July 7 - Drive along the Columbia River to Portland, Oregon

On to Portland! We had a quick breakfast, packed, hitched the trailer, dumped the tanks, and were on the road by 8:30. Since we were skirting around the northern edge of the Blue Mountains and then following the Columbia River down to Portland, I didn't think the driving would be too difficult. I did not calculate, however, on some absolutely ferocious headwinds with gusts that jerked us sideways. For much of the day we could not use the cruise control and had to really ride herd on keeping the rig in our lane, and that was no fun at all.

The scenery, on the other hand, was quite interesting and varied. The landscape started out a rather plain pastiche of arid pastures and irrigated fields, but changed rapidly as we approached the Columbia River gorge. The eastern part of the gorge had a broad, dammed up river with foaming whitecaps surrounded by dry brown hills cut by erosion gullies. That all changed rather abruptly to forested slopes and a much wetter overall appearance about the time we passed through the Dalles, Oregon. In the heyday of the Oregon Trail, the Dalles was the final choice point for the last lap to Oregon City because the immigrants could either continue the overland trek or put the wagons on rafts and raft down the last part of the Columbia. That wouldn't be possible today, of course, because the Columbia River basin seems to be one continuous series of dams, each with their respective reservoir leading miles upstream.

Since we were once again on the trail of Lewis and Clark as well as the Oregon immigrants, I wondered how they had viewed the Columbia River. The bluffs above the river on both sides have not, I imagine, changed appreciably from the early 1800s, and in that sense we were seeing some of the same things those folks saw. The river channel itself, however, is now a chain of lakes without any rapids or falls that I could see, so that is very different from the river that those folks would have experienced. The chief purpose of the dams is, of course, hydroelectric power and the power lines stretched from each dam across the river and over the horizon. The lakes are used for recreation wherever boat ramps are provided, and given the howling wind I was not too surprised to see windsurfers ripping across the whitecaps taking advantage of a great day to sail. I tried windsurfing back in the 1980s and had some fun with Detlef's board on one of our visits to Germany, but I've never done it in here in the states. You certainly have to be prepared to fall in on a windsurfer, especially if it's gusty; I saw at least three people go overboard just in the moments while we were driving by.

We had two big surprises as we headed the last stretch west from the Dalles to Portland. First, the sky became overcast and it even sprinkled a little bit! I would not have even noticed such a thing back in Virginia, but after three weeks of continuous sunshine, no clouds, and not a hint of rain, this was quite a change. In fact, the sky clouded over for at least part of each day for the duration of our stay in Portland, and it certainly made a difference when we were walking or biking. Without direct sunlight, it was generally cool enough for long pants and even a light jacket, but when the sun came out I donned a cap or sweatband, zipped off the legs of my pants and stripped down to my wick away undershirt on top. After several weeks of "hot and dry" we definitely had to get used to changeable and more humid weather on the west coast.

The second surprise was that the bodacious headwinds ceased suddenly and completely about 30 miles east of Portland, and I have no idea why. It was, in any case, a welcome relief because fighting those winds had made the driving very stressful. Still, I was surprisingly tired when we found our campground in Fairfield just east of Portland. We set up the trailer shortly after noon and I was already starting to fade while Monika fixed lunch. Apparently she was also tired, so after lunch we both took another Super Nap. We did rouse ourselves around 4 p.m. and find the local post office to mail off our photo letters, after which we chased down the Portland Costco on 138th Street to restock some of our bulk items: beer, raisins, apple juice, peanuts, ice cream sandwiches, maple syrup and trail mix. What that list says about our priorities I'm not quite sure, but Costco certainly is cheaper than any of the local stores if you can find what you want there and don't mind buying in bulk. Obviously when it comes to deserts we don't mind! Besides, we always like to have a Very Berry Sundae made with fat free frozen yogurt and a rich blackberry sauce for $1.55 (it feeds two, in our case).

On our way back from Costco we stopped by the McDonalds that had the start box for the Portland walk and bike events we were considering. But out of deference to the melting ice cream sandwiches in the truck plus plain old fatigue we postponed those activities to another day and returned to the campsite to store our groceries. Judson called while we were having a quick supper of sandwiches and peanuts, and told us they were getting a dog for their new house, a female Labrador Retriever that they had not named yet. So now we had Martin's grand-kitties and Judson and Sarah's grand-dog to play with when we visited, which sounded like fun. I tackled the journal while Monika processed pictures for a while, after which we took advantage of the campground showers. I found one with a shower door, which I prefer to a curtain, but the door to the stall interfered with the shower door to the extent that I almost couldn't fit in-between the doors at all! Amazing what some people will build.

As I returned from the showers through the recreation room, my eye was caught by a large magazine entitled "Western Gambling Journal, Year 18, Issue Two.". I was indeed curious what you could have in a journal devoted to gambling, so I skimmed the contents and found features such as an article on Ben Affleck winning a poker championship. Other articles focused on big winners, new games at casinos, or changed betting limits and mundane (to me) issues like that. But back on page 58, almost the last page in the magazine, I found an article on digital blackjack that made Monika and I laugh until our sides hurt. The article started off by saying, "Many gaming experts are saying that digital table games are the future." and concluded by saying, "When it comes to ease of play and more fun for your buck, trust us...you've got to go digital." In between these statements was a discourse on how the computer programmed digital blackjack machines were NOT, repeat NOT, going to use sneaky computer tricks to cheat the customers. The article emphasized that "The computer's RNG (random number generator) then arranges the cards in a totally random sequence and deals them out in that order, just like a traditional shoe on a paper card table." Sure it will. Right. Trust us. Brah-hah-hah-hah-hah!!!

Unfortunately there are, as someone once said, lies, damned lies, and statistics. Anyone who has worked in statistics and tried to obtain truly random number sequences knows that there is NO perfectly random number generator; all computers are finite state devices that rely on a number seed and a computational algorithm to produce a quasi-random number sequence. If you know the seed and know the algorithm, you can predict exactly what sequence of numbers will be produced. The article seemed to be trying to reassure potential customers that it was impossible to have the computer subtly manipulate cards or cheat in any other fashion, and that's where Monika and I got a good case of the giggles. If a clever programmer inserted code into the program to bias the blackjack game, how would the poor rube looking at the display in a casino ever know? Unlike a human who must make a physical movement to cheat while dealing cards, the computer could do it in a nanosecond behind the scenes.

How exactly did they test the randomness of the generator and the lack of bias in the playing program? They said the game was approved by local and state agencies as well as GLI (Gambling Laboratories International). How many state and local agencies have the expert programmers on staff who will take the time to reverse compile the machine instructions for the computer and then laboriously do a validity check on every aspect of the program's functions? As for Gambling Laboratories International, does that sound like an unbiased source of validity to you? Would you bet your next mortgage payment, say, on the fact that this program was written in a completely fair and unbiased manner? If so, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like you to take a look at because it is for sale, and very cheap! I believe P.T. Barnum said something to the effect that "There's a sucker born every minute, and two more to fleece him!", so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that so many folks run to casinos to lose their money. The role of the government in sanctioning or even co-opting this type of activity is, to my mind, much more morally questionable, but we are a democracy and therefore we get exactly the government we deserve for better or for worse.

After we were done laughing at the article, we suppressed the urge to run down to the nearest casino and give them all the cash in our wallets and instead unwound by reading our books for a while before going to bed. I started to read my next e-book, Mark Twain's "Roughing It", which seems to be a fascinating account of his bouncing around in the western gold and silver fields before turning to journalism. I curled up with the computer on the sofa, but in bed I still preferred to read physical books as I couldn't find a comfortable way to prop up the computer and turn the pages while flat on my back. In bed, I was still reading Baxter Black's somewhat picaresque cowboy novel, which was so funny I had trouble putting it down to get to sleep.