The Maiden Voyage of Do-Si-Do
It was our first adventure with our new to us 2012 Casita travel trailer we call Do-Si-Do. We had already taken it out for a couple of test-tows, but this was the real thing - at freeway speeds and going up and down hills to the Oregon coast!
Sometimes you just close your eyes and jump. At this moment, as we pulled out of the driveway at 8:00 am, it felt like we were jumping alright - but our eyes were wide open with, shall we say “a slight case of angst” while we white-knuckled ourselves into the unknown! We had some work done on the old Nissan Quest to make it more worthy of the title “Tow Vehicle” but we could only hope and pray that the old minivan would consent to pulling our new toy to the shore - and back!
As we inched down the driveway early that Saturday, we were immediately confronted with the horrific sound of the hitch scraping on the steep driveway, surely waking the neighbors (they were probably laughing at us). We used some boards under the van’s back tires to even out the opposing angles of driveway and street and eventually creeped out without further commotion.
How are the brakes? Did you latch all the cabinet doors? Are the vent hatches down? You hooked up the emergency brake cable, right? Did you lock the door? What about the anti-sway bar? Are the chains crisscrossed? By time we exhausted all our nervous questioning of each other, we were on the freeway!
OK - Do-Si-Do is towing fine. We are on the way! As I’m looking into passenger side rearview mirror, watching the cute little fiberglass orb being pulled merrily behind us, I start to smile with happy excitement - until I notice that we left the step down! Bill took the first exit and pulled into a parking lot. I jumped out to raise the step and take another look around the camper, then jumped back in - and we were off! Except we were confronted by another sharp driveway/street convergence just waiting to expose our newbie-ness! Bill hesitated, I said “just go!” and off we went with a little scrape and a quick getaway!
Traffic through Seattle was light and we cruised by Tacoma, around Olympia, and west toward the coast then south on Highway 101. It was a familiar route, we had driven it many times - get up in the morning, fill the tank, and arrive at the shore around noon. As you head west then south from Olympia the road winds through farmland and along marshlands dotted with tiny oyster villages. It’s very scenic… At Montesano we had a navigation glitch and had to make a few turns to get back to our route. It was a quick fix and we were soon puttering through Raymond, past the “metal people” sculptures that inspired some serious barking by Poppy! “How are we doing with gas?” “We have half a tank - we should probably stop and fill up at the next station…” As we bobbed along the road, enjoying the scenery, we realized that the gas gage was going down very quickly and we hadn’t seen anything resembling a gas station since Raymond - and the prospects of finding one before Astoria weren’t promising, especially since I didn’t have cell service out there and couldn’t search for the inconspicuous station 1/2 mile off our route. At this point, navigation said 34 miles to Astoria. The dashboard calculator said 42 miles till empty - that’s cutting it a little close we thought! As we made the curve to parallel the bank of the great Columbia River, navigation said 9 miles to Astoria, but the gas calculator said 10 miles till empty! What? The gas-use calculations were changing, and not in our favor! We looked at each other with wide eyes - the angst was back - because before you get to Astoria, you have to climb the impressive Astoria-Megler Bridge.
As we made our way onto the bridge deck, the dashboard said 4 miles till empty. The bridge is 4.1 miles long, has one lane of traffic in each direction and doesn’t have shoulders…. We crossed the flat part of the bridge and stared ahead, in terror, at the portion of the span that rises 200 feet above the Columbia River (that’s so high huge container ships pass under on their way to Portland). If we could make it to the crown of the bridge we could coast down to the nearest gas station - if we didn’t… it was really too much to think about! As we climbed the imposing slope the dashboard reported 0 miles till empty. Our hearts racing, we kept climbing, each of us holding our breath like balloons trying to lighten the load! Up, up, up…
Would we make it? Or, would we be featured on the evening news?
