Day 90, Sunday, November 5, Dash Point State Park Seattle/Tacoma WA
With the sun setting earlier each day, i called it at day at 8:00 last night, looking forward to another solid night's sleep so i can get well rested before I return to the road. Well, speaking about jumping from the frying pan into the fire, last night was it. I gave up sleeping in a swimming pool to some yells and whoops from one close-by campsite at about 11, which kept me up for an hour until the really heavy rain lulled me back into a deep sleep. But then, at about 2:30, the rain stopped, which i did not mind. What i did mind was what happened next. I started hearing loud noises from another nearby site, clanging and banging noises like someone was fishing around in some barrell filled with empty cans. This went on for 30 minutes before i had enough, so i blew my whistle to tell the animal or person to cut it out. If it was an animal, it would have run off, so i knew it was a person when after the noise stopped for about 30 seconds, it started up again as loud as before.
After another 30 minutes of my not able to get back to sleep, i blew the whistle again, but this time yelled, "Is that a person or a bear?" Not expecting an answer if the latter, a man's voice answered back, "a person." "What a relief," i answered back. "It sounded like a bear." What i did not say was that a bear would have had the common decency to call it quits after he or she heard the whistle, but not some humans. "Do you need some help?" i asked, not meaning it, but hoping this would get the guy to call it quits. "No," he responded and then continued his offensive behaviour for at least the next hour, when i dozed off out of exhaustion.
Of course, not knowing the gun laws in Washington State, i dared not get into any kind of an argument with me, just like i did not with my wacky immediate next door neighbor in the Whitehorse motel, whom i did not write about in the past for fear that he would read my blog and, well, take undesirable action against me, Donner or my unsecured possessions. My rule of thumb is that when i am in strange territory, make friends with everyone, not meaning to imply that i do not try to follow this rule back home..
I ran into my neighbor later today and asked him if he too had engine trouble just as i did, telling him my recent saga so he would feel sorry for me so as to not repeat his behavior to tonight. I also told him my story of the bear in Lake Tahoe two years ago trying to break into my Defender as i slept five feet away and how that huge back bear obeyed my whistle command and beat it.
It is 7:20. Although my neighbor was banging and clangjng about 30 minutes ago, i think he just drove his RV away. My hope it is not to get more cans.
(Just heard six loud gunshots from nearby. Every time i hear those shots, fearing sports hunters, my heart drops.)
Tomorrow i take the Defender back to Lamorna Garage in Seattle, 30 miles away. The are 11 things i need them to work on, five or six essential for my trip home, especially that fickle left headlight. I have to be there by 7 a.m., meaning i am going to have to drive the interstate during rush hour with one headlight. But the good news is that the blinkers are working now, the left headlight is not.
I made a temporary repair today to the rear windows panel on the Defender, much better than i thought possible. I ordered a new one and will have it sent express to some location i know i will pass thru, once i figure out the route i will take home. In the meantime, the temporary repair will have to do. When i look at that now, i do not think of the mess and cost involved but of what must have driven poor Donner to want to escape the vehicle. I do know this, that no human could stand staying in their vehicle with that loud ship engine noise for five days. No more ferries like that one for me or Donner. Why didn't i pay attention to what Leben and Erde were telling me when they escaped twice before on the same ferry?
Assuming all goes well at the garage tomorrow, i plan to resume my trip on Tuesday morning. I have two options: head directly southeast to DC, and there are several options there, too, or head south to/toward San Francosos/Yosemite and then east to DC, and there are several options there, too. Right now, i have no idea which option i will select. But i do know that many campsites have closed, the daylight hours are shorter, going east consumes more daylight, and daylight saving time cuts off an hour of daylight at fhe end of the day. These things plus the fact that not only is Donner's and my safety paramount, but as of tomorrow it is the only consideration for mapping out our route home. If i were to still try to make, say, Yosemite to prove that i could do the entire trip despite the interruptions, the only thing i would be proving is how much a fool I am. Just as we turned back on Atigun pass on Septemer 13 just miles away from my goal after 7500 miles declaring that leg of the journey a success, so too the same reasoning applies now. (Yosemite is still a possibility, but not a requirement to make the trip successful.) Another factor is that i would really like to be back in DC before the Thanksgiving traffic hits the highways, but that also gets to the safety issue. I have said all along that the one goal of this trip is to get home safely. And it is now time for me to put my money where my mouth is.
Crowd-sourcing information research ...
Because of severe time limitations i will have each day on the return trip home, i may need to enlist one or more readers each day to help with with my trip planning, specifically with camping or motel accommodations that take pets. All my advanced planning was on the original, now-too-lengthy (19 days, when i only 14) route. As an example, the night before, i will set my destination for the next day based on where i am and what route i will take and how many miles i will want or need to travel. I will then post that if i have internet as a separate posting. I would then appreciate it if someone would then figure out all or some of the open pet-friendly campgrounds (including KOAs or RV camps) or Days Inn (they take dogs), preferably nearby the highway i will take, within 50 miles or so on either side of my destination. (I am going to have to do about 350 miles per day.) I will post this exercise the night before i need it. If anyone does respond, please respond with both an email to me and by posting a comment on the blog posting. But just because someone responds does not mean you do not have to. It may be that your options are better for me. And you do not have to wait for me to tell you what my destination goal is for the next day...just add 350 miles to where you think i will or plan to be the night before and go from there. When you respond with a suggestion, make sure you add an address so i can put it into my GPS and phone number.
Once i decide my route tomorrow, i will post the first Request for Help in finding an accomodation tomorrow night. I will not need the information until about 3pm EST the next day, noontime where i am now. This will save me about 30 minutes to an hour each day, which would be very helpful, especially with much shorter days these days. Each hour is 50 miles of driving, 14 percent of my daily goal.
An example might be this for Tuesday - my destination Tuesday is Portland, Oregon, and i will be traveling Interstate 5 before and after.
No comments:
Post a Comment