Wanderung 6

Pursuing Pioneer Pathways from the Potomac to the Pacific

June-August 2004

July 6 - Volksmarch in Pendleton, Oregon

The Volksmarch in Pendleton, Oregon, was just down the road a piece, as they say, so after a pancake breakfast we took the truck about 25 miles to the west. Our breakfast possibilities in the trailer were cold cereal, hot cereal, pancakes, or bacon and eggs with toast, and we often seemed to get into a rotation among those four. The first part of our drive to Pendleton was along the 3,500 foot high plateau that seems to be a shoulder of the Blue Mountains, but that ended quite abruptly at a 6 mile long 6% descent grade that led to the plains 2,000 feet lower! This was the first time I have ever seen speed limit signs for tractor trailers that depended on the weight of the load. The trucks with maximum loads were limited to 18 miles per hour on the descent and there were two escape ramps along the way in case their brakes failed! Except for the steep descent the road was really quite well graded and I had no problem coasting along at 60 mph, but I could imagine that having an extra two tons of trailer could make things more exciting, and towing a trailer up that 6 mile slope in the other direction could easily overheat an engine.

We arrived in Pendleton without any problems and worked our way through the city to a fire station on the west side of town that had the start box for our walk. The route for the Pendleton walk started off in the park next door to the fire station and then followed a riverside hiker-biker path to the west for a mile or so before crossing to the northern edge of town. Coming back on the other side of the river, we followed roads for several miles to the east, seeing some pretty houses along the way. Then we climbed a pretty steep hill and the road surface deteriorated to gravel and finally to dirt, which is never a good sign. At that point it became difficult to tell what was the road and what were the driveways turning off of the road, but we made the correct choices and walked along the bluff for a while, which gave us a nice view of the town of Pendleton spread out in the valley below.

On the downside, we were also pounced on by a pack of three unrestrained and ill-trained dogs that came out on the street to bark, snap, and growl at us. They were small enough that I wasn't worried about a frontal assault, but one sneaky one kept trying to come behind me and bite my ankles whenever I turned my back on him, so I had to watch him pretty carefully until we turned the next corner. The owner, as is typically the cases for ill-socialized dogs or children, was nowhere to be found; apparently they just let the dogs run around and do whatever they want. I just hoped they weren't trying to raise children in the same laissez faire fashion.

After several miles on the north side of the river, we re-crossed it on an old iron bridge and started working our way back through the center of the town making several dipsy-doodles along the way. We passed several nice old homes from the turn of the century. At one a lady was out raking the grass in front and when I asked to take a picture she said it was OK, "but please try to avoid the piles of clippings", which I did.

On the next little loop we discovered a park dedicated to law enforcement or fire personnel who had died in the line of duty. This memorial had a quite poignant poem about the lives of the officers being cut short, and in front of it stood a large bronze statue of an old time sheriff mounted on a horse. It turned out that the sheriff had been killed in the line of duty back in 1920, which resulted in the creation of the park. He must have been well liked because the bronze statue was life sized and totally paid for by donations of his friends in the town. The memorial park also included a small wading pool for kids that was well populated when we drove past it to wash our truck later in the day.


 

We also passed a large flour mill that I assumed processed the winter wheat I had seen growing in the valley, and the silos just seemed to reach right up and scratch the bright blue sky. The silos were by far the tallest thing in town and quite impressive in a stark, plain sort of way.


 

The final segment of the walk was through the downtown section, which was busy if not bustling, and I saw only one or two vacant storefronts so it looked like an economically viable downtown. Parts of the downtown were just typical rows of businesses but a couple of the blocks had several nice old storefronts that apparently dated from the late 1800s. We paused for lunch at a little bakery and cafe as we walked back toward the riverside trail. Monika had quiche (we were, after all, a lot closer to California now so it didn't surprise us too much that such things started to appear on the menu) and I had a roast beef sandwich and blueberry muffin (I'm not sure if I was being cautious or just suffered from a lack of imagination).

We finished our walk back at the fire station, went shopping for food at Albertson's, and stopped off to wash the truck on our way back out of town. The poor truck was covered with 5000 miles of dirt and grime plus salt from the windstorm we had driven through to get to our Great Salt Lake campground a week or so back. Worst of all were the accumulated bugs on the front grill. I found one bay that guaranteed 15 minutes of washing time for $3.25, and I used every minute of it soaping, rinsing and waxing the whole truck while Monika concentrated on using a plastic scrubber on the front grill to remove those dratted bugs. I don't know if the truck felt any better, but I surely did knowing that the salt was not still sitting there corroding the truck's body.

We drove back up the 6 mile incline to our campground and promptly fell into bed for a well earned nap. Actually, it turned out to be a Super Nap, which is any nap of two hours or more (Regular Naps take only an hour to 90 minutes or so), and after a snack Monika starting printing pictures for more photo letters while I worked, as always, on the journal. We kept at that plus writing the letters for much of the evening, interrupting only for a light supper, and still had a bit of time and energy to read a bit before going to sleep.

Copyright 2004 by Robert W. Holt and Elsbeth Monika Holt
Prolog Map Epilog
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