From Joy to Germany - Not Every Detour Is Scenic

Aloha all,

The great philosopher Forrest Gump once said, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." The same could be said about road trips.

This detour to Hurricane Ridge was still scenic

After a few days in the Columbia River Gorge, a week on the Olympic Peninsula with four different ex-Hawaii friends, Canada Day in Canada, and America's 250th birthday in Port Angeles, what would be next? A detour to Idaho? The world's biggest ball of twine in Eastern Washington? Randomly running into another friend from Maui?

Nope.

Our road-trip box of chocolates contained the equivalent of the mystery chocolate filled with rotten eggs. Instead of another scenic byway, we took a sharp left turn toward a hospital in Germany.

Two days ago, we got a call that Sandra's mom was in severe pain. She needed emergency surgery for a blocked colon. That's concerning for anyone, but especially at 91 years old. The next day, I drove Sandra to the Seattle airport, so she can support her mom and her sister.

Thankfully, the surgery appears to have gone well. Sandra's mom is recovering slowly, and I'm sure having both of her daughters by her side is excellent medicine.

I'm now heading back to Oregon to winterize and store Joy a little earlier than planned. In a few days, I'll follow Sandra to Germany. I still have a few miles and a fair amount of work ahead of me, but I have to admit—it feels strange being in Joy without my travel buddy and the love of my life.

Joy will go into
hibernation early this year

I'm usually perfectly fine being by myself, but there's something undeniably sad about a BBQ for one. I miss my copilot, and all of a sudden the bed in Joy has become way too big.

Even with our thoughts elsewhere, I still want to write about the wonderful time we had on the road. Of course, we'd have loved to explore more of the Pacific Northwest, but we're grateful for the time we did have.

We spent three days in the spectacular Columbia River Gorge.

In The Dalles, we took a short—and somewhat confusing—audio walking tour of downtown before visiting the excellent Fort Dalles Museum. To be honest, the museum itself took us less than an hour to see, but we spent three times that long chatting with the curator, which turned out to be the best exhibit of all. We love meeting people who know far more about history than we do and genuinely enjoy sharing it. If we were this curious sitting at home reading books or researching online, we might become really smart someday. Somehow, it's much easier to be curious when we're traveling.

Not the most historical house in The Dalles,
but the most colorful!

Biking along the Columbia in The Dalles, we passed several enormous Google data centers. Unfortunately, they don't seem to offer tours—I guess "Come see our racks of blinking computers!" isn't much of a tourist draw. I was intrigued enough to read up on them while standing outside. I'm still not sure whether they're humanity's greatest technological achievement, a big waste of water and electricity to make fake videos, or simply the beginning of The Terminator. It's probably a little bit of all of that. 

We spent one night in the parking lot of the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center, then half the next day exploring it. Afterward, we biked and scooted along part of the Historic Columbia River Highway, now blissfully free of cars. Well...to be completely honest, we probably spent more time talking to an interesting guy riding an electric unicycle than actually exploring the road. One of the best parts of slow travel is having enough time to stop and have conversations with complete strangers - or, as I like to call them, 'fellow humans'.

Our newest friend for an hour

Scooting and biking on the old
Scenic Columbia River Gorge Road

Multnomah Falls may be the most famous—and perhaps objectively the prettiest—waterfall in the Gorge, but it's also the busiest. You actually need reservations to visit. I enjoyed Gorton Creek Falls just as much. It sits at the end of a canyon, reached by a short scramble from our campground. I've developed a simple theory: the harder a waterfall is to reach, the prettier it gets. I'm sure there's a peer-reviewed scientific paper backing me up somewhere.

Multnomah Falls

Since you had to scroll a little further,
do you also like Gorton Creek Falls
just as much?

The Columbia River is still mighty today, but the 14 dams built between 1933 and 1979 have made it far tamer than the river Lewis and Clark—or the Oregon Trail pioneers—experienced.

We visited Bonneville Dam, which has a visitor center, powerhouse viewing platform, lock, and fish hatchery. The turbines generate over 1,200 megawatts of electricity. If that number means as little to you as it did to me, here's the translation: enough power for well over half a million homes.

Powerful Powerhouse at Bonneville Dam

Like many things, the dam is both a blessing and a curse. It produces enormous amounts of clean electricity but also flooded the river's greatest fishing site, once the center of a thriving Native trading network. It also devastated salmon populations, although considerable effort continues to reduce that impact.

The half-Hawaiian Fort Vancouver 

Fort Vancouver, across the river from present-day Portland, was the hub of the early Pacific Northwest. Even though we'd visited before, we were surprised to learn—or perhaps relearn—that so many Hawaiians lived and worked there.

Beginning in the 1820s, years before Hawaii imported workers for the sugar plantations, Native Hawaiians were recruited to work for the Hudson's Bay Company. At times, they made up nearly half the workforce and lived in Kanaka Village. If you've ever wondered why lomi lomi salmon is considered a classic Hawaiian dish despite the complete absence of salmon in Hawaii, you can find your answer at Fort Vancouver.

It was Fashion Week
at Fort Vancouver

Rain "forced" us to have a leisurely lunch at the historic Grant House at Fort Vancouver. We ate some excellent shrimp and grits there, I am surprised that did not make it to Hawaii like the Lomi Lomi Salmon.

One of our more random stops was Mima Mounds, a prairie covered with hundreds of perfectly spaced little hills. Nobody knows exactly how they formed. Theories range from glaciers to gophers...and yes, according to some theories, aliens have made an appearance too. It's fascinating that science can explain so much—and occasionally has to shrug and say, "Your guess is as good as ours." Sometimes not knowing is more interesting than knowing.

The Mysterious Mima Mounds

We timed our visit to our friend Greg, who moved from Maui to Sequim, to coincide with our Oahu friend Barb's visit. That gave us a perfect foursome for pickleball. We also hiked a little, ate a lot, went to Port Townsend, played some games, and even squeezed in a round of disc golf with John, another former Hawaii friend.

Hawaii Reunion on the pickleball court

Disc Golf with John & Greg

Just a small sample of John's
fabulous art at his home and studio

Somehow, we still found time to watch several World Cup matches, even though I really disliked FIFA — even before they were giving in to our president's rather pathetic meddling. I'm ok with losing, as long as it's honorably.

Canada Day festivities in Victoria, BC

By pure luck, our day trip to Victoria on Vancouver Island landed on Canada Day. The timing was even better because Jack, another Maui Ultimate friend, happened to be in town, giving us the chance to visit his floating home in Victoria.

Another Hawaii Reunion with Jack, Barb & Greg

Where Jack lives when he's not a ski bum
in Nelson or a surf bum on Maui 

Our ferry left before the fireworks, but we only had to wait three more days before watching the fireworks in Port Angeles for America's 250th birthday. There was also a charming parade and a fun local band.

4th of July Fireworks over Port Angeles

We're still grateful to call this country home. America is so much more and so much better than that one guy.

Happy 250th Birthday, America!

And that's the news from Lake Solitude, where all thoughts for Emma are strong, all the photos of Sandra on my phone are good-looking, and the turns in the road are considerably more surprising than average.

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra