Change of Direction (06-02-14)

There are good reasons why full time RVers say they make their plans in chalk (easily erased) and Jell-O (not very firm).  Here we were, headed to Alaska via Idaho when all of a sudden …we weren't.

 

Nothing bad happened, really, but Roadmaster shipped us the wrong sway bar for the second time, and they suggested that if at all possible, we come to their factory, and they would install the correct one themselves. They had to actually give us a prototype, since that's all they had.

      Since we REALLY wanted the sway bar, we decided to drive the 350 miles southwest to Vancouver, Washington, to get it. The new sway bar is much thicker and will keep the truck from rocking side to side with the camper on top.

 
 


 
 
We took two days to drive across Idaho and Washington, and much of the trip was along the Columbia River. We wouldn't have seen the Columbia River Gorge area if we hadn't changed our plans, so it was a nice bonus for us.
You can see Mount Hood in the background of this picture of the river.
 



 
 

Looking to see what there is to do along the way, we found that there is some really good hiking in  The Gorge area, so we drove hard to get close enough so that we could spend all day Sunday hiking. We spent Saturday night in a National Forest campsite- we could never have even driven through this campground with the trailer.

 
 



 

The ranger at the campground warned us that our planned hike for the next day is an extremely popular and crowded one, so we got up early and hit the road. Along the way we passed Horsetail Falls, which is literally  the right next to the road.

 
 
 





 
 
 

Multnomah Falls is the most visited attraction in the state of Oregon (so says the visitor center).  Assuming that most people will just walk to the overlook, we planned a 7 mile hike that ended at Multnomah Falls. This worked out very well for us.  There weren’t that many people on the trail, and we passed by tons of waterfalls.
 
 





 
 
 

 

Fairy Falls was one of the first named waterfalls we passed.

 
 
 
 






 
 
 

This one has no name that we know of, but it has an awesome pool at the bottom that would look very inviting on a hot summer day ( but not a cool, spring day).

This waterfall has a cave next to it and had an interesting mist that appeared to be coming out of the cave.

Finally, after 7 miles and about 1000 feet of total elevation gain, we were finishing the hike at Multnomah Falls.  Although this picture came out kind of interesting, the fact that the sun had just risen above the falls made it impossible to get a picture of the whole thing. This is just the lower falls- above this are the upper falls, which I couldn't get a good shot of.

This is the best shot I got of the upper falls, and I had to play with the picture to get it to look this good.  Oh well.  If you like waterfalls, this is the hike for you!

After our hike, we drove to the Elks Lodge closest to Roadmaster- this was our second Elks campground stay this weekend.  I think they’ll work out pretty well for us.  First thing Monday morning, we were at Roadmaster, ready for the new sway bar. 

The guys we met there were awesome, and once they were finished installing the sway bar, we got a tour of the factory.  Everything is made in the good ole USA and even the materials are US Made.  Just what we like to hear.

The best news is that the new sway bar made such a big difference that we noticed it before we had even left the parking lot!

So, finally, after a few delays, we should be crossing the Canadian border this morning.  I have no idea when I will have WI-FI to post any thing for the next week or so.