Retirement Road Trip 2011: Day 18, Monday 9/12

125 miles, camped tonight at Emigrant Springs State Park

Monday morning I woke up to a wonderful view of the Columbia River.  This is a working river, and I got to see several barges go by.

It's going to be another hot and sunny day!!  The Wrights and I split up today.  Dave wanted to fish, and I went RV shopping.  We'll meet up again at Cory's house on Wednesday afternoon.  OK, here's the scoop on the RV shopping thing.  I bought the present truck camper in 2009 just three months after Kathy died.  I wanted to go on a "healing" trip.  The truck camper selection in NY was very limited.  I bought the cheapest one I could find because I didn't know if I would like traveling alone, much less in a truck camper.  Well, two years later now, and I'm both retired and a travel junkie. :-)

After my 2009 trip I realized that my original camper had some limitations.  It has no bathroom, which I can get by with.  It has room for only one battery and one propane tank, which is inconvenient.  It has very limited storage, which is the real big problem.  I was getting real tired of having to move something every time I wanted to get something else.  It's a constant game of shuffle.  I have been "window shopping" online for some time for something just a little bigger.  The truck camper selection in the West is huge.  They are everywhere here.  I found one I kinda liked at Thunder RV in La Grande, Oregon.  I emailed them before I left on my trip.  Sure enough, it was still in stock, so I stopped to see it.   I got hooked, and I negotiated a deal.  I'm swapping campers on Tuesday morning. The temps in La Grande were in the low 90's, so I drove about 30 miles back up in the mountains to camp overnight at Emigrant Springs State Park, where there was shade and it was cooler.  Plus there were lots of trails to take Zoey on.

I would be a little remiss if I didn't include just a little history lesson here.  I'm all ready being picked on for all my farming and agriculture reports.  :-)   I took Interstate 84 from Umatilla to La Grande.  The route has a long climb up to and over Deadman Pass, which has some Oregon Trail history attached to it. There was a small interpretive center at a rest area at Deadman Pass.

When I see and read about what the Oregon Trail travelers put up and it makes me feel wimpy.  Here I am complaining that I need more space and two batteries and two propane tanks instead of one.  :-)

Emigrant Springs State Park has some history attached to it as well.

So, Tuesday morning I switch campers and Tuesday afternoon I'm off to Bickleton, Washington to see Katie Leuthauser.  I guess that's all for now........