The next morning we participated in an amusing funkhana. Later, after some routine maintenance we took a short drive through the local hills along the Salmon River. The road was beautiful, so when it turned to dirt we couldn't resist continuing on up the canyon to the road's end. It is times like these that make me glad to not own a trailer queen.

The event organizers had put together various self-guided tours but we felt adventurous so on day four we headed out on our own, armed with a really bad map that for some reason showed state highways in the same color as dirt roads. We started out on main roads, taking a counter-clockwise tour around Mount Hood. The weather at the hotel was cold and drizzly, and we ascended right into the clouds. This was the first time we had ever used the side screens but it was really cold and wet. Soon we broke out of the bad weather into beautiful blue skies which was quite welcome.

There were some great small towns along the way and no lack of spectacular scenery. We took a small detour to Lost Lake before heading for the hotel. The road down the mountain was one of the most incredible roads I've ever driven, as if it were tailored for this car. It was very narrow and mildly twisty, surrounded by lush forest and incredible views of the surrounding mountains. We enjoyed it immensly as one of the highlights of our trip and vowed to drive it again some day.

It was then that we were surprised by the end of the pavement. We had 30 minutes to get to the awards banquet and there was 15 miles to go on increasingly bad dirt roads. The TC took a beating (the front end got airborne once!) but it performed quite well as we traveled through the middle of the wilderness. I decided to wait to inform my wife that I had failed to put a jack in the car before we left.