September 22 Eastward Toward Home

Last night we learned that I-84 was shut down west of Portland for 50 miles due to firefighting activity. Another detour ahead.

Mike is leaving his car at the Portland airport and we are picking him up there. We are careful to arrive when he is ready to jump in because there is no place to park this rig there. We stop in the through lane of the departure area just long enough for him to hop in, and we only get a couple of honks. Drivers in Portland are noticeably more patient than in Atlanta and drive more slowly.

Mike occupies the navigator seat. He directs me across the Columbia River to the Washington side where we proceed along the river on Highway 14, the Evergreen Highway. We drive east along the Columbia River gorge on the two lane road and through narrow tunnels that look they were blasted through the rock a century or more ago.

After about 50 miles on this road, we are across the river from the town of Hood River. I didn’t know this is where we were going to cross, but just before we get to the turn, Mike directs me to get into the short right turn lane to cross the Hood River Bridge. I check the right mirror closely, then change lanes. As I look forward again, I see a warning sign. I have only a second to read the warning across the top of the sign. It says “Low Clearance 14′ 6.” No problem; we only need 12 feet. Later today, I will find that there was a second warning tacked onto the bottom of the sign.

It’s an old two-lane drawbridge, with considerable traffic in each direction. Hood River is where the closed stretch of Interstate 84 reopens. Normally, in light traffic, you could steal a few views of the river from this bridge, but not today. Once out over the river, it’s obvious we are on a very narrow bridge. There is no shoulder. It doesn’t seem like there is enough room for two-way traffic. I glance at the draw bridge structure above us as we as we approach it and see a two men and a woman standing on the upper structure as we go under. Authorized officials, I presume.

It’s uncomfortable, but there are no clearance problems. Then, bam! Oops, that was our mirror. The RV has large truck mirrors. The RV itself is 8.5 feet wide, but the mirrors extend well beyond that. An oncoming truck also had large mirrors. The housing of the side view mirrors are designed to give somewhat when an obstruction is encountered. But the impact caused the larger glass panel of the mirror to pop out and fall away; the smaller blind spot mirror was hanging on by a wire.

At the other end of the bridge, we pay the $3.00 toll. The toll collector looks at the mirror and says “Oops.” The thought comes to me, well, since your bridge caused me to loose my mirror, maybe at least you won’t charge the toll. No such offer. There is a parking lot for a marina and a DMV office on the Oregon side. I am very relieved to still have the smaller mirror. It’s much better than no mirror at all. In fact, it would be impossible to drive this RV without a side view mirror. (Forest River didn’t bother to remove the almost useless windshield-mounted rear view mirror. You can glance in that mirror to see if someone is standing at the kitchen sink, so it’s not completely worthless.)

I reattach the dangling heater wiring to the remaining mirror part and pop it back into place. Mike and Jane want to go back across the bridge in the truck and see if we can retrieve the missing mirror panel. They talked me into it. We unhook the truck and head back to the bridge. The toll is only $1.00 for the truck. Mike is in the back seat, passenger side. He is about 6′ 3″ and has long arms. We drive slowly. We spot the mirror. Mike opens the door and says, “Three more feet,” then “Stop!” He reaches down and picks up the mirror and shouts, “Go!” We manage to turn around on the Washington side and head back across the bridge. As we approach the bridge, this time with more time to read the warning at the bottom of the sign: 9 ft. lanes. I’d like to think that we would have had the good sense and the opportunity to fold the mirrors in if we had seen the warning before. The toll taker takes another dollar. I ask Mike if he got a good view of the river water when his face was just over the grate. He says that when he leaned over to pick up the mirror, he was looking right through the metal grate down to the water.

Most of the glass is still in the mirror panel, but it’s shattered. We can pop the plastic panel back into the housing, but the vibration will cause the shattered glass to fall.

I drive the truck to the nearest store where Mike buys clear packing tape. We tape the mirror up, attached the heater wires, and pop it back into the housing. It’s hard to see through it, but Mike says, “Well, you’re legal.”

Before hooking the truck back up to the RV, the three of us sit at the dinette and enjoy the sandwiches and veggies Jane prepared.

Now eastbound on I-84 from Hood River (the town on the Columbia River), the river gorge is on our left. It’s very wide; there are many boats with salmon fishermen. We see a large hydroelectric dam. Mike educates us about northeastern Oregon. He has traveled the area many times on Forest Service business. We pass the  Forest Service supervisor’s office for the Umatilla National Forest. It’s on Umitilla Indian Reservation land, so the Forest Service pays the tribe rent every year. I think, there’s a lot o national forest land around here, I wonder why the office was built on Indian land at an interstate exit.

I ask Mike what the weather will be like at Emigrant Springs. He says that this is the second coldest place in Oregon. Not the kind of thing I would look for. I ask how cold he would expect it to be now. He says probably freezing or below tonight.