April 15, 2005

April 15, 2005

Tillamook, Oregon to Port Angeles, Washington

DAY 301

 

Well, despite my best effort, it was not meant to be. We did not make it back to Canada today, on time. We will be a day late. We made it to the Port Angeles to Victoria ferry terminal in Port Angeles by a few minutes after 6:00 P.M., but the ferry schedule information we had was incorrect. There are only 2 ferries a day from here to Victoria during the winter season. The early one departs at 8:20 A.M. and the late one departs at 1:45 P.M.. AND ... < fume > I have just had to start over retyping today's journal entry after working on it for the better part of an hour, because my computer decided it needed to reboot itself after loading some upgrade it automatically retrieved this morning.

Today was a cold, miserable day of heavy rain, and poor visibility, and heavy traffic.

I was up early this morning, and had myself and the trailer pretty much ready to go by the time Mechtronics came to pick me up at 9:30 A.M., as they had promised. They drove me back to their shop, where I plugged in the laptop and got online for a few minutes to update my blog before paying the bill for the transmission rebuild. YIKES ! ! ! U.S.$2400 / $3000 CDN.! I drove back to Wilson River RV Park, hitched up, and we were pulling out of the park at 10:45 A.M.. We headed east on Hwy. 6, then Hwy. 26 to Portland. At Portland we got onto Interstate 405 heading north through the city, leading to Interstate 5. At some point on I-405 in Portland, travelling uphill, at 70 MPH, in heavy rain, in heavy traffic, the transmission slipped and whined for a few seconds. I felt a surge of panic through my stomach. I anticipated the transmission self-destructing on a hill, in heavy traffic, in heavy rain, at high speed. It only lasted a few seconds and then everything was fine. I have driven over 300 miles / 500 km. on the rebuilt transmission today, and those few seconds were the only problem, so hopefully everything is okay. Maybe it was just something “breaking in”, as opposed to something breaking ?

Through Portland, onto I-5, across the bridge over the Columbia River, and we were in Vancouver, Washington. We continued north on I-5, stopping very briefly for lunch in Kelso, and again for diesel in Castle Rock. At Castle Rock was the turn off to Mount St. Helens Volcano. Not today ! All the way up I-5 to Olympia, where we had a choice between turning northwest onto Hwy. 101 leading up the west side of Puget Sound to Port Angeles where we could take the ferry to Victoria, or staying on I-5 heading northeast up the east side of Puget Sound through Tacoma and Seattle to the Canadian border just south of Vancouver, B.C.. We chose Port Angeles, because we could get there, and to the ferry, about 3 or 4 hours quicker than we could get to the border over land. Hwy. 101 was a winding, twisting, up and down and around the mountains type road, as it had been ever since Los Angeles. A tough drive when rushing on a rainy day.

We got to the ferry terminal as the ferry that arrives from Victoria at 6:00 P.M. was just unloading. Great, I thought. It will unload, then reload, and we’ll be on our way. NO ! ! ! We discussed turning around and heading about 3 hours back to I-5, then driving 6 or 7 hours north to Canada, but we’d still be a day late crossing into Canada, and I didn’t have the energy to drive another 10 hours.

We parked on the street for the night, across from the ferry terminal which opens at 7:00 A.M.. Joanne took Bo for a bathroom walk, then I took him for an obedience training walk. He did great, especially considering that I was walking him, and working him, on city streets. Good dog, Bo ! We fed Teddy and Bo, then went walking around Port Angeles downtown, looking for a place to eat. We used up the last bit of our food last night, so that we would have no food when crossing the border. We had supper, then returned to the trailer. Joanne took a shower, while I did today’s accounting, then worked on today’s journal ( repeatedly ! ).

DSK