STE1 Hop 1
The drama of this hop is captured in the map above, which is incorrect. Google insisted, up until the moment we left Tillamook, that I-84 was closed through the Columbia Gorge due to a wildfire. I could not find any corroboration for that. To the contrary, the Oregon DOT website reported that I-84 was open and had been open for nearly a week. I can’t explain Google’s inability to change the status because it is usually pretty good about this. But, because I couldn’t get an accurate map, we had to first route ourself to the refueling stop (a Love’s truck stop just east of Portland), then continue on I-84 east.
I-84 east was, indeed, open. However, it also had some significant construction that cost us about 30 minutes of nasty traffic. The result was that his hop took nearly 5.5 hours – one of our longest, time-wise, hops on this entire trip. And most of it was done in rain.
Not a fun hop.
I did get one decent photo at a rest stop in the gorge.
Columbia River in the Gorge