taking a break

It's about 11:30PM, and I've been walking pretty much all this time. I stopped at Bridal Veil Park to take a much-needed dump (hello again, turkey club sandwich!), but otherwise I've been on this Historic Highway, wanting like hell to get onto I-84, but always unable to.

It's been an exercise in frustration. From a bit before Crown Point, the highway began to descend, switchbacking along the mountain contours, bringing me ever closer to my goal, which was to walk eastward on the shoulder of westbound I-84 until I found an exit to a campground or cheap motel (yeah, I saw a hitchhiking site that quoted Oregon traffic law re: hitching and pedestrians, and pedestrians do seem to be able to walk the freeways here; a commenter linked to a different hitching site from the one I saw, but linked the same legal info).

Unfortunately, the highway began to behave more like a graph of "1/x." You know the graph: the plotteds curves come closer and closer to the X and Y axes, but never touch them.

Yes: tonight, I-84 is my asymptote, and it's pissing me off. The Historic Highway has on several occasions brought me downward and leftward to put me within spitting distance of the railroad tracks separating me from the freeway... but every time I swerved nearer, I'd end up swerving away, upward and rightward. I'm ready to kill the people who constructed this road. Or maybe I should kill the builders of I-84; the highway's probably been around longer, and it would have been up to the freeway builders to add the requisite off-ramps.

The ex-Marine at the Super 8 motel in Troutdale had told me that Mulnomah Falls was a must-see; it was a shame to pass it in the dark tonight, as all the restaurants and shops were closing for the night. I was starting to hope that the Falls would have a hotel on the grounds; it's probably a good thing they don't, because I imagine it'd be pretty expensive.

So here I sit, still on Historic Highway, barely 150 yards from I-84. I'm in some sort of parking lot, perhaps one of those places where a driver can pull off the road and take a nap. Aside from the distant glow of headlights and taillights from the freeway, the night is dark. The trees rise above me on either side of the road, a jagged trench of blackness. The sky grins its starry grin, and the night is, thankfully, cool enough to send most of the mosquitoes packing.

I had refilled my Camelbak at Chanticleer Point, so I don't currently lack for water. After I rest a bit more, I plan to keep walking until I finally hit the damn interstate, and when I see an exit for a cheap hotel, I'll take it and book myself for two nights. I think I'll have earned it.

So... gotta get up and go soon. Ah, yes-- one more thing I should note: after about 9PM, the highway pretty much emptied out. Except for the very occasional car, I've been alone with the forest sounds, walking in the dark. Unlike that walk along Chuckanut Drive in Washington, though, the night here is darker, so I've been hugging the middle of the road (the double-yellow line is a barely-visible gray blur, easier to see when you look away from it) to avoid pitching off a steep drop on my left or grazing mossy boulders on my right.

More later, folks. I'll be curious to see how many miles I walked when I next get hold of a real computer.

A quick PS: just as I was finishing this post up, an SUV drove by, braked, stopped, then swerved partway into the parking lot to point its lights right at me. I understand the driver's curiosity, but shining your headlights on someone is pretty rude. I wonder whether the driver has called the police. Maybe I'd better get going, eh?


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