This weekend we meet Taylor Smith and her husband, Dan, at Elk City Park, OR. I used to work with Taylor at the Technical Support Center at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business in the early 2000’s.
Taylor and Dan have been living in the Portland area for over 20 years, so I gave Taylor a ping when I finally reached Oregon. After a couple weeks of emailing and planning, we finally got together for the first time in about 16 years!
On Friday and Saturday nights, we visited around the camp fire and made smores. Taylor likes to heat up the chocolate on the fire grate, which definitely makes a better smore in my opinion.
On Saturday, we did a 2.7 mile hike at the Olalla Reservoir. Blackberries are in season all over Oregon and Taylor and I eat our share during the hike. Dan abstained, saying he would drive us to the hospital after eating the wild berries… It was a pretty trail with lots of mossy trees that I associate with the area.
Taylor and Dan also do some serious off-roading in their Jeeps, so Dan was able to teach me about deflating the van tires for a better ride on the grave roads. I’d heard about doing that for driving on beaches, but didn’t know that also applies to gravel roads. It really improved the ride of the van and the amount of vibration inside the van. That gives me more confidence to try dispersed camping on BLM land, which is only accessible by gravel road…
Dan also shares the tip that you can go to a closed weigh station to find out what your vehicle weighs. We happen upon a weigh station and do just that. My van comes in at 6600 pounds. Google says the average weigh of a RAM Promaster 2500 camper van is 7000 to 8900 pounds.
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