Foiled plans

We are at the Kah-Nee-Tah High Desert Resort and Casino, near Warm Springs, Oregon on the Warm Springs reservation (map). It's beautiful here, and this is a nice property, where we could easily spend another night. Unfortunately, we are still out of water.

We did stop yesterday in Madras, where our guide claimed there was water at the city park. We found the park, and it, too, would have been a lovely stop, but could find no spigot. There were bathrooms, though. We opted to continue here, knowing that the tribe also operates an RV park just half a mile from here. We stopped at the Safeway in Madras before leaving town, complete with gas station, but could find no water there, either.

On our way in to the casino here, we did stop at "the village" where the RV park is located. The entire village is gated and there is a $5 day use fee; the entry road past the gate looked to be a challenge for Odyssey. Louise asked at the gatehouse if there was any way we could get some water, and the response was sure, so long as we wanted to spend the night in the $53.50 per night RV park. That might actually be tempting mid-summer, when we could use the power for air conditioning and when the included admission to the mineral springs pool complex, complete with water slides, might be enjoyable.

We knew we had enough at least for showers last night and dishes this morning, and so we just came here to the casino instead. I did transfer a few gallons to the wash tank out of the drinking water tank, just in case. We had a nice dinner at the casual Chinook restaurant in the casino (the white tablecloth Juniper Room is only open on the weekends at this time of year), and the casino gave us $5 apiece in slot play for signing up in the players' club, which we parlayed into $5.25 in actual cash.

My plan today had been to turn north off 26 just before Mount Hood onto 35, which would take us to Hood River on the Columbia. From there I planned to wend our way north through the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, past the east side of Mount Saint Helens, and into Randall. Unfortunately, this has been a late storm season (it is snowing around Mount Hood even as I type), and two of the roads we'd need to take through the forest are still closed. In fact, one of them, Forest 25, suffered a landslide last year and will probably not open until late in the summer, if at all this season.

That means that we will continue along 26 all the way to Portland, instead. We'll pass by the southwest flank of Hood on our way, and will probably have to push through some snow today. We should be somewhere near Rhododendron tonight, and if we don't have water by then, we will swing by Flying-J in Troutdale tomorrow. The good news here is that we have friends in Portland, and I am crossing my fingers that we'll be able to get together on short notice. Since we had not planned on passing through, I had not contacted them ahead of time.

I now need to rethink what we will be doing over the next week. We could be at Infinity in just a day or two after hitting the I-5 corridor, which is a bit too soon. One possibility will be to make a few stops at various shops en route, such as Peninsula Glass where we can get our screens replaced, or Pacific Power to get a new PROM for the ECM. Alternatively, we can head over to the coast for a few days, although the weather does not seem particularly conducive to that.