In early June, while the rest of the USA was experiencing a heatwave, it was cold and wet here in Oregon. Just in time for the annual Gambler 500. This is an incredible event that encourages drivers to utilize inexpensive cars and drive offroad from different starting points in the Willamette Valley, ending at a fixed location in Central Oregon called Gambler town. This year, the finishing point was in Redmond, Oregon.

During the drive, everyone is asked to pick up trash and other items found out in the wilderness, and dispose of it properly, or drop it at Gamblertown. Despite the bad weather, this year a record-setting 1000 cubic yards of trash was picked up!

We have participated in the Gambler 500 for several years so we went on our own path – following only a couple sections of the official waypoints. Our intention was to end Day 1 somewhere in the Ochoco National Forest to the east or Prineville, Oregon, but we had some mechanical issues along the way and camped near the Metolius River instead. Due to the weather, we found several spots of snow that were a challenge to pass and some deep water we had to get through – all in all it was an excellent first day.

Our vehicles on this trip included the familiar Mercedes ML320 we’ve used on several previous trips, my 1981 EJ swapped Subaru Hatchback, the LS-swapped Subaru Ute (called the LSbaru), a Toyota 4Runner 400,000 miles on the clock, and lifted Subaru WRX. Each of us had some sort of “special” feature that made this trip rather interesting. 

In the morning, Jaime, Jessica and Jessie made the decision to turn around and head back home after the LSbaru transmission continued to leak and the risk of further damage was too great. We were sad to leave them, but continued on to find fuel because we were all low. We drove some incredible roads through The Cove Palisades State Park along Lake Billy Chinook, and ended up in Culver, Oregon, before continuing offroad in the Crooked River National Grassland. After some very slick roads, we drove on the pavement to the start of our very long route across the Ochoco National Forest.

After passing through 5000 feet, it started to snow and our journey became more interesting due to the large amount of deep puddles on the road (including some water that went up and over the 1981 Subaru’s hood).  Dale lost part of his exhaust, Daniel got some new clutch fluid, Stephen’s intake mount was replaced by zip ties, and most of the views were blocked by snow clouds – however, we ended up at camp just before sunset, and before we all started to freeze (it was 28 degrees when we went to sleep that night!). 

Our final day of the Gambler 500 this year started with a very cold morning, registering at just 28 degrees. It was the Subaru’s turn to have issues on the trip – at first, it wouldn’t start because some of the water from the “water crossing” from day 2 froze in the air filter and wasn’t allowing enough air into the engine to run. We traversed the rest of the Ochoco National Forest, then drove across the Malheur National Forest was well. We made it to John Day for a lovely lunch and a visit to Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site.

We found that Daniel had never been to the Painted Hills in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument before – so we stopped there and explored around the surrounding BLM landing (including an oddly-named campground called the Priest Hole Recreation Site). There, the Subaru had the second issue of the day – overheating. For many of you, reading that a Subaru is overheating isn’t a surprise, however, we found that the secondary fans were not working, even with the recently installed manual activation switch. Thankfully a fuse replacement resolved this crisis, and we make it back over the Santiam Pass to the Willamette Valley without any further issues.

Thank you for joining us for this 3-episode journey with the Bad Ideas Garage! We hope you have enjoyed our antics and the incredible views the State of Oregon offered up on this trip.

Make sure and join the Gambler 500 in 2023: gambler500.com

And support Oregon State Parks: stateparks.oregon.gov