A perfect round trip
4 days - 3 ecosystems - 2 times Baloo rescued - 1 national park
Baloo is slowly getting impatient, because we only hang out in "real" houses and he has to stand outside in the rain all the time and get stuck with tree needles. Therefore we start with him on a four day round trip from Hillsboro.We drive east on Highway 26 with the day's destination Bend. We escape the rain by crossing the cascade chain. On the other side of the mountains, in the High Desert, there is sunshine.
Already 550 kilometres have been driven again and it is time to refuel. Sounds easy - but it is not. At least not in Oregon. This state forbids you to fill your own car with fuel. For this reason there are people at every gas station who do this for you.
First attempt: Almost while driving towards the petrol pump, the filling station attendant opens the lid of the diesel auxiliary tank. It's not that tragic, but we still want to fill our normal tank before the additional tank is used. Mathias shows the gentleman where the right tank is.
Second attempt: The tank attendant opens the cap of the water bumper *haha* (Did she seriously want to fill fuel into the front of the tank?!). Where WATER is written on the fuel filler cap?) Mathias shows her where the diesel tank is.
Third attempt: The gas station attendant greets us "You guys have an awesome rig", does a little small talk "Where are you from?" and so on and then opens the right fuel cap immediately (coincidence?). Anyway, we are positively surprised and Mathias is about to explain to the guy that we need diesel, there the black tap (= here in the USA the paint for gasoline) is already in his hand and dangerously close to Baloo's filler neck. "Stop, it's a diesel", it no longer sounds so friendly from Mathias' mouth, who is already throwing his hands over his head. - Oh, sorry! My bad...I always forget that you Europeans have diesel cars ", the boy apologizes and fills the tank with the green tap.
Phu, that was close!
During the next three days we are amazed by the surreal, not from this world landscape of the Big Obsidian Flow, the unnatural appearing deep blue color of the Carter Lake in the national park of the same name and watch along the wild romantic Oregon Coast Wale heading south.
Near Reedsport we find on our last evening a stretch of beach where we can camp. In the evening we drive into the deep sand and find a nice place under a tree. The beautiful sunset on this evening will remain in our memory forever. We toast the past days with a bottle of wine from John and couldn't be happier at that moment.
The next morning we think about blowing air out of the sand, but then we are too lazy to do this for the 300 meters. But the sand is really deep and so it comes as it had to come. We don't have enough power when we drive off and dig ourselves in. The recently bought Maxtracks have already paid off.
After 4 wonderful eventful days we are back in Hillsboro and could stay here forever. Now it is really time for us to move on after almost three weeks.