Bad Water in Baker City

 

 

Historic RV in Baker City, Oregon

 

Many of you have asked "Where the hell has the blog gone? What happened? Did you fall into a hole?"  Well, yes, we very nearly did at Crater Lake, Ore-eh-gone on a narrow road without guard rails with a steep drop of a thousand feet or more and heavy monsoon-like rains coming at you from all directions. To say nothing of lead-footed Euros barreling about in rented RVs.  More about our death-defying encounter at Crater Lake in a future post.

For the past week or more we have been without internet and cell service so today, August 9, we are down and locked for a couple of days in Susanville, California in a very nice RV park with wifi, cable, and a WalMart and Safeway right across the street. Only thing missing is Costco. More about Susanville later.

Let's back up a week to an overnight stay in Baker City in eastern Oregon. Pulled into a historic RV park with everything from covered wagons (America's first RVs) that broke down on the Oregon Trail...

to this general store stocked with foods like fat back, salt pork,
saltpeter and for me, Jujubes, Neccos, and Red Vines.

We got settled in, started to hook up the park's water supply and a wild mountain man screamed "Whoa, pardner. Don't hook up. It's pie-sunned!!!"
Baker City's water supply was contaminated by something called "crystosporidium", a parasite or bacteria brought about by animal feces. In this case, the local reservoir had a herd of goats pooping in it. At least that's what I read on the internet when the story made national news. The federal EPA has become involved as people all across the city are retching and vomiting on the streets, just like the olden days. So far no deaths reported. Fortunately for us, we had plenty of stored water in the trailer and fellow campers were begging us for just a sip. We told them we couldn't spare a drop.

So park management, angered by our stinginess, made us move the rig and Prius to another spot, next to this fully-loaded hissing propane tank. And if you've ever parked five feet away from a five-thousand gallon hissing propane tank, you know the feeling.

In the middle of the night someone placed these three omens of death in front of our rig: ravens made from shovels. Oh...I'm so scared.

We knew these folks were serious about stealing our sweet water when they huddled in this trailer to conspire against us.

So early in the morning we hooked up and sneaked away, leaving Baker City to deal with its misery (the water issue was quickly cleared up and a couple of Baker Cityzens said the government overreacted). Now aren't you sorry you wondered what happened to our blog?

Next stop, where it all started and ended for Tire King, Les Schwab.

Bye-bye. Buy Starbucks.