Back to Missoula

As people were leaving the RendezVW under North-central Oregon's sunny skies, Colin (about whom more is forthcoming) and I finished some unfinished business on Ludwig.

Ludwig's front brakes are self-adjusting, but the rears need periodic adjusting. We gave them a few twists and went over several other undercarriage-related things. Most important for our olfactory and mental health though was (finally!) the taming of the gasoline fumes inside Ludwig's cabin. We'll worry less about little E back there now. Late in the afternoon we bid Colin and some stragglers farewell and headed back up US 197.


I really like volcanoes for some reason. I think it's because I so vividly remember the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens when I was in kiddie-garten and was very impressed by my dad's explanation of it. To my delight (as I hadn't thought about it before the trip), we got some nice long vistas of several of Cascadia's stratovolcanoes: Mt. Hood, of course, but also Mt. Jefferson (not pictured), Mt. Adams (above, at left), and, waaay off, that self-destructive old lady St. Helens (no pictures turned out). It's weird how the landscape out there is kind of a roughly rolling table occasionally punctuated by these menacing giants, compared to around here where mountains come in nicely ordered ranges.

The sun was starting to fail as we took this family portrait along the Columbia just South of the Oregon/Washington border. We drove through Walla Walla and environs in the dark, so no pictures of wineries or the Palouse; sorry!


One of Melissa's high school chums is a current resident of Orofino Idaho, so we planned to break camp (okay, to park) at her house for the night. The next day she showed us around, and our tour included a stroll along the Clearwater River's North Fork. This unassuming locale is the home of Dworshak Dam (above center), the third highest dam in the U.S., 22nd highest in the world, and the highest straight-axis dam in the Western Hemisphere. If we'd had more time, I'd've taken us to the visitor center to get a closer look at the dam itself (I'm a big fan of dams too). Next time.


East of Orofino, US 12 plunges into the rocky heart of Idaho along the constant churn of the Lochsa River. A lot of kayaking/whitewater rafting/lunacy occurs in this ice-cold rill.


Melissa remarked that the whitewater seemed to continue pretty much unabated. The winding road had no shortage of cars with kayaks strapped to their roofs either.

We stopped along the Lochsa ("LOCK-saw") for another family portrait. We really count ourselves lucky that Esmé is so tolerant of our hauling her all around Creation in noisy old Ludwig.

Eventually the winding wound us up to the top of the road and the Lolo Pass visitor's center, a familiar sight to regular readers of this blog. We stopped to take the nature hike, but were once again stymied by snow.

All in all it was as trouble-free and pleasant an adventure as we could've hoped for. Hopefully we can make it again next year.

(miles 217,371-218,409)