Road Trip Part 1! Travel South

I really haven't had time to sit down to write any of this other than getting photos into a post and even that was a struggle. So now, over a month later, I have the tale of the drive down.

My trailer was packed, with, in hindsight, more shavings than I needed and plenty of Leche's new things.

We left early enough that we were catching the early glimmers of sunrise coming up over the Cascades. This is a view I love. 

 Unfortunately, the clear skies left fairly quickly as we proceeded south through Washington. The timing of us leaving worked perfectly with all the respective rush hours of the various cities we had to pass through (Redmond, Bellevue, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia)

Marshy areas south of Olympia.

We hit some fog in Southern Washington and I had to do a double take with this car because there was an INCREDIBLY realistic, lifesize decal of a cat. As you can see. 

And then before I knew it we were crossing the bridge from Vancouver WA into Portland OR!

There are lots of bridges in Portland, mainly because a river runs through dang center of the city. 

After Portland we were on a very VERY boring straight away through the Willamette valley. It was flat forever, with mountains far in the distance. 

But as we reached the southern portion of the valley, the mountains reappeared and we began our ascent toward the passes that would encompass much of southern Oregon. 

Lots of farm fields and sheep.

The mountains looked familiar, very much like the western side of the Cascades. 

This part of Oregon is very pretty, but also not incredibly populated. There were small towns here and there, but we weren't near major cities at this point. 

You hit the passes in Oregon, much higher than any pass is in Washington state, and that's how you know you're almost done. Because coming down out of the pass you get your first views of California with just a glimmer of Mt. Shasta in the distance.

There she is and we'd get MUCH closer as the day wore on.

When we could see the California border on map, it was a big deal.

We made it to California!

We spent a long time on approach to Shasta and it really impressed just how giant it is. 

Fun fact, Shasta has the greatest prominence of the volcanic peaks in the Cascade range, which means that you can see the majority of it from base to peak, as opposed to peaks like Rainer which have quite a bit of foothills to hide the true height.

There was this tiny little mini peak off to the side, which I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what exactly it was since it wasn't fully labeled as a solo item. It seems to just be the Shasta Ski slopes but didn't have much snow.

And as full circle to the day, after we left Shasta in our rearview mirror and came into the valley, the sun began to set and the remaining travel time dwindled.

We were squarely in farmland again and eventually the sun fully set.

My friend was off at dinner, but we got there, and I got to see Dulcinea in person, finally!

Cortney and I found a hole in the wall mexican place where everyone who was eating there was speaking spanish, so we figured it had to be good. We managed to come in during a lull so the wait was minimal. Friends were surprised we managed to even get a seat. 

After food we headed back to the barn to meet up with Keila and say hello to Baby Girl again, who was suspicious and perplexed. I promised her we'd have much more time tomorrow to get acquainted. 

Soooooo narrow hahahahah

Countdown to Leche: The Trailer Drama T-3 Days

My checklist has progressed 

✅ Trailer serviced, all done and picked up and mechanic approved to go to Cali

✅ Pack trailer: Spare halters, multiple lunge lines, spare lead ropes plus what's already with her in CA. First Aid kit, lots of buckets.

✅ Book a place to stay in California

✅ Buy grain for Leche: I have a bin for grain storage that will go on the shelf, reusable ziploc bags to hold the grain, just need to figure out portion sizes for her and bring some of her old grain with me to transition her

🔲 New board contract signed

🔲 Make feed instruction sign for grain room

🔲 Pack clothes for trip: we did do a ton of laundry over the weekend so this should be easy enough

If you recall, I had mentioned that there was drama involved with dropping my trailer off for servicing. The weekend prior to my scheduled drop off date at the dealership, a friend borrowed the truck and it had a dead battery. The truck was jumped and they proceeded with their dump run with minimal fuss and the truck was returned and parked. 

I intended to drop my trailer off the night before so I didn't delay the start of my work day, except when I went to start my truck, that evening, it wouldn't start. It wouldn't even try to turn over. Since both of our other vehicles are electric, we had to pull out the marine battery I use for camping and my CPAP and jump the truck off of that battery. It turned on and the engine purred just fine. I hooked up and headed to the dealership with the trailer.

Once there, I discovered that they close off their lot. So while they may say drop off after hours is okay, there wasn't a good place to put my trailer that wasn't painfully obvious to someone who might want to take it. I agonized about putting it in the back of their spare lot but ultimately decided I didn't' want to leave it overnight in an open lot. 

All of this was occurring on February 7, which just so happened to be the 20th anniversary of when Claire and I started dating. 

So I headed back home, a little discouraged and wondering how long it was going to take to get the truck running the next morning and worried that I wouldn't get the trailer serviced in time. I parked everything, turned the truck off and prayed that the battery was holding a charge after the driving I had done.

Nope. Immediately dead.

So Claire and I went on a late night drive to AutoZone to purchase a battery and we spent the evening slowly figuring out how to remove the hold battery (and shearing a bolt in the process) and install the new battery. 

The new battery was, thankfully, the solution. When Claire looked up life expectancy of truck batteries we were looooong past end of life for my truck, so it's honestly surprising there weren't issues sooner.  

The trailer was in good condition according to the mechanic, all electrical was good, bearings on both the main tires and spare were great. It's peace of mind.

And then I had far too much seafood at an after work dinner with colleagues. 

And there were flowers in early February!