Rufus Landing

Saturday - Today is a windy day and there are a lot of people here taking advantage of it. 

When we arrived here, there were maybe ten RVs here with no one really around us. Not the case now. It is pretty entertaining watching all the activity on the river. 

The gusts are supposedly over 40mph. There are a wide variety of floating toys out here from kayaks to these wind powered boards with underwater foils. All are very fast.

The batteries were at 65% this morning and I really don’t want to run the generator with all the people around. I turned off most thing except for the 12V chest fridge/freezer to recharge the batteries. 

By evening, we were at 89%. Enough to get through the night. A couple of videos showing some of the river activities. The last is a launch and landing. 

Rufus Landing, OR

Wednesday - Another Winlink Wednesday, though I usually send the message on Tuesday evening (0010EDT) as required by the "rules". The "rules" are only if you want to be counted and posted on their web page and map. We are still at the TT, but I'll start packing things up today and tomorrow. Friday is a travel day into the town of Hood River and then east on I-84 to Rufus Landing.

Friday - Today was a short travel day to Rufus Landing, a free camping location right on the banks of the Columbia River. This is the view from the RV. I suspect it may be kind of crowded tomorrow as it is a popular windsurfing location. I should get some good pictures tomorrow.

We will be here for a couple of days. It's more challenging to find places to stay on Friday and Saturday nights, especially if you are near populated areas such as Portland. We do have the generator running as it is 92°F here mid-afternoon. There is no one parked around us right now so it seemed to be an opportune time to run the generator.

By 5pm, the smoke started to come in. It’s still hot and it looks pretty grim.

By 8pm, it started to look better. Less smoky. And it started to cool off!

Timberline Lodge

Tuesday - After the morning test session, we drove to Zig Zag Falls trailhead. It was a short hike to the falls from the parking lot. 

We then drove up to almost 6000’ to the Timberline Lodge. It was a WPA project in the late 1930s. 

We had lunch at the restaurant, and probably had the best table in the whole place. This was the view from our table. 

It’s hard to believe that the lodge took less than 18 months to build. Including all of the carvings, artwork, and furniture. It was dedicated by Franklin Roosevelt.

Still the Same Place…

Saturday - Two test sessions today, including an early morning one. There was a small farmers market at the RV park, and they had the normal stuff. Overpriced veggies and artsy items. We picked up a couple of squash. We then had lunch at the little deli/restaurant next to the office. The Italian sub was good, though I would’ve expected some sort of salami or spicy deli meat. 

This place got a lot more crowded on the weekend. I’m not even going to bother checking out the hot tub today. 

Sunday - This afternoon, we drove about 12 miles east as Bridget wanted to see proof that Mt. Hood still existed. Being Sunday, there were a lot of cars on the road. There are a lot fewer RVs in the campground compared to yesterday. 

Monday - Yesterday, we saw smoke, which prompted a search for fires. There are quite a few, with the closest one being Hood Meadows. 

StarLink is still useful here even with all of the trees. Here are the obstructions as seen by the antenna. It is looking through a hole in the canopy. It still works fine for streaming due to buffering within the app. But I’m not offering to lead as real-time apps such as Zoom or voice would have random outages. 

We drove back to the town of Sandy to pick up some groceries. We had to be a little careful as we will be heading into Canada in about a week. So no raw poultry, eggs, citrus fruit, or some vegetables. I'll look up more specifics later on in the week. Unfortunately, the restricted items seem to change depending on who is asking.