Since we had phone service In Las Vegas we could access the internet and could check the weather. Since we also had cable TV we could watch the Weather Channel and knew the weather was about to change for the worst. In a couple days the entire west was going to be wet, with snow in northern Nevada. Given a choice between driving in rain or snow, we will take rain. We got up early on the 5th and were mostly out of Las Vegas metro by 8AM. We traded drivers all day, stopping in Tonopah for lunch and arrived after dark in Fernley, NV 418 miles later. As of February 2006 this is still our longest one day drive.
It was below freezing that night so we didn't leave the water connected. In the morning we found out one of the car tires was low on air. We got a fix-a-flat kit and filled it back up, which held until we put new tires on many miles later.
After fixing the tire we drove to Hat Creek, CA for the night, 182 miles. We were now on the west side of the mountains and should only have rain to deal with.
On the 7th we drove 156 miles to Talent, OR, just south of Medford. We crossed Siskiyou Pass in the middle of the day and it was bare and wet, we were relieved.
On the 8th we drove 221 miles to Blue Ox RV Park in Albany, OR, which is where we stayed in February.
We decided we needed to do more Christmas shopping so we drove 123 miles to Columbia River RV Resort in Woodland, WA and stayed for two days of shopping in Portland, OR. We had stayed at this campground two other times, our Oregon trip and for a weekend in April. Here are pictures of the Columbia River and the fall colors:
On the 11th we drove the 165 miles back to the house. We had traveled 5503 miles in two months. We had also proven we could be together in such a small space for that long and that we enjoyed it.
Back to 2002 Previous Adventure Next Adventure