To Florida - Days one and two

 

Day One - September 29th

Good bye Champoeg

Left Champoeg State park at 0 dark hundred (actually about 7:30am),  which meant rising at 6!  We are not used waking up this early,  but needed to be in north Portland by 8:00am.  Traffic sucked even early on a Saturday morning and getting through Portland was a challenge.

 



Headed to Les Schwab to have 4 new tires put on the RV.  Dropped the rig off and made our way to Elmer's restaurant to meet D’enne, Michael and Matthew for one last meal and say goodbye again.

Columbia River looking east

At 11:15am we found ourselves on the road heading east on I-84 under gray skies which was more likely smoke from the fires in Oregon and Washington.  We passed one fire off the freeway that was contained, but still had fire helicopters dropping water on it.

Our first stop that day was scheduled to be La Grande Oregon, about 200 miles from Portland.   The weather was great and we had changed our schedule and added a stop in Sunset Utah to have some additional maintenance done on Monday, so we opted to go further and found ourselves at a Walmart Superstore in Onterio Oregon for the night. 

Walmart parking lots are wonderful for an overnight stop.  Just park on the outer perimeter of the parking lot, take your slides out if you want, sit back and enjoy an interesting night of people driving/walking by.  Amazing how many RV’s and 5^th wheels and trailers pull into a Walmart parking lots for the night.  It won't be your quietest night and can be cheap unless you decide to ‘shop’.  One of our first nights in a Walmart parking lot a couple of years ago cost us $250.00!  We could have stayed in one of the most upscaled RV parks in the country and saved money!

The  trip tomorrow  is only about 350 miles, to Sunset Utah and won’t have to start at the crack of dawn. We will however, want to be out of here before the shoppers start arriving. 

Day 2 - September 30th

On the road by 9:30am after filling up with diesel.  Beautiful weather, blue skies and temps in the low 80's.   A couple of stops along the way to stretch our legs and we made through Idaho and into Utah to Charlie's  around 4:30pm. 

Charlie's is well  known by those who own Alpha RV's and as we pulled into the parking lot we saw why.  There must be 6 other rigs here besides ours and it looks like a small rally.  Everyone was very friendly as we were unhooking the car when we discovered the battery was dead.  We paniced at first because the battery for this little car is not in the engine.  It is in the back, under the spare tire and under all of the things we had packed in there along with the bikes on the bike rack.  Once the bikes were off, we realized we could not open the back hatch because it is linked to the electrical system and the only way to open it manually is from the inside.... and it was packed full.  When all else fails, READ THE MANUAL!!!    Got the manual and found out you can jump this car from the engine.....whew!!!! 

 

Tried a trickle charger, but it did not seem to be giving us enough to get it started.  So we used our Good Sam roadside assistance for the first time.  A guy showed up within about 15 minutes and had the car started in five.

 

So, we are here in Charlie's parking lot for the night.... we hope!  As we talked to others, one couple has been here for 2 weeks (waiting parts), another for four days.  We have our fingers crossed they will get us in first thing tomorrow morning and out by early afternoon.