The Dalles

We are on the road again. Each trip seems to be more difficult. Our last trip of any length was to the Canadian Rockies, but we decided we’d rather just stay in Kelowna, BC for a few days instead and forego the rest of the planned trip. That was about a year ago. We were lucky to have gone then – this year there are wildfires all around that area and British Columbia has declared a state of emergency and requested no unnecessary travel.

The last few weeks we’ve been watching where the fires are – BC, Alberta, Northeast Washington, central Oregon, southern Oregon. Until yesterday, we wondered if we would be able to leave Portland and, if we did, what path we should take. But today the air in the Columbia River Gorge is just hazy, not smoky, so we’re on our way east.

I remember setting off on a trip ten years ago. It seems like we just decided when to go and then we went. Now we have to look for a window of opportunity between doctor visits and then wonder about wildfires or extreme heat or extreme something else. Part of it is that we are ten years older. 

And I suppose part of it was Covid and other health challenges. Last year we drove to North Carolina but got Covid and stayed in the hotel for five days until we were well enough to travel again. That made us leery of wandering too far from home.

And part of it is the changed weather – searing heat, wildfires and dense smoke, a hurricane in California, flooding here and there.

But I don’t want to sound like a gloomy Gussie. We’re here along the beautiful Columbia River as it flows through dry, dry land. Sometime tomorrow we will start to feel like we have our traveling shoes on.