Trail Boss in a Stampede on the Oregon Trail

We left Larry and Amy Fisher’s about 8 AM and began the final day’s drive of 310 miles to Portland, OR, and another 100 miles to Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River our final goal and starting point for my Bike Ride Across America. First, much to The Trail Boss’s dismay, we stopped at a yard sale three houses down the street and I bought two shirts for 25 cents each. One, a necessity, a long sleeve white dress shirt, size extra large and permanent press. Permanent press is necessary for a high content of polyester for quick drying. If it were all cotton, it would be clammy, cold, and never dry. White is for sun reflection and when we got into the gorge we confirmed the need. The average temperature in the Columbia River gorge is about 35 degrees higher that up out of the gorge.

The route through Western Oregon is on I-84 that goes all the way from Salt Lake to Boise to Portland. There is little traffic, beautiful irrigated farmland, and multiple crossings of the Snake River. Soon we left the Snake as it coursed more northerly to join the Columbia and we followed the old Oregon Trail made famous by the pioneers of the 1800’s and a number one selling computer game of the 2000’s. We could see some of the Oregon Trail wheel ruts in fields along the interstate and it was easy to imagine wagon trains and buffalo. We stopped at the only café we saw, “Rednecks.” The interstate interchanges are basically uninhabited—no Cracker Barrel, no Waffle House, no Pilot Gas, and no Motel 6. Redneck’s was clean; he himself was cooking in his cowboy hat with his southern drawl and served grits. I commenced a conversation as he whipped up a wonderful breakfast just like I like it: scrambled eggs, grits, dry wheat toast nearly burnt, and good coffee. I asked Redneck about the cement plant down the road and as luck would have it he had previously worked there. He had all the answers I needed. They make Portland cement. It’s named after distant Portland, England, not nearby Portland, Oregon. The cement is made from Calcium Trisilacate, limestone and sand. We could see the mine 1000 feet up the mountain and the conveyor bringing it down. The stuff is ground up (“1000 time finer than talcum powder”), sintered to 2000 degrees and turns into half-inch size balls that look like glass. These balls are again ground and heated and Portland cement is the final product, and is shipped out in rail cars in bulk and also 50-pound bags. Over 150 work at the plant and no one much works anywhere else. As Redneck said, “they’ve been thinking of putting in a Wal-mart, but they’d have no one to work!”

Trail Boss, showing no interest in the fascination of Redneck’s story, had disappeared from the restaurant. Suddenly, he burst in through the door shouting, “Gary, get out here you need to get this picture.” And there he stood with my camera in the middle of a cattle drive! Two cowboys and a cowchild (a very young looking cowboy) were trying to drive 50 head around the restaurant and across the highway. The cowboys were screaming at, I believe, the cows, or perhaps the dogs, or perhaps at us; but the cattle were not obeying any of it. My Trail Boss was screaming that he thought they were going to run over his VW as he was “underneath checking the muffler” when the entourage appeared. He peered out from between the wheels when he heard cattle mooing and saw “legs, hair and hooves” coming from behind the van and heard shouting, swearing, whistling and barking. Showing no regard for personal safety, but a significant fear for the safety of his beloved VW Camper, he jumped in and fired her up and drove off from the midst of the stampede! The most ornery of the cowboys shouted for me to get back and just after snapping the picture, I did. The cows were apparently to go down the road and under the overpass behind the lead cowperson to the other side of I-84. The young cowpoke was way too far ahead as the lead pony (Redneck explained). So the cattle went their own way out into the field with much shouting and cursing from the cowboys. Redneck said, “those guys are not the ones who drove them over last week; the guys last week knew what they were doing.” Poised for the get away, my Trail Boss drove us up onto I-84 and we left the stampede behind.

We drove another 100 miles of beautiful and desolate Oregon Plains and suddenly we were approaching the mile wide Columbia River over 200 miles upstream from Portland and about 300 miles from the Pacific. We read a sign that said Lewis called it “the great ocean because I can not use the word Pacific, as I have not had a ‘Pacific’ day since arriving.” He apparently arrived too late in the season, as all the days have been ‘Pacific’ for us.

We had been on-line and found that the Standard Cross America Bike Route was closed in central Oregon (south of us) because of a large forest fire at Sisters, Oregon. The suggestion was to find an alternate route. So we will go up the Columbia River riding the bike on I-84 across Oregon and cross into Idaho.

We passed through Portland and started down Route 30, the Old Lincoln Highway, the first trans continental highway. Route 30 winds along the southern side of the Columbia some 100 miles from Portland to the coast at the little town of Astoria. We made it to the Hudson-Porcher Park of Columbia, County, Oregon. With the old folks discount we are here for $12.60/night. Trail Boss talked them into tent site 31 and he was allowed to stretch his electrical extension across to motor home site 32 for free electric. The lady told him she’d charge him for a full motor home when his grew-up. He didn’t like that, but took the discount.