Great weekend camping trip with Village Home, until we left the campground Sunday. We headed N on 97 because we'd never been up that way before. We stopped by Cove Palisades State park on Lake Billy Chinook to check it out since we're camping there next week.

The lake is at the bottom of the canyon, and you get there by winding down a road with no guardrails and very little shoulder. In case you didn't know, this is Evonne's least favorite kind of road.

So, we check things out for a little while, and then head back up to get some lunch and continue on our way. It's about 11:30am. We're headed up the cliffhugging road when our Windstar stalls out. Did I mention it was about 100 degrees all weekend. After a few minutes of looking under the hood and not seeing anything wrong (like I would know anyway), I start it up again and we are headed up the fairly steep hill. We get about 100 yards when it stalls again. Five minutes later, another 100 yards. We proceed this way for another 30 minutes or so and finally reach the top. The local sheriff stops by and offers to call a tow truck for us.

Madras is the closest town with any kind of auto shop, but no one is open on Sundays so we'll have to stay until Monday. At this point Evonne, who is recovering from a height induced panic attack, the kids, the dog and I have been sitting in a hot car with no A/C and it must be 110 degrees in the car. We are finally next to a shady spot (did I mention we are in the Oregon desert?) so decide to try to cool off a bit while we wait for the tow.

We repack the car (we broke out the cooler and had a snack and drinks) and try again.

It's working! It's working! We're moving for a good 1/2 mile this time, and then we stall out at an intersection with no shade whatsoever. Evonne and the kids are not happy. It will take 45 minutes for the tow truck to get here. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Well, we were able to limp along without the tow for the seven miles to Madras, stalling about 3 times. I look at Evonne and the kids and determine that camping is out of the question, so after we chow down at DQ and I buy several dozen bottles of water at Safeway, we start towards Maupin and The Dalles.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, we got home at 8:30pm.