Trip Report 62 - From Portland to Sacramento
November 3, 2000
10/17/00 We left Portland, Oregon, at noon, heading south on Interstate 5. Traffic was heavy, with the right lane an almost continuous line of big trucks, with a few RV's thrown in. The left lane is full of cars. Once we get away from the immediate Portland area, there are only two lanes, so that when a big truck rumbles slowly down an entrance ramp and needs to merge into an already-solid line of other big rigs, life gets interesting. Speeds are quite variable, so it's unpleasant driving for the first half of our trip. Further south, after were past the Eugene/Springfield area, traffic thinned out and we could finally set the cruise control and relax a bit.
Then the hills started. I-5 climbs over several mountain passes about 2000 feet high, each time dropping back down to just a few hundred feet above sea level. Mile after mile of 6% grades. Most of the trucks are heavily loaded, many with two or three trailers, and are grinding up the grades very slowly. With no passing lanes, the slowest trucks are using the paved shoulder.
This is pretty country, becoming noticeably dryer as we move south. The hills are a patchwork of golden-brown grass, mixed hardwoods, and conifers, showing quite a bit of autumn color. The outcroppings of rocks are mostly volcanic -- old flows of basaltic lava.
Twenty miles north of Medford, we pulled into Valley of the Rogue State Park for the night. It's a pretty place, with large full-hookup campsites, bordering the Rogue River. It's a bit noisy for a State Park, with I-5 bordering one side of the park, and SR-99 also audible, just across the river on the west side of the park. The weather has turned warm, and we sit outside in our shirtsleeves, enjoying the swirls of wind-driven falling leaves. The park has numerous posters warning that a cougar has been sighted nearby.
10/18 Harry & David's is one of the largest mail order fruit basket companies in the world. Helen boarded the tour bus at their retail store in Medford and rode past pear orchards to the bakery and vast packing plant which was in full operations for the coming holiday season. From behind glass windows we watched cookies rotate in the big glass fronted ovens and bakers hand assemble the sandwich cookies and run them under a curtain of melted chocolate. We watched from high catwalks as the packers selected fruits, cheeses, nuts and candies and fit them into the green packing grass in decorative boxes and load them onto conveyor belts which snaked off to cold storage. 10 women hand tied hundreds of big ribbon bows. With all that labor, no wonder their beautiful goods seem pricy. Each person on the tour was given a tiny souvenir box containing a few delicious samples, and back at the retail operation fresh fruits were on sale for ridiculously low prices. I bought a delicious one pound plus pear, too big for their gift baskets, for 30 cents!
Harry and David's has acquired Jackson and Perkins, the old rose propagating firm, and now J&P has an improved mail order business for gardeners and a nice retail store in the same little plaza. An enormous pumpkin, perhaps 5 feet high, delighted all who passed by, having been carved only a few days before by a master carver. A second pumpkin, wider than the pallet it was on, was on reserve - to be carved when the current one began to fade.
After extricating our rig from the small parking lot, we continued south, down I-5. Near Ashland, we turned off I-5 on SR 66 and headed east toward Klamath Falls. In the mountains 20 miles east of Ashland, just after we had crested a 4500-foot pass and started down into the Klamath Basin, I suddenly found that the exhaust brake wasn't providing any engine braking -- and downshifting further didn't help. By the time I found a wide enough spot to get off the narrow no-shoulder road, the transmission was doing almost nothing, and I had barely enough power to maneuver off the road. The problem was immediately obvious, with a dark trail of transmission fluid leading back up the road.
The cell phone worked, and our Emergency Road Service insurance came through -- locating a "suitable" tow truck and also locating the nearest Dodge dealer and calling to verify that the dealer could and would do the job. While waiting for the tow truck, we searched our directories and located a good RV Park near the Dodge dealer.
The tow truck was a fairly interesting experience. The first thing the driver said to us was "Jeez -- I've never towed anything that long". We expected two tow vehicles -- one for the truck and one for the trailer. But what showed up was a single flatbed tow truck The truck barely fit up on the flatbed, with the rear truck bumper hanging off the back a foot or so. The tow truck also had a conventional trailer hitch, with a simple hydraulic height adjustment. But the driver didn't have a big enough wrench to change the hitch ball to the proper size. I dug into my own tools and loaned him a big pipe wrench. The hitch didn't extend far enough behind the truck to give adequate space to turn without danger of the trailer meeting our overhanging truck bumper.
After hooking up, the driver had to make a three-point U-turn on the narrow highway and said "I'm not very good at backing trailers -- I can never remember which way to turn the wheel". While he made the turn, I stood off to the side, carefully watching the space between the bumper and the front of the trailer. As it turns out, I was watching the wrong thing. Our trailer now has a little hole in the front where the sharp corner of the truck's wide flat bed hit it while making the sharp turn.
The tow truck barely had enough power to pull all that weight (probably a total of 15,500 pounds for our truck and trailer) up the couple of miles of highway to the summit, grinding along slowly in a low gear.
Then, we started down the mountain -- 20 miles and 2000 feet of drop, on a narrow twisty road. There was no way to activate the trailer brakes from the tow truck, so the tow truck brakes were smoking at least once. And there were no lights on the trailer. The temporary magnetic clip-on lights which tow trucks put on the towed vehicle wouldn't stick to our fiberglass trailer, and didn't have enough wire to reach to the back of the trailer anyway. It was almost dark by the time we got back to I-5. Our tall truck, with the canoes on top, was blocking the flashing rooftop light on the tow truck itself, so there was no light at all showing to the rear.
All in all, coming down that little mountain in the tow truck was a whole lot more exciting than any of the big mountains we've descended with our own rig. We expect to receive a customer satisfaction survey from our insurance company, and I will have some pointed comments about the qualifications of this particular towing company.
The trailer was towed to Holiday RV Park in Phoenix (a Medford suburb). I had called ahead and arranged for a long pull-through site, so unhooking was simple and uneventful. Then, we rushed on to the Dodge dealer in Medford, which locks up their fenced parking lot at 7 p.m. We made it with about three minutes to spare.
10/19 The truck repair was quick and simple, in line with the most optimistic of my scenarios -- a broken connector on a transmission fluid cooling line. This is a known weak point on Dodge automatic transmissions. No apparent damage to the transmission -- as the fluid level drops, the torque converter stops transmitting power to the transmission before the bearings and gears completely lose lubrication.
We actually could have gotten on the road again in early afternoon, but decided to relax and leave tomorrow. In the early evening, we drove to Lithia Park in Ashland, about 10 miles south, and walked through the park until dark. The park is a National Historic Landmark, designed by John McLaren, of Golden Gate Park fame. Much of the park is rustic -- meandering paths along Ashland Creek. In a few places, the park has more formal features, but it's generally just a nice city park -- a pleasant place for local residents to picnic and exercise.
10/20 Hooked up and headed for Klamath Falls this morning (again). This time we took a different route, just to see different scenery. Route 140 is a little longer and a little higher than SR 66 (which we drove part way two days ago), but is reputed to be a better road. It was a pleasantly scenic route -- the first third fairly flat, along a valley extending east from Medford. The valley floor is pasture, and the hillsides are a mixed deciduous/coniferous forest. The poplars and birches are bright yellow, with hints of orange. The middle third of the route climbs fairly steeply over a 5100-foot pass, through deciduous forest -- some of it huge old-growth fir. The final third drops to the Klamath Basin, and then loosely follows the west shore of Upper Klamath Lake to Klamath Falls. The Klamath Basin is around 4200 feet elevation, so the descent from the summit was much less than the climb up from Medford.
We found parking for truck and trailer near the County Museum. Helen talked to their research librarian and arranged to have a search done on the history of a little crossroads called Worden, an almost-ghost town about 10 miles south of Klamath Falls. The results will be mailed to Helen's brother Dick, who is researching their Worden ancestors. The museum is located in an old armory building, a simple brick structure with some interesting carved limestone art deco ornamentation on the façade. The collection is focussed on local history, with a large section on the Modoc War, and also some interesting coverage of wildlife and early settlement.
Then we drove to The Favell Museum of Western Art and Indian Artifacts. This collection was assembled privately by the Favell family, and is still privately owned. The collection of Indian artifacts is large, perhaps 60,000 items, of which 59,000 are arrowheads. The remaining artifacts are mixed in with modern art. It was strange to see a 10th century pot from Central America in the same case as 19th C. Indian baskets and modern Indian jewelry. The paintings were all in the "'Leanin Tree" style -- romantic western with the noble savage, the lonesome cowboy, buffalo hunts and horses, horses, horses. One section was about John Wayne. Helen spent a couple of enjoyable hours poking around, while Dave took a nap.
Having used up the day, we drove across town to the Klamath Falls KOA and checked in for the night. There was just enough light left for a drive down to Worden, where we saw very little -- a few rundown buildings, a small restaurant, and a modern grain silo along the railroad track. We did find a small cemetery on a side road, but it was getting too dark to investigate.
10/21 Drove back out to Worden first thing in the morning. Helen found a guy who had been a resident for many years, and learned a bit of history. Mr. Worden ran a lumber mill and ran cattle about the time the railroad was built. The cemetery was a disappointment -- there were no Wordens buried there (lots of Gordens, but we presume the name similarity is just a coincidence).
We were back at the KOA to hook up the trailer by 11 AM, and got underway soon after.
On the way south, down Oregon Route 39, which soon became California Route 139, we decided to stop at Lava Beds National Monument, and turned off at Tulelake. About 20 miles of winding blacktop took us to Lava Beds. The National Monument has a campground near the Visitor's Center, but it isn't designed for big rigs. Since the park was nearly empty, we parallel parked in a paved wide spot along the road, marked for three cars and three tent sites. The ranger drove by while we were unhooking, and waved and smiled, so I assumed that this arrangement has been blessed.
We spent most of the afternoon exploring caves and looking around the small Visitor's Center. The main attraction of this park is the hundreds of caves, which are segments of lava tubes, made as rivers of lava flowed down the gentle slope. The outer layer of lava cooled and hardened while the protected inner portion remained hot and fluid, flowing out the bottom end and leaving a hollow tube. Some are 15 feet or more in diameter. Some are smooth, almost perfect cylinders, looking like sewer pipe. The tubes extend over many miles, but most are blocked into shorter segments by cave-ins or by lava flows from newer eruptions. The tubes were made by many separate lava flows, and snake over and across each other. There are places where two tubes align one above the other, creating an hourglass cross section. Ever heard of lava-tites? Suspended drops of hot lava that cooled and hardened hang from some ceilings, looking exactly like stalactites.
In the Valentine tube, there was a secondary small flow of lava through the tube after the original tube had hardened. This created a flat floor, looking like it had been paved. It also created a "high lava mark" -- a ridge of lava stuck to the wall uniformly about three feet above the floor.
In the center of the parking lot at the Visitor's Center, a stairway leads down into a lava tube with lighting and interpretive signs. It's a good idea to walk through this cave before exploring the "wild" caves in the rest of the park.
Mammoth Crater is a short hike off a gravel spur road which climbs several miles into the hills. It was the source of most of the lava in the park, which welled up through this vent and flowed out through cracks in the sides.
10/22 We arose to find the temperature at 21 degrees -- perhaps the coldest night we've ever spent in the trailer. No problems -- nothing froze up and our little catalytic propane heater kept the interior temperature at about 60 degrees through the night. The windows are covered with condensation, and we now know what those little holes are for in the bottom of the aluminum window frame. When I went outside, there was a little river of solid ice down the side of the trailer under each of these weep holes, where condensation on the interior of the windows runs down and out the holes. Our aluminum-framed roof vents are also condensing a lot of moisture, and the one in the middle of the kitchen is constantly dripping on our heads as we walk by. If we were to spend much time in this weather, the first addition would have to be storm windows.
Highway 139 to SR 299 to SR 89 comprises a zigzag route down through the mountains, following valleys and occasionally climbing over a pass into the next valley. We don't know whether to call this the southern end of the Cascade Mountains, or the northern end of the Sierra Nevada, but either way, it's pretty country. Most of the exposed rock is of volcanic origin -- basaltic lava and pumice in assorted colors. The valleys are agricultural -- mostly hay and pasture. The mountainous areas are mostly National Forest, but we see little logging, quite a bit of relatively mature forest, and a few areas of undisturbed old-growth forest.
We took a six-mile detour to McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park. Burney Falls is 129 feet high and has a 100 million-gallon-per-day flow rate which hardly varies through the year. It's uniqueness is that a significant part of the water doesn't come over the top, but rather flows out through cracks in the cliff, perhaps 50 feet down from the top and spread out horizontally for about 100 feet. This gives a fascinating curtain-like appearance. The upper levels of volcanic basalt are porous, and much of the water flowing down from the mountainsides sinks into the rock rather than flowing along the surface. A deeper layer is impermeable, so the water flows along underground, and eventually comes out through the side of the cliff. The canyon floor below the falls is a mild microclimate, sheltered from wind and kept moist by constant mist from the falls. Huge Douglas firs grow here, well outside their normal range.
SR-89 goes through the center of Lassen Volcanic National Park, reaching 8500 feet elevation as it climbs over the flank of Mt. Lassen. The road surface is good, but for a few miles at the highest elevations, there are some relatively steep grades and some tight switchbacks. No real problems for a big rig, but it could feel challenging for a novice driver or for an underpowered or inadequately braked vehicle. The sunshine and deep blue sky enhanced the scenery and we kept stopping to look and photograph as we saw little lakes and streams and spectacular views of Mt. Lassen.
The higher elevations had snow along the highway, although the road itself was dry. The streams had fringes of ice, and in shady spots, the lightly frozen soil was crunchy underfoot. In spite of the sun, it was very cold, with high winds, limiting our outdoor time to fairly brief forays. Mt. Lassen erupted in 1916, like Mt. St. Helens more recently. We climbed to the peak and viewed the steaming crater with our children in the early 1970's. But we won't do it this trip. The upper half of the mountain is already snow covered, and the weather is bitterly cold and windy even along the highway.
The campgrounds in the National Park are closed for the season, except for the one near the north entrance, which is open but without services. We didn't want to stay at the north end, since most of the things that interest us are much further south, so we drove on through the park, and stopped at Volcano Country RV Park, in the village of Mineral, 8 miles south of the park entrance. We're the only people in the campground. But the utilities are still on and we have full hookups. Fairly large campsites, tucked into a pine/cedar forest.
10/23 Another sunny morning, but the temperature is 15 degrees warmer than at the same time yesterday. Hopefully, it will be warm enough for us to enjoy some high-altitude hiking. We drove a few miles back into the park and hiked the Bumpass Hell trail. The views from the trail down into the geothermal are eerily beautiful with the steam swirling over the trees, salt encrusted multicolored mounds, and a boardwalk making an interesting tracery beside turquoise pools. One pool of thick mud was bubbling just slowly enough so the mud formed tree rings around the bubble -- sort of like the early slow motion pictures of water droplets.
10/24 Shortly after dark, a large pack of coyotes drifted through the clearing behind our trailer, perhaps 100 yards away. The amount of noise they can make is hard to believe. Dave went out with a flashlight and walked slowly out into the clearing, hoping to get a clear view of the animals. But they stayed far enough away so that all I could see were multiple pairs of red eyes, glowing in the flashlight beam. They stayed in the area for half an hour or so.
10/25 Hooked up and headed south. We chose to go the "short" way, on the state highways -- "straight" south through the mountains. It really isn't any shorter than going out to I-5, but it looks that way on the map because my eye tends to average all the little zigs and zags in the mountain route. The mountain part was SR-36 and then SR 32. It's pretty country with lots of ups and downs. We'd follow a small river through valley bottom pastureland for a while, then climb through hairpin turns up over a pass, then cruise reasonably straight along a ridge, and then begin the switchbacks down into the next valley. Mostly National Forest, with lots of evidence of recent logging, but no clear-cutting. In this region, they seem to selectively cut a few scattered trees, leaving most of the forest undisturbed. Probably not efficient from a tree-farming standpoint, but much more attractive for the tourists.
After an hour or so, the terrain gradually leveled out and we began to see irrigated farmland. At Chico, we turned onto SR 99, a busy 4-lane highway, which quickly let us know we were back in civilization. We turned onto SR 70 to Oroville, where we stopped at the Chinese Temple, portions of it built in 1863 (with money, craftsmen, and furnishings sent by the Emperor of China) to serve 10,000 Chinese attracted by the gold mining in the region. Built to serve three faiths, Taoist, Confucist, and Buddhist, the three Chinese characters over the original main temple are translated to mean "Temple of Assorted Deities." The prayer boards hanging inside are noteworthy in their elegance and abundance. Part of the complex was a Council Room which was used for conducting the business affairs of the Chinese community. Separately displayed in large museum-like rooms across the courtyard from the temples were rich Chinese porcelains, water colors, and tapestries. An interesting display of costumes had manikins wearing American and Chinese styles side by side. The courtyard had a mature breadfruit tree and other exotic foliage. This complex is now owned and operated as a museum by the City of Oroville. There is no obvious remaining evidence of the rest of Chinatown and little mention of what happened to disperse the large community of Chinese. The friendly staff didn't look oriental.
A huge levee, just across the street, reminds us of the massive floods that used to sweep down the Feather River. These sporadic bursts of water are now mostly captured by a network of dams, and slowly trickled out through a vast network of irrigation canals. A substantial part of the water finds its way 500 miles south to supply Los Angeles with drinking water (a sore point among Northern Californians).
We continued down SR 70 all the way until about 15 miles north of Sacramento, where we cut over to the Garden Highway -- much of which runs along the top of the levee on the east side of the Feather River. The view from the levee out across a zillion acres of orchards was impressive. After rejoining the main highway and fighting our way through Sacramento's rush hour expressway traffic, we arrived at the Sacramento Metro KOA at dusk.
We were pleasantly surprised to find that this RV Park has recently installed instant telephone connections at every RV site. The phone is free -- but the basic campsite rates are quite high. In spite of the high prices, the place is nearly full, and no full-hookup sites were available. (We had not made reservations, not knowing whether we would spend an extra day or two getting here.) After unhooking, we headed up the road for dinner at an Italian restaurant. It had been cloudy all day -- but the rain politely held off until late evening when we were comfortably settled in for the night
10/28 A lazy several days around the trailer. Dave spent quite a bit of time on the Internet, researching concerts for the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
10/29 We visited Crocker Art Museum, and were disappointed to find the upper levels closed for re-carpeting. The portions that were open had little of interest to us. Then we toured Sacramento's Old Town, getting there just in time for a cloudburst. Most of the old buildings have canopies extending out over the boardwalks, so we stayed mostly dry. The whole place was one big Halloween party, crowded, with kids in costume, horse-drawn buggies and cobbled streets. The old buildings are interesting, but there's little information about the buildings themselves. The railroad museum is the major attraction in this neighborhood, but we skipped it.
10/30 Over the weekend the truck's front brakes suddenly started making a grinding noise -- sounds like a worn-out disk pad. So I spent the morning sitting in the local Dodge dealer's lounge. I'm always surprised when the dealers give stranded travelers precedence over their regular customers who have appointments. But they did it again. The truck was in the shop being worked on within an hour of when I arrived. The disk rotor was destroyed, of course -- by the time you hear it, it's too late. Only 16,000 miles on this set of pads -- those Alaska mountains were steeper than I thought.
10/31 The "self guided" tour of the Port of Sacramento turned out to be no guidance at all. We were waved through the gate and told to go drive around. No literature available. The port is primarily used for bulk cargo export -- grain and wood chips. Later, we visited Blue Diamond Almonds, which claims to be "California's largest food export" -- 100 million pounds of almonds each year. After shelling the almonds, they burn the shells, providing all heat and power for the factory plus enough additional electricity to supply 20,000 homes. We were disappointed to find that the "factory tour" has been degraded to a video in the lobby. The video was mostly marketing hype about almonds, but did have some interesting footage of the harvest process. A big machine drives up to each tree, grabs it near the base, and shakes the tree violently, causing all the nuts to cascade down to the ground. Other machines sweep up the nuts and load them into trucks. We had many questions about how nuts are processed -- but no knowledgeable person was available to provide answers.
Tomorrow, we'll leave Sacramento, heading south into the delta area where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers join, to attend an RV Club get-together. After that (weather permitting), we'll do a loop through the Sierra foothills, doing a little wine tasting and perhaps visiting Yosemite National Park, planning to be in San Jose for Thanksgiving with our niece.