the fence corner. It wasn’t until I’d started beating brush on the ascending
part that I thought of snakes. By then, I was committed. I made my way up to
the post and started looking for a “quart-jar sized container” as described.
Nothing, and very little cover for it. I even felt the tops of the posts in
case they were hollow. Since this fence apparently forms the boundary between a
public hunting area and a very insistently private ranch, and the barbed wire
was fresh, aggressively barbed, and the strands no more than 8” apart, I
confined my search to the near side. Expanding to search through the adjacent
withered clump of stunted trees, still no luck. Calling up the most recent logs
on my Garmin, I was angry to discover a series of DNFs. Why hadn’t I checked
the logs before downloading the cache, as I normally do?
Well, I had one more chance at my
Utah state souvenir, and it was just back at the intersection with the
off-ramp. When I got there, I was frankly discouraged to find that the Western
notion of a “terrain two” cache is not what I expected. A steep slope of bare,
extremely loose, soil had to be scaled to get to the top, where the “small”
cache was hidden in a sage bush. There was no finding an easy route here, so I
finally just crawled up as best I could. I went through every sage bush,
searching among the branches and on the ground under the sprawling roots, for a
good half hour; only refusing to probe too deeply into gopher holes. Well, that
and search the sides of bushes hanging over the drop-off for the slope. My
acrophobia kicked in big-time. No lock-and-locks, no dangling bison tubes, even
camouflaged, no pill bottles or khaki-painted Altoids tins. This was my last
chance at the state souvenir, so I was thorough.
Finally I said to myself, “Find someplace
off an exit likely to have Wifi and search for some local skirt-lifter. This is
futile.” So I butt-slid down the slope, grinding a great deal of Utah into my
clean pants (and those shoes), my sinuses clogged and my chest heaving from my
(still active) sagebrush allergy. The minute I got in the car one of my severe
foot cramps hit, and would not go away. Luckily it was not my accelerator-foot,
and I just gritted my teeth and concentrated on driving and looking for Wifi.
Mile after mile of Interstates
rolled past with no services at exits. I turned north, gassed up at a Wifi-less
truck stop. Finally, approaching Provo, some eating places began to appear on
the services boards and I saw a Starbucks symbol. Off the next exit I went,
into a huge mall district with no Starbucks in sight. A Target sign on the
right made me think the Starbucks might be there, as they often are in
Pennsylvania. No such luck, it was a Pizza Hut. But my bladder was yelling to
be emptied, and I went in anyway. Only to find that, YES, there was Wifi! A
quick search with my iPod app showed just what I was looking for, a cache in
the next parking lot over.
I entered the coordinates manually
in the Garmin as a waypoint, my usual way of spontaneous caching, and drove
over to a wonderfully deserted lot, where I was guided to a light post: I’d
found my skirt-lifter, and gotten my Utah souvenir. The short walk had even
soothed my foot cramp away.
It was terribly hot, I was thinking,
as I turned my car AC to maximum cold, highest fan speed. Northwards we went
into Idaho, where I had not pre-loaded caches due to planning to return home
through the northern part at a more leisurely pace. I stopped at a Carl’s Jr.,
a western hamburger chain I’m quite fond of, to find my luck had turned again.
A massive power failure had just ended, and the grilles were the lowest
priority for bringing back up. I gulped a couple hot dogs from the adjoining
convenience store then sped on my way.
The thermometers mounted on
buildings as I drove through Boise averaged 103. I don’t care how low the
humidity is, that’s HOT.
I couldn’t decide whether the
immense columns of smoke I was seeing were some huge Boise factory complex or
one of the wildfires signs had been warning of all through Utah and parts of
Wyoming. It turned out they were fires, but I didn’t learn the full extent of
the disaster until much later. The moment I crossed the border to Oregon a big
sign said FREEWAY CLOSED. Another said ALL TRAFFIC MUST EXIT NOW. It should
have been followed by one that said “…and may god have mercy on your souls,”
because there was no detour signs. I followed traffic a little way, then pulled
over and got out my map. I had no idea how far the closure extended, or why it
was closed. What other road from here would take me west? I rapidly decided
Oregon Rt. 26 would do, although it made a deep southward curve before heading
northwest again at the other end of the state.
Rt. 26 was a 2-lane rural highway,
running between irrigated fields and pastures of cattle. Once every 50 miles or
so there was a small town, often just a cluster of buildings or a sign pointing
off down some potholed country road. Gas became an issue, and I gladly stopped
at a little rural two-pump general store. There the attendant (Oregon being one
of two states I know of that don’t trust customers to pump their own gas) told
me there were at least three big wildfires around. “The town is jumpin’,” she
claimed. Town? With one store and less than a dozen houses, it was about the
size of Oleona, PA. “What with the firefighters comin’ through, and all the
detours. We even have our own fire.” She waved unconcernedly at a column of
smoke directly upwind. On my way out of town, I saw some enterprising citizen
had a table in his driveway with a hand-lettered sign: “Fire T-shirts, $15.”
It turned out that Rt. 26 follows
the original Oregon Trail. Somewhere on one of those low-gear, lengthy uphill
runs, my great-grandfather’s covered wagon had a back wheel jam. Tragically, he
was too furious to remember to set the brake when he jumped off the driver’s
seat and walked back to check the wheel. His widow promptly turned the wagon
around and returned to Wyoming. This was very much on my mind as I drove. And
drove. And drove. Incredible canyon country; miles of forest featuring yellow
birch, several kinds of pine and spruce, and the occasional redwood; camping
spots and recreational areas; but no gas stations. And, as time went by, I
began to wonder if I’d be forced to stop for the night in a campground with my
exceedingly-minimal camping gear.
The last chance, at nearly sundown,
was a dinky town called Mitchell. The motel along the highway said “No Vacancy.”
I turned down the potholed road into the town proper, to find, next to the
Stage Stop (yes, really) a hotel that had to date back to the turn of the
century, and I don’t mean the one we just had. But it was rustically charming
and had a vacancy. The bathroom (meaning sink and toilet) was across the lobby
and there was no way I would ever climb those breakneck wooden stairs to the shower.
But there was a comfy bed, a place to pee, and (oddly) Wifi. Good enough.
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