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Klamath Falls, OR to Kelowna, BC
We took off from Klamath Falls this morning following a continental breakfast that hardly deserves the prefix—huge! Eggs, yogurt, fruit cups, cereal, muffins, the works. Props to Quality Inn Klamath Falls for its breakfast. Too bad the Internet cable in the room didn't seem to work.
Leaving town on the same road we'd taken for part of the Crater Lake trip yesterday, we drove north through the high desert woods, with Cascade peaks rising on the left: Mt. Thielsen, the jagged Diamond Peak, Mt. Bachelor, and the Three Sisters as we neared Bend. Took photos all along the way, Paul familiarizing himself with the ins and outs of the Canon 10D. Lots of increasingly good shots of Mt. Jefferson as we passed Bend, and then Mt. Hood further north; as we rose into plateau country, we could see both of these plus Mt. Adams (and Rainier beyond), and we stopped at a mountain identifier turnout just south of Shaniko to observe the north-south panorama of giants Pahto and Wasco fighting over Loo-Wit (Mt. St. Helens), as recounted in a story I'd once read in a Cascade Mountains activity book picked up on a long-past family vacation to this area. I'm guessing Mt. Adams is Wasco, from the proximity of the town of the same name, which would make Mt. Hood Pahto. (All three giants were turned into mountains as punishment for their lava-flinging love-triangle bickering, so the story went.)
Reached the Columbia River Gorge at Biggs, a traveler's junction with several fast food places; we ate at a Subway in a grocery store, again finding that half the usual amount of food was adequate (we shared a single sandwich and felt too full to even eat any chips). I'd originally planned to get sandwiches to go and eat them in Maryhill State Park, on the north bank of the Columbia; but that plan seemed silly once we saw the actual terrain of the area, with the sheer-sided Columbia gorge looking far more impressive than I'd anticipated; it was sufficiently dramatic that the view from the Subway window was treat enough. (Plus I was worried about our schedule.) We crossed the river and immediately climbed out of the canyon and began pushing through scenic high woods until they petered out and dropped us into Toppenish, where Adams and Rainier peeked over the horizon. Punched through the valley walls to the Yakima Valley, where we visited the fairgrounds where Paul once worked exhibiting big cats for the Yakima Fair. Left the valley northbound and climbed out to another high pass overlooking Ellensburg (we stopped for a lot of good photos at a viewpoint). Then 97 joined up with I-90, which we followed west for a few miles; then it broke off again with 97 rising into wooded mountains. A little bit of drama occurred here—we arrived at the scene of an accident seconds after it happened; dozens of cars were stopping to help a guy who had driven off the road into a stand of trees. Everybody was okay, and there were far too many cars parked in far too narrow a canyon; so we pressed on to the pass, then an interminable downhill through steep, tree-clad slopes that after what seemed like hours emerged into the more barren (but striking) landscape leading into beautiful Wenatchee on the Columbia. Here we turned north again, got gas, and rejoined the Columbia, which we followed through its spectacular gorge north towards Okanogan.
The 12-hour "Driving Tunes" playlist I'd set up on my iPod lasted us till shortly before Okanogan (Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" played just as we entered Cashmere, WA, for whatever significance that has). We fiddled with other music options, but mostly found that just enjoying the scenery of the winding gorge was enough to hold our attention. As pretty as it was, though, I was starting to worry that we weren't making any progress, so my worry was translating into a heavy pedal foot—and a state trooper pulled us over just south of Okanogan, to tell me I was doing 73 in a 60 zone. He gave me a warning, and sounded like he meant it: "My boys up north better not catch you again before you reach the border. You're in our system now, so if we see you again, it won't be a warning next time. And those guys up in BC, well... you don't wanna mess with them." I decided against asking him whether I'd still be in the system by the time we came back down through Washington on I-5; that probably would have been a spectacularly dumb move. We'll just be reeeal paranoid on the way south.
So we proceeded north with the cruise control set to 60 on the dot, which felt like a snail's pace and didn't help my feeling of lateness any. Finally we reached the border (a few simple questions about origins and destinations), and then it was Canadian resort town country—a spectacular canyonland of tall monoliths reminiscent of the Guilin Valley in China, or perhaps just a more vertical version of the Columbia gorge. Hazy skies still plagued us even here, though (presumably from forest fires), and the views were a little less crystalline than I imagine they usually are, this being such a popular resort region. Ate around 8:30 at a Quizno's (featuring Canada's always-impressive array of flavors on chips) in Penticton, where vacationers were frolicking on the beach even as the sunlight ebbed away, then—foolishly, in hindsight—tried to press on to Kelowna. Slow roads and deepening darkness made us get into town no earlier than 10:00, and we found that—due to the Canadian three-day wekeend, which I'd not taken into account—we'd managed to arrive in one of the country's biggest travel destinations on the busiest day of the year. It took us an hour with a phone book and a helpful receptionist at one full motel (as she was calling other hotels helping us ask around for rooms, one of them laughed at her) to find a place with a vacancy—a residential apartment/suite place called the Enigma, with one (albeit beautiful) suite left for $180 Canadian. Compared to sleeping in the car (or the "Medieval Suite" at some Madonna-esque fantasy hotel place for $500), this seemed like better than we deserved. Certainly the suite was nice, with a full kitchen and a great view and wireless Internet; but we would only be there to sleep and leave early in the morning, so it felt like an awful waste. But what's to be done, eh? Downloaded photos and track logs. Will we be able to reach Dawson Creek tomorrow? We'll see!