We were descending a desolate Mt Hood around 5AM and we rounded a turn on highway 35 and our trip took a crazy turn. We could see that the road was glare ice, feel the truck and trailer gliding as if it was on a well groomed ice rink and looked at each other with our puckered you know whats. I just coasted calmly over the ice and when we reached dry pavement once again we hear and feel vibration and look in the rear view mirrors and see the bottom of the camper. Instantly I started looking for a place to pull off and thank God that we were right by Sherwood Campground and pulled in and got out and surveyed the damage.
Our bolt together Northern Tool Trailer snapped at the bolt holes. I have had trailer weighed perfectly and way under the max load requirements. I contacted them and all they had to say was that they have heard of that happening before. Before we left i got AAA that covers the vehicle and the trailer. We did not have service here. I figured we couldn’t just sit here and wait for nothing so I gathered up everything important out of the camper and disconnected it. We started off up 35 because we knew that there was a town right up the road to find either a land line or until we got service. We got pretty lucky because there was a ranger station not even 20 minutes away! Had a pretty good view of Mt Hood and a FJ cruiser.
I used their land line and got AAA to tow the camper on a flatbed to a little welding/fab shop in Hood River right on the Columbia river! What an amazing place to get stranded! We got a hotel for a couple nights while they did their thing! They also gave us some awesome ideas of breweries, restaurants and hotels. We stayed a shitty motel the first night and the pool was closed. We still took day trips from Hood River and saw some awesome things! Multnomah Falls was really cool but parking sucked and it was crazy busy!
We liked Hood River so much we said F this and got another night at a nicer hotel for the second night because we were a little anxious with the trailer and wanted to relax a bit more since we were only half way thru the trip. We went to a local winery and had some wine and ate some delicious food and rank some good local beer! We also went to Lost Lake and hiked around ! Katie’s the best newt and salamander hunter around and she knew we would be seeing some and we did!! It was awesome because we got here early in the morning and were just leaving when everyone started to get there. The drive up to this place was awesome looking at all the trees too!
After we checked out of the hotel and got the trailer we then proceeded onto our next stop of our trip which was Fort Stevens State Park! We followed the Columbia River Gorge which was an amazing drive! We then went down to Cannon Beach! It was a ridiculously rainy day! we got checked in and found our spot. There were barely any people in the park. We decided to hop in the camper quick and it started to down pour vigorously! We then decided to get back into the safety of the Tundra and went for a drive! we went out the jetty and looked at the huge waves and rain fall on the beach. There was a weird number of people out doing the same thing! Katie didn’t feel safe or right about staying in the camper this night because the weather was looking rough and turning worse.. We then looked at the radar and noticed that there was severe weather warnings up and down the coast. We went over by the Astoria Megler Bridge and stayed at the Holiday Inn and Suites right on the Columbia River. We got checked in and found a place to park the rig and ordered some pizza! We showered and watched TV and the electricity kept cutting out. The pizza took forever and the driver when he got there said that it was the worst storm since 95! He said it took so long because there were power lines and trees down all over the place! I looked at the radar again and there were a couple waves of pretty harsh storms! The first storm was supposed to hit overnight our first night and come with a half a foot of rain and 80-100 mph gusts! We got a little freaked out and started to re-plan the rest of our trip.. We didn’t really know what to do at this point.. Do we continue on North and try to withstand the storm and torrential rains that are supposed to loom over the next several days in our camper or do we head south northern California or Nevada? Or do we just head home and cut our losses thus far?
We end up making the difficult decision to head home and spend some time there before we go back to work. We make a general route and head out the next morning. We end up staying in Boise, Idaho for the first night. We then go from Boise, ID to Casper Wyoming and get in pretty late to a RV park. There was a number to call for late arrivals so i call and the person was ridiculously kind and said we could stay for 1/4 the full night and just to pull into one of the empty sites. We had a couple beers and hit the hay for the another long drive the next day.
We’re up before the sun and we hit the road! The winds were HOWLING the whole way home! We get home and crash! The rest of the week involved drinking some beer, eating our favorite food and cleaning up the house and putting all of our trip stuff away!!
Thanks for reading!!
Journey to the Good Life 