Moving Out

In a few minutes, I will shut down my computer, pack my gear out of Lisa's father's house, and finish loading my stuff into my van. With luck, sometime in the next couple of hours, Lisa and I will set out on the first leg of our respective trips. Lisa has the longer trip as she is driving to Columbus, where I will be flying on Thursday.

Our paths match as far as Bend, Oregon, where I will turn south toward California and she east toward Ohio. If all goes as planned, we'll stop for lunch in Sisters.

Last night Lisa tested the radios, whereupon we discovered that my 2m amateur rig is no longer speaking to the antennas. The CB radio works, so we can stay in contact while convoying, but it's annoying. And there is not enough time to troubleshoot the problem. We'll just have to live with it until the next time my van is in Oregon.

Mehama to Klamath Falls

Lisa and I left at just about Noon and started working our way over Santiam Pass. We stopped a lot, as is our wont. We stopped at Detroit Lake to look at how much water was being released (a lot) and at the Marion Forks Restaurant along the Santiam River for lunch. (Lisa's late mother had always favored this place, so it has sentimental value for Lisa.)

Driving up into the mountains, we had the odd experience of being in bright sun on a warm day, but surrounded by snow. We took advantage of this after lunch, where we walked over to one of the sheltered snowbanks and scooped up some snow which we put in Lisa's ice chest to cool down bottles of water. The weather was fairly pleasant over the pass itself, but got progressively hotter on the east side, as it does in central Oregon.

We stopped again an hour later so I could take a blood test, and again in Sisters so Lisa could buy some fuel-system cleaner in the hope that it will help clear an apparently partially-clogged fuel line (about which more in a minute). And finally we stopped at a vista point along US-20 in order for me to give her some stuff that should have been loaded in her little pickup rather than my minivan. Then it was in to Bend, where we parted ways.

( Adventures with Chipmunks and Casinos )

( Lisa's pickup is being cranky )

I finally rolled into the Holiday Inn Express Klamath Falls just before 8 PM, having covered 254 miles in eight hours, for an unimpressive 32 mph average speed. As it happens, eight hours was about what I predicted.

( A bit more about K-Falls )

All in all, this hotel appears to be decent value for money, and I'm feeling pretty relaxed and happy. I have a lot of driving ahead of me tomorrow, but it is pretty straightforward work.

Lisa Update

Mere moments after I posted my last message. Lisa called me. As usual, before I could actually answer the call, it rolled to voice-mail. (As far as I can tell, I have about one ring to answer calls on this phone before voice-mail. Sometimes it's zero rings. From experimentation, I've also found that callers can end up hearing three or four rings on their end before my phone rings. But I digress.) She left me a message.

At her request, I'm posting Lisa's progress so far.

She continues to have problems with fuel from the starboard tank, but is otherwise making good progress. In case the starboard tank quits feeding entirely, she says she's going to buy a siphon hose so she can siphon fuel out of that tank to move over to the other one at need.

She also pointed out that she used her last quarters (cheaper than using the phone card, which she reserves for use only when coins aren't accepted) to call me instead of using them to play the Creature from the Black Lagoon pinball machine at the truck stop, and that I should be duly grateful.