Day 212, Aug 25, On the Road Again

Yep, we’re ever so happily on the road again to pick up not where we left off but rather where we shoulda been according to schedule.  

With a wee tinge of sadness, we watched as Big Red was hauled away to the junkyard. She served us long and well.


Remarkably, we quickly found a replacement truck, this one bigger and stronger to pull Bambi, and with only 8,000 miles on her. Dubbed Dark Lord, she’ll be a reliable truck for our continued adventures. We found Dark Lord through CarMax. She was shipped from Dallas to Las Vegas where we flew in to collect her.


My beautiful daughter Chelsea from Boulder happened to be visiting in Portland while we were stranded there, so we hooked up with her for a lovely afternoon hike through The Gorge. Such a sweet and unexpected gift to spend some time with her. 


 

Driving Dark Lord from Vegas to Portland, we made a quick stop to retrieve Aaron’s latest toy purchase, a side by side for his duck hunting club. He’d purchased it while visiting his daughter in eastern Oregon a month ago. New truck Dark Lord with her 3/4 ton engine and pulling capacity tows like a champ. 


So today, 3 weeks after the old truck Big Red finally gave up the ghost, we are not the road again. 

Sadly, we missed out on several adventures these 3 weeks including the Spokane and Reno Temples as well as hiking, backpacking and kayaking in North Cascades and Olympic National Parks and exploring Lassen Volcanic and Pinnacles National Parks, but I’ve already been scheming how to include these sites in next years Alaskan adventure. Happily, we still made it to Lake Chelan and Stehekin as well as to Victoria BC and Butchart Gardens while broken down. 

So it’s all good; we are happy to have reliable transportation again (especially as we anticipate the great and terrible  Alaskan Highway drive next year), and we are thrilled to be back on the road again!


Today, it’s Pinnacles National Park or bust!

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