Up early in the morning of the 5th to try to fix the squealing brakes before they drove me crazy ! Reed and I left the house at 7 and drive over to Brad Sewart's, who had kindly offered us the use of his garage and tools, including his hoist. And let me say, the hoist is a true godsend - Raising the car up to a workable height so there is no bending over and the associated sore back afterwards !! I WANT ONE FOR CHRISTMAS !!!! Objective was to get the work done as quickly as possible and then get on the road to Portland. Thank you very much Brad - I owe you.
To save Reed from standing around feeling bored, I asked him to take the seats out so we could get the handbrake linkage reconnected - Just a cotter pin that had worn away and allowed the handbrake linkage to come undone - Easy - if you could only reach it !! Anyway, Reed did that while I swapped the front discs to the rear, took out the front pads and de-glazed them and chamfered the leading edge of the pads (all hints offered by other Elise owners !) I also applied spray de-squeal to the discs themselves, as well as putting the orange de-sqeal goo on the back of the pads, and then put them back together. We were all finished by about 10 am, and we drove back to Reed's house in silence - Until the last corner when there was a quiet but unmistakeable squeal. Doesn't look like it has been effective, dammit. However if nothing else, I now have an operating handbrake which is needed for the ferries I will be on in the coming weeks, so at least the work that Reed did was effective, even if mine wasn't !! And I will put the EBC Greenstuff pads in when I get to Anacortes and see if they make any difference.
So packed up quickly at Reed's so he could get back to work, and then I headed off towards Portland Oregon and my next stop. I never knew it existed before (purely through my geographical ignorance), but there is a massive gorge that runs virtually the whole way from Richland to Portland - The Columbia Gorge. And it is truly spectacular, with a road to match, as well as a fascinating history. Basically there is a regular highway (presumably the "old road") on the north side which, while slower, is much more spectacular, while on the south side a freeway (I 84) runs along the side of the gorge, as well as a railway on each side, one run by Burlington National, and the other by another rail line - Santa Fe ? And on the river there is the barge traffic. So it is a busy transport hub, and in many ways reminded me of the Rhine in Germany. So after driving around the freeway to Hermiston and the start of the gorge, I (of course) opted to run on the north side !! At first it is a fairly straight road on top of the gorge, through rolling agricultural farming land, which in itself is quite dramatic. Lot of high voltage electricity pylons - I later realised they eminated from the dams further down the river that I was to see later on. Also two or three enormous wind farms - I estimated over 100 propellors in each of them, so I presume this must be a pretty windy part of the world !!
Anyway, the road winds down the side of the gorge, no sharp bends but just lovely sweeping curves and dips that if you are sitting on about 60 or 70 mph are just great to take without lifting. Also fun watching people behind, who have been thinking of overtaking me on the straights, either loose 100 yards because they brake for the corner, or come round the corner with their car leaning like a Citroen Deux Chevaux because they thought they could keep up with me !! Snigger.
I was fascinated by how the gorge was formed, because it wasn't typical of a river-eroded gorge, and wasn't rounded enough to be glacial. So I finally stopped when I saw a kind of "Gorge Discovery Centre" and learned the answer. Waaaaaaay back in time, all the way back up in Missoula Montana where I had been a few days previously, a massive ice wall had formed a dam across the Missoula valley, and blocked billions of gallons of water over time. Eventually, whether due to higher temperatures or something else, this ice wall gave way, and released all this water and it churned all the way from Montana, west across Idaho, and eventually scoured out the Columbia Gorge. Records I saw said the water column was at least 100 ft high, and carried with it all sorts of boulders and detritus that carved out the gorge in pretty quick time (historically speaking). And this also explains why they find enormous boulders that originate in Montana or Idaho down in Washington or Oregon where those particular rock formations just don't exist ! And today we see this massive gorge that runs for some 200 miles, and in which the Columbia River has played such an vital role in the development of the region by providing a means of transportation over the years.
Eventually I crossed over to the southern side just to experience the freeway that is also pretty dramatic, winding its was along the bottom of the gorge with the railroad with its frequent long freight trains on one side and the river with its barge traffic on the other. Good views of the dams that were spewing water to alleviate all the snow melt and recent rains coming down all the way from its source in British Columbia were possible from the freeway - The river has the greatest flow of any N. American river emptying into the Pacific, which lends itself to the efficient generation of Hydro Electricity. Eventually the land levelled out and there was just a short run into Portland. Basically north of the river is Vancouver Washington, and south of the river is Portland Oregon, so one spends a lot of time crossing backwards and forwards, and explains why I actually stayed in Vancouver Washington, while the Lotus meeting I attended the next night was in Portland Oregon !
Getting close to town, the sky got blacker and blacker, and I made the decision to put the roof on - Once again, just in the nick of time as within a couple of miles it was not only raining heavily, but for maybe 5 minutes we went through a sizeable hail storm (luckily only with small hail) but it turned the road white and slippery for a short distance.
By about 5 pm I was at Jim and Carol McVein's house, who had generously agreed to put me up for a couple of nights, and after looking enviously over his fully registered 2 litre Opel / GM engined Super 7 (Once again, don't ask !!), his Lotus F. Ford, and his Mk 1 Lotus Cortina, it was a cold beer, a feed and into bed after a long day !! Jim generously put his Range Rover outside so Elsie could stay in the garage out of the rain.
Photos of the day here :-
https://picasaweb.google.com/117739775480775657932/RichlandToPortlandOR?authkey=Gv1sRgCNftsu-Hv7DN_wE#
