Washington - Day 1 - to Columbia Gorge and Castle Rock

Longview North/Mt. St. Helens KOA, Castle Rock

Wednesday, 1 June 2022

today's route

On the road in Oregon

You can see that Milo McIver State Park is in a more rural area of Oregon, so I spent the first hour or so of today's drive on rural roads.  And today I got honked at for the 3rd time in Oregon for pulling off the road to let other vehicles pass me.  Why would Oregon have so many more rude/impatient drivers (3 in a month) than - say - New Jersey (0 in a month)?

Having seen (and driven on in the distant past) the bridge over the Columbia River at Portland, I took a shorter, lower bridge at Maywood Park.  The state boundary is in the middle of the river, where I found signs: "Oregon Thanks You - Come Again Soon" and one that said I was in Washington.

Washington - my 39th state

On the road in Washington

I got a great view of Mt. Hood from the Washington side of the river - ironic after how hard it was for me to see it when I was in its home state.

It's a little hard to tell from the route map, but I drove east nearly 40 miles along the Columbia River, hoping to learn more about the Columbia River Gorge.  And in a way I wasn't expecting, I did.

I drove through Camas, Washougal ("Gateway to the Gorge"), and past a sign saying I was once again in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.

And what I learned is that the view over here is completely different than the view on the Oregon side.

I took this photo at a wide spot in the road near Cape Horn.

Cape Horn, I learned online, is a 2-mile trail that offers great views of the river and the gorge.  Of course, we didn't try to hike it, but this was the only place I found where I could see what I hadn't been able to see down at water level, which is where the road ran in Oregon.  Because this road in Washington climbs so high above the river, it's possible to see that all those hills actually form a gorge - albeit one that's had its walls pushed way back over the centuries.

It's beautiful, isn't it?  You can see that it was overcast for much of the day today, and the lower light level made it hard to get enough definition into this photo.

This road - WA-14 - is clearly an old road, and at one point is supported by a trestle clinging to a mountainside.  On the way east I realized what the (non)foundation of the road was and would have been pretty nervous coming back west except my side of the road was the mountain side, not the drop-off side.

Despite its seemingly decrepit nature, there's no reasonable alternative to this road if you want to go to the places it serves.  So I met several filled logging trucks heading west (tricky on a narrow road).

I was once again very low on gas and knew I'd need to buy some out here, regardless of the price, to keep from running dry in the middle of this 2-lane no-shoulder road.

I stopped at the tiny town of North Bonneville, where the cash price for regular unleaded was $5.69.  But I had to have it.  As I was going inside to pay for it, I saw the headline for The Columbian, the local newspaper: "Guns No. 1 Cause of Death for Kids."  It's been 1 week since the shooting of near-babies at Uvalde.

This side of the river has a visitor center for the Bonneville Locks and Dam.  Definitely something I'd want to stop for when I'm here with more time.

I was aiming for the tiny town of Stevenson where I'd seen they had a Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center.  I'd bothered to check online to be sure they'd be open, but I didn't check far enough to learn that they have an admission charge.  I got there thinking it'd be free, or that it was run by the National Park Service so my senior pass would be good, but both were errors.  The fee for seniors was $8, and maybe ordinarily I'd see that as not too expensive for me, but it's so much more than free that I felt whopped in the face.  It's run by the Skamania County Historical Society, and without being able to check for comments and info online, I couldn't assume a local historic group could put together something worth $8.  Later, with an internet signal, I learned that many people think it's worth the visit - something else to do on another visit.

Instead, I walked the dogs around the large parking lot, which is immediately next to a senior home, so we met several seniors walking around the lot also, with walkers and canes.  They were happy to pat the dogs (it was mutual).

They had a couple of signs near the entrance about Lewis & Clark, mostly, and this one has information about the gorge.

the sign - details enlarged below

On the way back to urban areas, I passed the entrance to the Bridge of the Gods, which I'd seen from Cascade Locks on the other side of the river.  And I had time to notice the multitude of blooming rhododendrons along the road.  I was lucky to be here while they're still looking so beautiful.

I got a thank-you honk for pulling over.

I drove back through Camas and then into Vancouver (there was no highway sign), where I stopped for groceries and for more gasoline, this time at $4.99/gallon.  Vancouver, with 187,615 residents in 2020, is the 4th largest city in Washington.

Heading north on I-5, I passed the Cowlitz Indian Tribe's land and casino.

Then I hit a major traffic slowdown.  It took me 50 minutes to travel 7½ miles - though it was actually more than that because I didn't start timing it right away.  I never did find out what caused it - never passed a wreck or road construction or anything.  Just a long time that took a lot of energy to drive.

For quite a way we ran alongside the Cowlitz River - very pretty.

We got to the campground by 2:30 - just over 6 hours after leaving the campground in Oregon (Google said it'd be a 3-hour drive, so that's about right).

Gracie

Of course by then I was pooped, but that was by no means the end of the day.  I took the dogs out for a much-deserved walk and Gracie started showing some obvious problems.  Several times she stopped dead, couldn't go forward, and when I suggested to her that she should go back home again (I thought I could leave her at the RV and take Dext for a longer walk), she didn't seem to be able to do that either.  I finally got her back into the RV, but she was having some kind of problem.

A couple hours later I tried to take them out again, and again we got a short distance from the RV when she stopped.  Just stopped.  I managed to get her a little farther to a grassy area, and there she just sort of collapsed on the grass and couldn't get back up.  I drove the RV around to where she was, and the very nice young man in the campground office came out and picked her up and put her inside.  When I've picked her up before, she was always able to help at least a little bit, but it was clear she couldn't help this time.

We went back to our campsite, and I did some very hard thinking about the future.  I was afraid she wouldn't regain any strength and I wouldn't be able to care for her properly - even to lift her in and out to pee and so forth.  I've known since that stroke she had in May of last year that she probably had only a year or so left.  

And then there was that bizarre several-day incident back in the winter when she was diagnosed with a probable brain tumor, and again I was told she might not have many more months left.  And here we were where she'd stopped being able to move and her breathing wasn't right and she wasn't looking right, and I decided I'd been lucky for a long time but this was it.

So I got online and on the phone, trying to find someone who could euthanize her today (already 4:00).  I did a lot of phone calling, and at first I could find only 2 vets, one of whom could come tomorrow afternoon and the other of whom was based in Portland but was willing to meet me halfway at a rest area.  By then I was desperate so I didn't want to wait 24 hours, but I didn't - couldn't - drive another hour on that interstate and then - so impersonal - in a rest area - just a ghastly mental image.

But those were my choices, so I booked the tomorrow-guy, who was local, and while I was doing that I got a call back from the Portland vet who said she and her assistant had talked it over and decided to drive up to Castle Rock if I were willing to pay a bit of an extra fee to cover their time and expenses.  Thank goodness.

They managed to get here by 5:00 (the road clog had cleared up).  Two very nice women, both medically qualified, with one a vet and the other a medical assistant.  The vet didn't take the approach of you-want-to-get-rid-of-your-dog-so-here's-a-shot, but instead acted like a vet.  She gave Gracie a pretty thorough checkup and said what seemed to be wrong with her was her heart was clogged and not getting enough blood circulating to provide enough oxygen to her body.  And that was why she was panting (though with her mouth closed - her sides were heaving) and her heart was beating so fast and she was looking so poorly.

With that diagnosis, I knew this wasn't something Gracie might be able to snap out of like she had twice before since last year.  If her heart was really all that clogged up, it might very possibly just stop, and Gracie would die maybe - even during the night, and I'd be left trying to figure out what to do with her body in a 24' RV.  So I said to go ahead and signed a bunch of waivers and stuff.

It was a 2-part set of shots, and then my beautiful Gracie was gone.  And it turned out I wasn't at all prepared for it.  It just happened so suddenly.  That morning she'd eaten both breakfast and lunch, neither of which she usually ate, and she'd done her bathroom chores and seemed so normal for a change.  And then this.  Gone forever.

The 2 women were very sweet and understanding - this is their business, after all - and they had a stretcher they put Gracie on to get her into the vet's car, where they'd take her to be cremated.  I decided not to pay extra to get her ashes back.  I didn't want her ashes, I wanted her.  And if I couldn't have her - well, I kept her collar, anyway.

So I took Dext out once more, had a couple of glasses of wine (on an empty stomach), and went to bed.  What a day.  June 1st.

My little Gracie