Sunday, August 6, 2006
Start point: 44 23.740 N, 122 08.466 W
End point: 44 25.752 N, 121 53.529 W
We were walking by 8:20 a.m., an hour earlier than the day before. This walk featured two major intersections and little else, with limited mountain views. Westbound traffic increased steadily as weekenders headed home to Portland, Salem, and Eugene. Some of the vehicles were vintage cars from some car show. At 3.5 miles we came to Springfield Junction where Highway 126 breaks off to the right for Eugene and Springfield. Some 2.5 miles later, Highway 22 came in from our left with Portland/Salem traffic. The last couple of miles began to climb more steeply toward the crest of the Cascade range.
Walk rating: 7.0
Money found: Day: $.28 Trip: $0.29 Project: $4.61
Distance: Day: 9.1 miles Trip: 18.0 miles Project: 142.9 miles
Elapsed time: Day: 3:21 Trip: 6:52 Project: 55:55
Significance: Not much.
We drove straight to the $2 shower at Black Butte Resort. Hot running water already felt like a luxury. At Camp Sherman Store I had them make me a fat turkey sandwich, enough to feed both of us lunch back at the campsite.
We played cribbage in the 87-degree shade by the river. Joe caught up, winning 4 of 6 games to knot it at 7 each.
We drove 15 miles into Sisters, scouting for our next campsite. Sisters had no tent sites with showers at their city park, so we stopped at an old nicotine-saturated trailer park on the eastern edge of town to ask if they had any showers we could use for a fee. The manager’s office was closed, but next to it was an open door to an apartment occupied by Johnnie Reb and his female partner. The windows were decorated with Confederate flags and elegant slogans such as, “Get ‘er done” and “The South is gonna rise again.” Johnnie let the woman do the talking. She was a bleached blonde, about 45 going on 60, with a lit cigarette in one hand, and quite friendly. I asked her if this place had any public showers for its residents, and she said, “No, but we have a shower you guys can use. We can go outside for awhile.” I told her thanks, but we were looking for a 3-day campsite somewhere. She said there was a KOA about 5 miles toward Bend. I thanked her and left, gulping in deep breaths of fresh air as I put distance between the door and my lungs.
We stopped for pizza at Papandrea’s in Sisters (I gave it a 4, Joe gave it a 6 or 7 out of 10), then drove to Ray’s Food Place to buy groceries. We made it back to Camp Sherman in time for 2 more games of cribbage, which we split. The score was now 8-8.
