Heading into Oregon first time. Any advice

Stick to the roads. Beware of the moon.

 

Man I loved our trips to Oregon. Like was said, have chains, watch your speed on the hills, Dead man pass aint no joke. First time we went there was middle of summer, blazing hot everywhere, got to Portland and the highs were about 75. Felt like heaven. Have a good trip, there aint nothing to worry about.

 

If you come back during winter you will get some experience hanging iron. After you've done it a few times it's no big deal. If you " wait it out " you might be here all winter.

 

If you get there quick enough, you can participate in the riots.

 

Have your permit ready before you hit the Oregon state line. You can have the permit faxed to any truck stop before you get to Oregon.
I think it's like a $480 fine if you don't have the permit before you hit the state line

 

Remember.... Going down Cabbage Hill, if you have 40,000lbs plus behind you... the best gear to stay in is 7th gear with jakes on high. Let the experienced/lighter loads fly by you, YOU WILL APPRECIATE THIS ADVICE !

 

You want chains.

STOP in redding the old 76 up there DOUBLE CHECK THAT WEATHER. And Interstate conditions at the fuel desk if you are heading north on 5. DO NOT. whatever you do THINK about using the little two lane state routes around redding northwards (Or anywards, especially east)

WAIT there until the storm passes, however many days it requires becuase up towards Medford there are equiptment larger than you are doing battle to layer snow higher than you.

When you get to Medford. Scales, pull in. I may be showing my age having passed 50 this week, but make sure you have a good valid red oregon tag up front. And chain.

When you get past Medford you drop down into what I call the Williamette Valley. It's very beautiful up there, especially in the spring. There are two problems with Paradise up there.

Mt St Helens and about 5 other volcanos in the region to the north and east. If you can see snow on top half of the mountain consider the Lahar a real threat to your life should the #### thing blow. It's literally wet concrete 40 feet high or higher going west to the ocean at very high speed.

Problem with paradise number two. The Cascades interpacific fault SUBDUCTION zone. It's 1500 miles long beginning roughly offshore of Redding CA all the way to Prince Rupert (Halfway to freaking AK) IF that thing snaps and it will one day, not if when... you stand to see a tusnami about 1700 plus feet up from the ocean side. In addition to 8.0 that will kill every soul west of and on I5 from Vancouver all the way down to roughly the Williamette.

My writing contains flaws, hyperbole and a touch of drama, but Oregon is a wonderful place and the women.. whoo with that said...the food? mm.

Be very very careful you do not stop anywhere in Portland unless you absolutely have to. Because Portland is a drug haven, a sanctuary city and truckers are viewed as prey with much cash and so on that they need and require to stave off what they call dope sick. You will find them laying in the alley or street waiting for someone to jug em because they are unable to function and will stay there until another user provides a needle with herion in it directly into the jugunlar vien of the neck and kick em back into a functioning state for a few hours again.

There is one other thing about Oregon. Two actually.

Storms off teh pacific. Generally hurricane situation without the hurricane. I think they call em little williwaws but not too familiar with that term. The other thing is the famed Cabbage pass to the east on the road towards Odgen.

Once on Cabbage, eastbound, you cannot ever get that rig beyond what it is posted for you to follow according to your weight. Always be 5 to 10 mph slower when coming off the top at Cabbage because the first mile and half through the scales is deceptive. You will understand what i mean past the first ramp.

 

For the record, my Avatar is a picture of the Columbia River along 84

 

Hijack!!
My avatar is a picture of a print of an alley cat.

 

84 is interesting right about there. You drop down towards the river dam crossing at least one spot along there. There is a difference in altitude that if you have a storm, down there in the bowl is where you do NOT want to be for a while. It will get violent.

The other side of violent is fog that won't quit. It will wrap you good.

OTher times it's really mind blowing, a sort of a lawful high being higher than the clouds and such at 70 mph but where is the freaking roadway? You are fixing to cross a dam down there.

The Dalles is about 200 miles east of Portland, freaking Columbia River all the way. Across the border to WA state to your north, as far as your eyes can see is buffer land left empty because Hanford nuclear weapons plant is up there taking up like half of what God once made across the river for it. It's such a dirty place that even double walled tanks leak to this day.

We have done great things with hanford, but since they built 60,000 nuclear bombs in it's life time it's really a bad place to have to get clean again like they did in Boulder Colorado. They will get it there eventually.

Did you know that we took in and bought 20K of old Soviet Warheads that were unstable and burned them inside our nuclear plants to provide electricity since roughly 1993? And they have done the same for us, buying our old boom booms and burning same in their reactors for power. When we invaded Iraq we had 28K nuclear weapons on alert more or less and since then 20K of those oldest and worst kept bombs have gone to Russia just like their weapons have come to us.

I live very close to a rail line, on which they connect to the base in Jaxville. Rumor has it they have two fresh connections on base into fresh built bunkers within the last ten years to store MX Peacekeeper missiles there. There should be 54 of them there. If they ever roll them out for war and you have lived long enough here to see them roll it, it's in the larger railroad boxcars with the 4 axles underneath on two trucks to each end. Hope you never see those, because if you do you need to find a hole deep enough for what is coming.