Travels with Twinkles: Scappoose Travels

August 15 - 17, 2014:

As I was getting the RV propane Tank refilled prior to leaving Kamper's West , there was a guy at the cleaning station with a huge 35 lb. Salmon that he had just caught. He was posing for photos with a big ass grin on his face and for once, I didn't have my camera or phone with me. That's the lesson for today, always be prepared.

Otherwise the 100 mile ride to Scappoose, Oregon on route 30 east went well. It has lots of curves and twists as it follows the Columbia River through miles and miles of logging country and logging trucks, but a decent road to travel from Astoria to the Portland area. We arrived at the Scappoose County Park about noon, a small park next to an airport with fairly level, paved, full hookup sites and a toilet/shower house. We had no idea, but it turns out there is an antique aircraft fly-in event on Saturday at the airport that sounds interesting.

The Indians named the place Scappoose, meaning gravelly plains

The Totem Pole in Scappoosse

Details on the Pole, all the figures have a meaning

A more recent tacky monument in Scappoosse

Twinkles found a quilt shop while I waited outside

On Thursday evening, I had run over something with the Jeep, punctured the tire and had to put the spare tire on. I took the Jeep to a Les Schwab tire shop in the nearby town of St Helens to get it repaired. They took it right in, plugged the tire and re-installed it back on the Jeep at no charge. I was not expecting that as the tires were not bought from them, so if you need tires I highly recommend these guys. Free popcorn in the waiting room too !

The Columbia Theater in St Helens

A strange memorial to a security guard in St Helens

Interesting City Hall in St Helens

Twinkles on the Lewis and Clark trail

Interesting diary entries from Lewis and Clark

On Saturday morning, we went to the airport for the Antique airplane fly-in and car show drive-in event. It was a great event with lots of interesting planes and the car show was better than expected too ! Also a decent live band playing and hot dogs on really great rolls for $2, can't beat that. After tiring of the planes, we took a ride back north to the town of Rainer which has a waterfront marina, a shipyard and a port for large vessels. It is a town in which the train still runs down the center of the old downtown and it must be really cool to see one of those long logging trains come through.

Great flames

A wild Studebaker with a aircraft theme

A beautiful plane

They all really do fly

Another beauty

This plane did an around the world flight

Another beauty

A ship under construction in Rainer

A ship in the Port of Rainer

Painting on Rainer mexican restaurant

Rainer mural

The Ol' Pastime Tavern in Rainer

I had seen a sign for a stock car racing at the River City Speedway in St Helens and couldn't pass that up. Twinkles of course did pass on it, would rather sew, imagine that ? I like the raw, go for broke, crash and burn, unpolished attitude of small time stock car racing (not to be confused with the corporate sponsored Nascar sport where all the race cars have to fit a prescribed template). One of my favorite photos is one I bought of a racer, Jolly Ollie, with his arm in a cast, a big smile on his face and a cigar hanging from his mouth in front of his race car. The spectators at these events are also sort of raw and unpolished which is also OK, in fact refreshing, for a while.

Tight sideways racing on clay surface

The wings are almost larger than the cars

View from the stands

Close racing

Sometimes too close

I thought it very strange to have a raffle
for what looks like an assault rifle at the track

I explore north on route 30 until I come to a turnoff for a farm market on Sauvie Island. I take it as I am in serious need for some real fresh tomatoes. The road goes over a impressive looking bridge then into farm country with several vegetable farms, flower fields and U-pick farms. I stopped at Krugars Farm Market which was beyond good, they had it all.