From The Dalles

Sailing with Dummies
Monday, April 27, 2009
by Mike

At 3:15 in the afternoon the wind blew from the northwest. Not too strong, but steady. It was cloudy and chilly. No rain, luckily. It was time to leave The Dalles.

We had called ahead and arranged for the Hood River Bridge to be raised for us at 6:00. We estimated that we should leave by 3:30 to get there by 6:00 (but that depended on the wind and current). The left transmission would still not go forward, so we untied the dock lines and backed the Minnow into the Columbia River.

The current was with us and the wind was against us. Still, we made it to the Hood River Bridge just before 6:00 and the operator was there to stop traffic and raise it for us.The Bonneville Lock was almost three hours ahead. Our plan was to anchor above the Lock, but we were making good time so we opted to continue on.

We entered the Bonneville Lock in twilight. The wind died and the echo was strong. After I finished a rip-roaring rendition of “In the Mood” the operator came out and yelled down to us from the railing above: “I used to play that in high school.” He then told us that his favorite march was “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Bob proceeded to play him a spirited version of “Stars and Stripes.”

When we left 30 minutes later it was dark. We went on for about an hour and then anchored for the night.

Daily Cuisine:
We ate good today. Meredith sprung for breakfast at the pancake house. Ken Patchett invited us to eat lunch at Google.

Additional Important Information:
Uncle Meredith is known in The Dalles as “Van” Valkenburgh. Every time I called him Meredith it confused people. They all call him “Van.” It confused Meredith when Ken from Google told him to park down by the white “vans.”

Even though he’s a lawyer he was a great host. He fed us a lot of times. He chauffeured us around town. He took us on a historic, narrated, scenic motor tour of The Dalles. He introduced us to some really interesting and nice people. And (yes this is the truth) he was on time or early every single time we met. Honest!