Newberry 2019 - Getting Home

I know. A reasonable response to having 2 separate posts about driving to a single festival means either I have become too wordy, or I'm running out of things to write about or something happened. I don't think it's the second one. Apologies for no personal pictures from the drive home. You'll see why. Before I begin, to my US readers, Hapy belated Labor Day (yesterday). Now begins the "most productive" block of weeks of the year, from Labor Day to ThxGiving. I hope one day our compensation again reflects that production so more of us can afford to spend time doing things like drive to festivals.

Getting Home

Odell Lake from gmap

Every time we leave 4Peaks (except once) we go through Sisters via US-20. And, every time, we have temperature challenges until we hit the pass. This time, knowing I'm barely getting by temperature-wise, I took some advice from Tony and drove south on US-97 and used a cut over to OR-58 out of Crescent. OR-58 is a much easier over-the-pass route heading west. The longest inclines were actually on the cut-over from US-97 to OR-58 past a rock quarry. Once on OR-58, there are still some up's, but they are brief. I welcomed the new views as well. Shortly after getting on OR-58, we passed a large lake (Odell Lake) with dark, almost brown water. It was super big, but I didn't see anyone playing on it. Maybe it's more for fishing, even though the state site says louder watersports (water-skiing, eg) are approved. There were numerous turn-offs for various campgrounds (Princess Creek, and Trapper Creek being right on the water) so it was a fairly popular place to camp, at least. Still thinking about the campgrounds, we reached the summit of "Willamette Pass" and passed the ski resort by the same name. Until this point, I was pulling over every 20 minutes or so to let Hapy cool down from his higher temperatures. At no point did Hapy's temperature get above 202*F, but I usually pulled over as he was hitting 198*F and let him cool down to 190 before resuming. Willamette Pass had a bunch of stuff going on. There was a go-kart track rolling and folks with mountain bikes and hiking gear filling the parking lot. I wondered if there was a larger crowd for summer activities than for skiing in the winter. After the peak, we started the long downhill, picking up the Salt Creek on our left until we reached Oakridge. Similar to the drive out, once we started going downhill, Hapy didn't have temperature issues.

Speed Limiter Engaged

wiki image of Lookout Point Lake

I stopped for diesel at the ExxonMobil station on the western edge of Oakridge, filled my water bottle from the 5-gallon barrel-cooler on the floor in front of the passenger seat, and nosed back onto OR-58. By the time I reached Lookout Point Lake, I started noticing what felt like a speed limiter. We could get up and go from a dead stop okay, but 4th gear was becoming gut-less. The traffic around the lake was kind of heavy so the speed-limitation wasn't much of an issue yet. Lookout Point looked fun; there were boats, swimmers, and ski-doos, everywhere. Tons of teens just getting their summer on, it looked like a great place for Eugene-residents to go when they want some lake fun, and the weather was perfect for it. On we pressed, or tried to press, with Hapy's accelerator becoming less and less responsive as we went. Interestingly, though, since I couldn't go very fast, the high temperature issues subsided as well. I no longer had to keep one eye on the temperature gauge. Which was good because soon, we were merging onto I-5 North. This was borderline scary. Consider, we are just trying to maintain 45mph* as we merge onto an interstate where the average motorist is trying to achieve 75mph. Flashers on, I held my own through Eugene but by Coburg I just couldn't take it any more. Between the cross wind buffeting, and the speed limiter, I needed a rest, and the rest area just north of Coburg was perfectly timed.

Avoid Freeways

Peoria Rd from gmap

I pulled out the Gmap and requested a route home, to see how much longer I was going to have to do this. 2 hours, and it assumes you can drive the 65mph speed limit. So, I flipped the switch to "avoid highways". As it was calculating, the voice-over said there was an accident on I-5 causing a 27 minute delay. I figured that was kismet, but I still needed to get on the freeway long enough to get off. As scary as the OR-58 merge was, getting back on from the rest area was even worse. I could not get up past 35 mph* so, with flashers on, I hobbled to the next exit. No sooner were we off the freeway than Hapy started acting better. It was short-lived, but for a minute, he seemed almost grateful. We made our way to Peoria Road and then through the middle of hay farms, along the Willamette River. It was a little surreal; on one side of the road are large hay farms with big circular bales sitting in the middle of their sandy-colored fields and on the other side of the road are houses surrounded by trees backed up to the river, docks jutting out into the water. Peoria Road took me to OR-34 and then to 99W which ended up being my main road home from there. With the speed limiter in full effect, I followed a pattern similar to my drive east: when the passing lanes are too far between, I used the shoulder to allow the traffic pressure through. With the accident on I-5, there were lots of "i'm in a big ol' hurry" types trying to 'make up time' by taking 99W after getting bottled up on I-5. I guess they had an important meeting.... late afternoon on a Sunday?... Of course, some of 99W is multi-lane, so those who don't understand that the journey is part of the trip had a lane to speed past well above the posted limit. I did get a courtesy wave during one of my use-the-shoulder pressure releases, though. More proof that there be nice folks in rural Oregon.

Roy Rogers

Roy Rogers from gmap

I followed our usual cut-through from Sherwood down Roy Rogers and was surprised to see just how much progress had been made on the massive housing development going on there. It had been almost 2 months since we did this stretch on the way home from JRAD (See JRAD Eugene - Road Report), and I swear there are multiple blocks of occupied housing where they had just foundations the last time through. I know progress can't really be stopped, but I remember that road as the road where the boys and I declared success as we took Hapy on his first journey with his new engine (See One Small Step for Van). Now, that country road is becoming a major road between Beaverton and Sherwood and instead of hay fields and grazing horses, the land on either side are filling with multi-level condos, townhouses and McMansions. It's pretty hard to watch.

Home At Last

3! 3 Round Trips! Ah Ah Ah!

I arrived home just before 7, in time to see Boo's mom and best friend... who were the last to leave the family obligation I mentioned in the "Getting There" post. Tired and hot, both Hapy and I were glad to be home. My next order of business is to solve his heat problem... and the speed limiter problem... before our next trip in 2 weeks. Regardless of how much we may have limped home, this trip was a win: we made it home without the help of a flatbed. That makes 3 complete round trip journeys, each over 3 hours one-way this season for a total of over 1000 miles... so far.

Thanks, as always, for following along. I'll post as I solve things. I'll be starting with a cooling system flush or changing the fuel filters. Whichever one I feel inspired to do first when I get out to the bus.