Idaho Falls, ID to Portland, OR
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The day broke clear and somewhat warm and just got better as the day went on (of course it did). Our four nicest days of the trip were the drive up and the drive back. We had cereal for breakfast in the room and headed out.
There isn’t much to report from the road. That part of Idaho isn’t too interesting. We were out of the mountains and into rural/farm country. It seemed like we’d drive for an hour and get 10 miles closer to Boise.
We did finally get there, and traffic got a bit heavy for a while. But that was about it for excitement. We almost missed the sign for the Oregon border since we weren’t paying attention.
The views got a bit more interesting as we headed up into the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon towards Baker City. There were some hills and trees at least. As we headed toward La Grande (the Big!) we were able to reminisce a bit about an earlier trip to eastern Oregon where we ended up sleeping in Les’ Volvo because Cycle Oregon had taken every available hotel and campground for 50 miles in any direction.
There’s an interesting (as in twisty and steep) stretch of road coming into Pendleton and the next thing you know we were passing the turn for I-82 that completed the loop we made heading out.
The plan was to drive to somewhere in Eastern Oregon, spend the night, and get home Saturday morning. But like horses returning to the barn, we got to Boardman around 4:30 and figured, why stop?
The drive through the gorge as the sun set was quite pretty. At least for those of us in the passenger seat. For those driving it was a bit tough on the eyes. Not to mention the end of a long day of driving. At one point it got warm enough we had to turn on the air conditioner. Mother Nature has a real cruel streak that is not attractive (just sayin’).
We caught the tail end of rush hour coming into Portland which cost us about half an hour. Which was a problem for two reasons. One, Les had been driving close to 10 hours by then and two, the rest stop in the gorge had been closed and I *really* had to go to the bathroom. And even though we were pulling one behind us, there was no place to stop.
But we made it to Les’ house around 7:30. Sharon was there to greet us. We decided that getting all our stuff out of the trailer could certainly wait until tomorrow and Les gave me a ride home, where our kitties were very glad to see me (Feed me! Let me out! Feed me again!).
The total mileage was 2088 miles (at about 10 miles per gallon). A great trip. Time now to process the pictures and post them and this log on the website. We hadn’t done a trip in 9 years (can’t believe it has been that long). Good to get one in the books.
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