portland heat

There’s a bit of a heatwave in the Portland area (100F) that was supposed to be my next stop.   Not a big deal for Texas but Oregonians don’t have A/C to cope with such things.

It was about 10F cooler on the coast so I headed toward Seaside.  On the way there was a sign that said “DRINKING WATER .25 MILE” which caught my full boondocking attention.  Water came right off the mountain and into a concrete structure with a pipe:

[caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”2560”] tasty and cold enough to hurt[/caption]

Didn’t time it, but I’m guessing 2-3gpm.   I put ~10gal in the tank and refilled the bladder since it was free and easy.

Free-flowing water is a hallmark of the Portland area, in my mind at least.  Reminds me of the downtown “bubblers”.   That and wild blackberry brambles as long as a city block.

Made it to Seaside around noon, and experienced my first traffic jam in a long time.  I guess people are trying to cool off at the beach. It was 90F when we arrived and has since dropped to 86F.

Muffin and I tried to make it to water but the sand was too hot to walk on.  I was surprised since it was a light buff color:

We went to a city park about a mile away to open up, reorganize, and let the dog sleep in the shade.  Coming up/down forest roads shakes everything loose and it’s a game up pick-up.

I need to do some laundry while in town.  I’ll look for a place after it cools down a bit.     My eventual goal is to re-visit Portland once the temps stabilize a bit.