Dang fires anyway

[Dave]

Well I sold my place. Cash deal for more than I was asking. That was great. The down side is we have to be out by October 5. Haven't been able to find the right place in the area we plan to move to yet. But we still have the place the wife owned before we got married. It is just about exactly half way to the area we plan to move to. So we are going to go camp there until we get a new ranch bought. The trouble is the fire in the Columbia Gorge. I-84 on the Oregon side of the river is shut down completely with no projected opening date. Highway 14 on the Washington side is a small 2 lane. It is closed to all commercial traffic and vehicles over 10,000 pounds. I know they did that to keep all the I-84 truck traffic from going that way. My pickup and trailer weigh in at about 10,000 pounds empty. The alternate routes going over the mountain passes are 2 or 3 hours longer each way. Difficult to move 200 miles one pickup load at a time. The fires have caused a lot of problems this year but who would have thought that this would be a problem.

 

[True Grit Farms]

If it ain't one thing it's another. Still no rain out that way I assume?

 

[Dave]

If it ain't one thing it's another. Still no rain out that way I assume?

A little bit of a chance of rain next Monday/Tuesday. The long range is saying above normal precipitation Sept 19-25 for the entire Northwest. Probably happen right when I am trying to load up and move.

 

[Nesikep]

Most likely they'd let you through unless there's a scale right there... They're usually just concerned with dump trucks and semis.. anything that has 22.5" tires!

Perhaps, as a last resort, you could rent a 40' container, or 53' reefer unit, and get a whole pile of stuff moved at once, even if it does mean going the long way around

 

[greybeard]

Well, good luck with it Dave. Mother Nature (with the help of mankind) just seems to have taken a dislike for all of us this year.
Any chance you would want to go to the expense of letting a moving company suffer the headache of moving all your 'stuff'?

(yeah, I know--they aren't cheap and lots of them aren't very trustworthy)

 

[Dave]

Took a pickup load and towed the boat down today. You couldn't even see the other side of the river for 30/40 miles because of the smoke. The fire is only about 20% contained so even though it has cooled down a lot and the wind died down so it isn't spreading there is still a lot burning. I did see a fair number trucks with campers towing boats, motor homes towing cars, and other outfits that sure looked like they were over the weight limit. There is just a couple of state DOT guys with flagger signs. Certainly no scale. SIL saw them turn a semi around but I think anything short of an 18 wheeler will get through. I am planning another run on Monday. The traffic headed east this afternoon (I was headed west) was unreal for that road. The wife was counting cars headed the other way and we passed about 40 cars headed east per mile. The one stop light which is at the Hood River bridge had traffic backed up for about 2 miles. Friday afternoon and people getting out of Portland for the weekend. Note to self... take loads on weekdays.

 

[Nesikep]

I figured DOT wouldn't care about a pickup, regardless of the weight.

 

[Dave]

I took a load down in the stock trailer. It was raining when I went by the DOT guys. They were all sitting in their pickups not playing attention. I just drove by.
It was raining pretty hard in the gorge. Not enough to put fires out but enough to keep it from spreading. It did knock the smoke down so I could see the other side of the river. National scenic area isn't so scenic any more. Just down stream from Bonneville dam the mountains are scorched top to bottom. Over 44,000 acres, 4 homes, and a bunch of historic and scenic stuff all gone from some 15 year old kid playing with fireworks. I bet his parents are real proud now that they stand to lose everything.

 

[Bright Raven]

I took a load down in the stock trailer. It was raining when I went by the DOT guys. They were all sitting in their pickups not playing attention. I just drove by.
It was raining pretty hard in the gorge. Not enough to put fires out but enough to keep it from spreading. It did knock the smoke down so I could see the other side of the river. National scenic area isn't so scenic any more. Just down stream from Bonneville dam the mountains are scorched top to bottom. Over 44,000 acres, 4 homes, and a bunch of historic and scenic stuff all gone from some 15 year old kid playing with fireworks. I bet his parents are real proud now that they stand to lose everything.

Dave,

Good to see an end to this fire cycle. I appreciate how bad it is. I don't remember the Year, about 1992. It was an awful year for fires in Montana.

 

[Workinonit Farm]

I took a load down in the stock trailer. It was raining when I went by the DOT guys. They were all sitting in their pickups not playing attention. I just drove by.
It was raining pretty hard in the gorge. Not enough to put fires out but enough to keep it from spreading. It did knock the smoke down so I could see the other side of the river. National scenic area isn't so scenic any more. Just down stream from Bonneville dam the mountains are scorched top to bottom. Over 44,000 acres, 4 homes, and a bunch of historic and scenic stuff all gone from some 15 year old kid playing with fireworks. I bet his parents are real proud now that they stand to lose everything.

I'm glad to hear that you were able to get bit of a bigger load out. Also happy to hear about some rain! Every little bit helps.

Amazing and sad that one kid, with some fireworks, started al of this.

I hope there's more rain coming, and I hope you're able to continue with the truck & trailer hauling loads.