World United States Oregon Hood River

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Hood River OR Jul 7, 2009

We didn’t leave Kelso until shortly before noon and had a leisurely drive to Hood River where Laurie and Odel are hosting Twin Tunnels Trail on the old Oregon highway that is now only open to non-motorized traffic. We are set up in a field off the road with a great view of Mount Adams in the distance.

Odel guided Doug to help him park the rig. Then the frustration set in. Doug offloaded the generators and the first one started up almost immediately. Not so the second one. Doug tugged and pulled to no avail. It would not start. He made the situation worse by trying to fix it and then had to figure out how to undo the mess he made. He finally used an adapter and connected the rigs power cord to the one generator so that we can charge our on board batteries.

That was another problem. It appeared that the on board batteries had discharged while driving over here which is not supposed to happen. Doug really wanted to hear about that while he was wrestling with the stubborn generator.

The plan is to take the generator into town tomorrow or the next day to a small engine repair shop and get them to start it. Doug doesn’t have a wrench (or does he need a crowbar?) that will fit the spark plug on the generator so he can’t check to see if that is the problem.

The four of us went into Hood River to have dinner at Dixie’s Southern Grub Restaurant for southern cooking. We had fried catfish and greens and Doug was able to get a side of grits. Finally some good vittles.

Laurie and Odel took us for a tour around Hood River which is a pretty town clinging to the sides of some very steep hills. Again we were impressed to see a real downtown with a lot of commerce there. The town overlooks the Columbia River and one of the town’s big industries according to Odel is wind surfing sailboarders and kite boarders. It is the unofficial sail boarding and kite boarding capital of the world. That means a lot of wind which we are starting to get used to. We stopped at Panorama Point overlook and got a great view of Mt Hood.

Tomorrow we are going to drive back to Portland to visit the Dopps.