This segment gets us from Las Vegas to the most important destination on the trip: Tillamook, OR, for Thanksgiving. I promised my sister and my mother that we would be there and this segment delivers on that promise. It is a relatively short segment – 1,147 miles – and, counting the week in Tillamook, encompasses 16 nights. It is the segment that makes me most nervous as we will be traveling at fairly high elevations along the edge of the Sierra Nevadas, so snow or other kinds of ugly weather are possible. Being a relatively inexperienced big rig driver, the last thing I want to encounter is slippery roads. We will have to watch the forecast carefully and be prepared to take an alternate route if necessary.
Segment 4 - 16 Nights and 1,147 Miles
Stops along the way:
B – Lone Pine, CA (247 miles, 2 nights). There aren’t a lot of RV parks in Death Valley, so we will be staying in one just to the west… if we survive. I think there is a possibility that we will spend just one night here because, really, how much can there be to keep our interest in a town named Lone Pine? It does have a movie museum which contains memorabilia of the 300-odd movies that they claim were made in the vicinity. Not The Last Picture Show, though – that was Texas.
C – Reno, NV (267 miles, 2 nights). I have never been to Reno as my divorce was executed in Massachusetts. But after 4,000 miles of togetherness, this will be a chance for Jett to dump me.
D – Klamath Falls, OR (252 miles, 2 nights). I knew next to nothing about Klamath Falls before I Googled it. Apparently there are no falls, so it is unclear where it got its name. It is, however, the site of the only deaths by a Japanese bomb in WWII – a woman and 5 children on a church outing. The bomb was dropped from a balloon.
E – Fairview, OR (333 miles, 3 nights). This will be 3 nights near Portland. One day will, I think, be spent in Portland, a city that I have visited several times and really like. Jett has never been there. The other day will likely be invested in a day trip to Mt. St. Helens. Hopefully it will remain relatively inactive while we are there. I would hate to travel that far just to have it all end in an unexpected pyroclastic flow.
The segment ends with a week in Tillamook. Besides being guests of honor at Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s house, we will also visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory and will probably take some easy hikes along the beautiful Oregon coast. If my brother-in-law holds true to form, I will also be spending a day fishing, crabbing or harvesting mussels. Probably a trip to an Indian casino, too. But mostly just hanging out with family and, as Jett’s mother would say, “putting pins back in our box.”
Tillamook gets a lot of rain. A L.O.T. I suspect that it will be raining more often than not while we are there. As Jett is not a big fan of gloomy weather (nor am I, really), she will probably be very happy to leave. Our schedule has us departing on November 28, heading south to brighter skies and warmer temperatures. And, yes, we will go to Disneyland.