I’m not sure why The Dalles exists.  Granted, that goes for a lot of places that I’ve visited in the last three months — most of the area between San Jose and San Francisco serves no purpose, either.  It’s just a place to store people.  People storage, that’s my new name for the south bay.

I think The City of the Dalles exists for the sheer purpose of having the most awesome name in the United States.  Sure, there are places like Intercourse, Blue Ball, and Bird-in-Hand (all in PA), but no city is daring enough to have “City” at the beginning of its name instead of the end, nor bold enough to put the word “the” in the middle.

When people heard I was traveling to THE DALLES (it’s even more powerful when you capitalize it), they asked, “what is that?  I’ve heard of it but didn’t understand.”  Many of them pronounced it “The Dallas,” which is.. totally wrong.

I don’t have a lot more to say about The Dalles.  The Baldwin Saloon (http://www.yelp.com/biz/baldwin-saloon-the-dalles) is an amazing place to eat and drink – I met a bunch of incredibly friendly locals.  Nelson Tire Factory fixed a leak for me and tightened my hitch ball for free.  I camped in a parking lot near the river.  The trains that go through here are extremely long and frequent, and almost have a mysterious quality — they gave me the feeling that I can only assume made my grandfather enamored with trains for most of his life.

The Dalles also has some other neat engineering feats, like a hydroelectric dam and various other technological marvels under heavy guard that are not open to the public.  There’s also apparently a great no-kill animal shelter.  I love Oregon, did I mention this?

Wikipedia just told me that The Dalles’s main claim to fame is that it is the end of the Oregon Trail.  And now you have died of dysentery.

Posted in: Oregon