This morning we finished up stowing the gear we had put outside our trailer during our long stay at Paradise Campground and hitched the trailer to the truck. We departed from the campground, turned west on WA-12 and headed for I-5. When we got to the freeway, we turned south and settled in for the drive out of Washington, across the Columbia River and into Portland. We have been in Portland before and the traffic was always dreadful so we skirted downtown and headed south on I-205, the truck route that runs on the east side of the city.
The traffic was still moderately horrible but we were fortunate enough to be southbound because the northbound traffic was stopped in orderly rows of idling vehicles for miles. We didn’t see any traffic accidents on the northbound side although there was some abandoned road construction sites limiting lengthy portions of available lanes. According to the news, the horrible northbound traffic all over the Portland area consisted of eclipse viewers slowly making the exodus back to regions where there was not a total eclipse. I have no idea what excuse they give drivers for the miserable traffic on all the other days of the year.
We continued south after joining up with I-5 again south of the Portland metro area which seems to get a lot bigger each time we pass through. Urban sprawl is happening in Multnomah County to the extent that it now involves Multnomah and all the surrounding counties, too.
Near Salem, we turned off the interstate and wandered vaguely eastward to our next destination, Silverton, OR. We really did not have any reasons to visit Silverton other than Peggy has a niece that lives here and the Silver Spur RV Park where we are staying is about halfway between Eugene and Paradise. I am currently under attack from a fat geezer affliction of my left heel and life is temporarily uncomfortable to the extent that I don’t want to exceed more than about 3 hours of discomfort at a time while driving. Peggy has been extraordinarily nice to me during my misery. She is pretty terrifc the rest of the time and I can truly appreciate her taking pity on her old, decrepit spouse and taking over some of the duties, mostly those requiring walking or standing.
Silver Spur is a nice park with maybe 150 spaces that have full utility hookups. The wifi is very good but the cable TV they alleged they have does not work in our space. Fortunately, we have a satellite antenna and a space with an ample southern exposure, required to watch too much TV since one of us is temporarily gimpy and nearly immobile.