October 1, 2000 - Day 2

We woke up around 8:00am, refreshed and ready to head up to Washington.  First, we got breakfast at a truck stop, home the world's largest breakfasts.  We crawled out of the truck stop and back into the trucks.  On our way north, we ran into some solid rain showers, good for getting the trucks clean!  Cameron and I kept the country and reggae music flowing.  We finally came to Biggs, just south of Washington, and got our first glimpse of the Columbia, behind the John Day Dam(Lake Umatilla).  Wide and shallow, and brown colored.  We drove along the Columbia heading due west until we reached the town of Umatilla.  We bought our Oregon licenses there along with a handful of other anglers trickling in.  From Umatilla we crossed the Columbia on the I-82.  From this picture you can see the backside of the McNary Dam.  Our caravan winded through the Tri-Cities (Jerry was in the lead, he'd been there before a few times) and we finally made it to the Days Inn in Richland.  I've really got to give the Days Inn a lot of credit for their accommodations and prices.  They went the extra mile for all the fisherman, feeding us a nice breakfast every morning, keeping our coffee cups full, and arranging one side of the hotel for fishermen only.  We paid just over $35 dollars a night for a nice room!

That afternoon we rode into Pasco for a trip to a local tackle store to pick up our Washington licenses.  Cameron and I pulled out all our stuff and threw into our room.  I mean we had ton of stuff!  All the tackle we owned, accessories and gear.  We spent a few hours rigging our rods, spooling on new P-Line, and basically guessing what we'd be throwing!  Got to bed at a reasonable time.