Epic RVing with the Gradys - Day 11 - PDX

I have no idea why Portland is abbreviated as PDX. I will make it my mission before the trip is through to try to understand that.

Today was a driving day, but we only had about a 2 hour drive in front of us, so it was a little different than other driving days. Jenny and I got up early to try to finish off the laundry from the night before, but sadly the laundry facilities were closed. We were ready to say good by to Thousand Trails, Chehalis. It had some nice features, but overall the experience was suboptimal and may have turned Jenny off to RVing forever! It was damp all the time, it was completely full, there was trash everywhere because there were so many people, the water didn’t work for a quarter of the trip, and the toilets were overflowing for a good portion of the rest, and the laundry facilities, while modern, were more or less occupied during the times we could use them and closed otherwise. Oh, and we weren’t able to properly level the RV, so we were sleeping down and to the left for the whole time!

Anyway, we were motivated to get out of there, so we packed up in record time and were ready to leave by a little after 9:00. The only issue with getting out so early was that we couldn’t check into our new place until 4:00!!! So we decided to hang out near Portland for the day, but I didn’t want to drive Harvee all over downtown Portland. So we settled on a Walmart in Vancouver, Washington where we would get a few groceries and park Harvee for a few hours while we tooled around PDX.

But we didn’t know where to go! So we just aimed for a sign that said “Downtown” and parked, then found a place to eat. We settled on a place called Killer Burger on Harvey Milk Way (or close to it). The burgers were good, and it wasn’t too expensive! Also had my first local beer, one from Level Brewing, which was delightful!

We didn’t pick the best part of Portland to be tourists in, so we got back in the car and traveled east to the Bridal Veil Falls which was about 25 miles east of town. It was a nice little hike to a really neat waterfall. This whole trip might actually be waterfall themed!!!

After our short hike it was about time to get back to Harvee and head south. By the time we got back to Vancouver, it was about an hour drive to Champoeg State Park, our home for the next few nights. This is our first State Park, and so far it seems pretty nice! We’ve learned to appreciate flat terrain when parking Harvee, and this has it! There are also lots of biking and hiking trails, which is good, but sadly there don’t seem to be any basketball courts. We’ll see what we find tomorrow. We are making a slight change in plans and scheduling a day at camp for Wednesday this week, so we should be able to explore in and around Champoeg. There seems a lot to do!!!

Tomorrow’s plan is to head out to the coast. For tonight, we are enjoying our flat spot and our 5g cellular connection, which I swear I will never take for granted again!!!