"Free Wi-Fi" seems to be a case of getting what I paid for.

It’s 4:30 p.m. and I’m sitting in a campground 100 miles south of Portland, so I’ll have a short drive tomorrow to get to the airport by noon. I had hoped to get into our reserved spot at Champoeg a night early, but when I called he said it was occupied tonight. So I found this place, on a large reservoir a few miles off I-5. I got one of two spots left, and I’m the only one in the entire place (50 sites?) not here for the water sports. I may also be the only tent. Everyone else seems to have a trailer or motor home, and many have boat trailers. Kids everywhere, which is fine. What isn’t fine is the guy 50 yards away who has a generator running. PLEASE tell me that won’t run all night. I’d almost rather have cops in the parking lot. Although the $14 for this spot under a tree beats what I paid for that slightly creepy motel room. (You don’t want to know about the sheets.)

Today’s drive got a lot more interesting once I was about 100 miles north of Sacramento. I’d forgotten how pretty that route past Mt. Shasta is. My gas mileage is lower today - 21 mpg instead of 23 mpg. - but I was up and down through the various mtn. passes. For almost the whole drive since leaving the L.A. basin I-5 has been two lane freeway, and the semi’s have a difficult time pulling the grades we shared today. So what I gained in scenery I lost in efficiency. A string of semi’s in the right lane inevitably causes a bottleneck in the left lane.

I had hoped to get a bike ride in this evening before the sun went down. But this campground sits off a two lane road that isn’t straight for more than 200 yards at a time. There’s no shoulder and the cars treat it like the road course at Watkins Glen. I don’t think Pam would be too happy if I didn’t show up tomorrow because I was a bump on the pavement.

My favorite part of the instructions for putting up the tent is the line, “with two people, have one of them...” The older couple in the trailer across the loop got their entertainment for the day watching me do it by myself. But hey, it’s up. I didn’t put the rain fly one because it’s not going to rain. The rain fly also provides privacy (the roof of the tent is mesh), and if we get much dew I’ll be soaked AND cold.
OK, so maybe I’ll go put the rain fly on. This is Oregon, after all.

Oregon is one of two states (New Jersey is the other) that don’t let you pump your own gas. I forgot that until I couldn’t get the gas pump to work. Then the guy with the shaved head, soul patch and lip piercing showed up and I remembered. I asked him if Oregon would ever change that law and he told me that would immediately eliminate 30,000 to 40,000 jobs. His unspoken point was that the state would never do that, especially at a time of already high unemployment.

I told him in Arizona we’re paying $2.73 for gas, but it just went up from $2.69. His response: “Wow! I can’t remember it being that low here.” Yeah, well $3.19 pretty much blew me away. So the great state of Oregon keeps upwards of 30,000 people employed by adding something around 45 cents to a gallon of gas. Decent trade-off?

I thought about that as I drove away from the station. Carry that logic out and we should eliminate any do-it-yourself activity. Public restrooms should require paid attendants to flush the toilets - which would become pay toilets to cover their employment. That would add another 10,000 jobs to the state’s economy. How about a separate employee who swipes my debit card any time I buy something? Valet parking in every lot? Personal assistants for each grocery cart to get the Honey Nut Cheerios off the shelf. Oregon could achieve 100% employment inside of a few months!
I don’t see a downside to this, do you??