definate change of plans edit

Sunday morning:

I awake to see an overcast sky; I will not be able to see the eclipse tonight from here.

Nor from the coast either; weather comes in off the Pacific.

The plan was to drive US 26 west to US 101 and then turn south and stop at Hug Point state park. It’s a beautiful place to stop – a sunset I saw there formed the last slide show I posted.

No point in going there now if the sky is going to remain overcast.

To get out from under the clouds, I will have to drive east, into the rain shadow of the Cascades.

East on 26 leads over Mt. Hood, Oregon’s tallest peak, and turns south easterly as it passes through Blue Box Pass. There is a long stretch of not much – no towns or even "wide spots" in the road pretty much until you get to Madras; then the highway runs through a couple of the larger towns and cities in central Oregon, Redmond and Bend, specifically.

If I was to keep going east on 26, I would pass into the Ochocho mountains and would eventually come to John Day, the last real town before The Painted Hills, shown here in 2009. I drove there the day after I bought the black Caliber – it’s "break-in" drive was the five hundred and something miles back and forth.

A Sunset and an eclipse over the Painted Hills…. Hmmmm. There might be some good pictures there.

But, five hundred miles. Gasoline here averages $4.16 a gallon, and while my Caliber gets the best gas mileage of the cars I have owned, that’s looking like an expensive run.

We’ll call that "Plan B".

Plan A is this: Drive out US 26, east over Mt. Hood, towards Madras, but stop, after Blue Box pass, at the Peter Skein Ogden rest area on US 26. This rest area is above the Crooked River Gorge, itself a major impediment to settlement in the Oregon Territory. Pictures taken there were posted in July, 2008, when I had my first Caliber, the Surf Blue one (a classic 70’s Mopar color).

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This railroad bridge solved the area’s isolation, bringing eastern Oregon wheat and beef to Portland and the rest of the world, and the rest of the world to isolated eastern Oregon. It is nearly 110 years old now, built with rivets and by hand over the 300 plus feet over the Crooked River.

I don’t know yet what the weather will look like there – I will check the weather and road reports after I finish this, but I’ve had the urge to drive to the Crooked River Gorge for weeks now.

It’s a pretty spectacular place.

Holding the camera over the gorge:

(not all that brave to get this shot, really. The "new" highway bridge is red in the picture below but hard to see behind the green "old" bridge which has been bypassed by the new bridge, but was left open for "walkers and bikers")

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The Peter Skeen Ogden Rest Area about the same distance to Hug Point from here, about an hour and 45 minutes of driving.

From the looks of it, Oregon is cloud-covered today – not good news fo

r eclipse viewing….

I hear cars hissing by my apartment – has the rain started already???

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edit:

Yeah, the rain began before I posted this.  I wonder how far into the state the clouds reach?  The solar eclipse… I guess if I miss it it won’t be teh end of the world, but, gee, they are pretty rare, and I wanna see it.

12:00

It is dry east of here – that’s what a rain shadow is, the mountains cause the clouds to raise, dumping theri moisture on the west sides of the Cascades, but it is cloudy east of here all the way to Idaho, it looks like.

Could be this plan is a wash.

 

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