I'm up and away for a stroll at 5.30am and it's already about 70deg F, we head down by the river, and are rather supprised by the number of fishermen that are at the waters edge.
I strike up a conversation with an elderly gent, he tells me the river has been at record levels this I could see with the mud and sand around the low lying streets in the Dalles, where some floodind had occured, and we could see the large amount of water flowing over the spill way from the Dalles Dam, he said it had effected the barge traffic on the river, and through the Dam locks ( there being I think 11 Dams on the Columbia River between Portland and the Canadian border.)


We head out over the Dalles Bridge, and were in awe of the amount of water coming down the spillway of the Dam to the right of us. We head for the Black Butte walk, and head for the spots that we looked at yesterday, the wind is fair blowing and, one has to be careful as we are on a ledge of basalt rock above the tracks. we move to a more secure position and await the trains.


We called this day "Missed them all Day' we waited over four hours and saw nothing in either direction however on the Oregon side of the river we counted 5 Union pacific freights.Thats it pack up gear and head back to car park and away down to Wishram. The place is busy with workmen, I spot a guy with some flags, he the protection flagman, protecting the workers on the new platform being built, I ask him for some info, he's forthcoming. "Yea they have just lifted the workwindow, have to go and flag a westbound through" that was all we needed, we could hear him whistling for the flagman, into car and away, the only problem with Wishram is by the time you proceed through the small settlement at 10mph then wind your way back
to the main road you have lost the train, but we managed to get in behind an 18 wheeler!


Back down to Horse Thief Lake park where will stay here for the rest of the day. We run into a couple of rail fans from the east, who ask us whats around, while we are talking we hear a whistle heading over the causeway, to late! as we miss a very late running Portland section of the "Empire Builder", damn it! We have to stay over where we can see the tracks.


By this time the wind has really increased in intensity and I'm a bit iffy about leaving the Video camera on the tripod, I drop the legs down so its sitting low to the ground, stood up and we were hit by a strong gust, and I mean gust! next thing I hear a bang and the camera is in the dust.
Thats got to be it, after falling out of the boot at Dunsmuir, I think it will have given up. Back to the car to check it out. It worked perfect! so Canon you do make them well, or I have been just plain lucky!


The wind was becoming a real problem, making it difficult to film Video, as the camera was shaking like hell. I head up to the Park Building to have a pee, the Park Staff tell me the wind is gusting up to 70mph no bloody wonder we struggle to stand up.
Thats it put video camera away, and use the digital camera.
We did manage to get a number of trains passing over the causeway at Horse Thief Lake.I was rather pleased that I managed to get the DPU units, on both the BNSF - UP trains on opposite sides of the river