July 24 - Boise to Eugene, Oregon

The trip through Oregon was a long one. From start to end, we spent about 12 hours in the car, with a side trip to Crater Lake (see separate post). I confess to spending several of those hours sound asleep. Ron is doing a great job getting us from place to place, a feat made easier thanks to Grandpa Ron’s GPS system. We haven’t been lost at all, although Ron has gone against the wishes of the lady on the GPS. For example, yesterday’s directions to Crater Lake would have had us driving on extremely narrow and not-well-developed dirt roads (trails!). We chose to take the paved highway instead, cutting our driving in time by half and increasing the comfort level immensely. It’s hard to be scolded by the GPS lady as she disapprovingly says “recalculating” as she tries to fix our route. :) As you can see by the pictures, Oregon is another beautiful state. I guess I didn’t know what to expect on this trip. To me, Minnesota is such a beautiful state, I didn’t think any other could compare. But, each state proves me wrong. The pictures show the variety of Oregon’s landscape, as well as our first views of the snow-capped Cascade Mountains. The desert-like picture is actually called the Pumice Desert. I read in the guide map that snakes don’t live in this area because the pumice (a by-product of the volcanic activity) gets under their scales and irritates their skin. There you go, a little science lesson for the day! Finally, as a public service to all, Ron windexed the front window of the car to help eliminate bug guts from messing up my pictures. I’m sure you’re all thankful for that. The cafe pictured is where we had lunch. It seemed like a good idea at the time (I was STARVING!) but it took forever. The waitress apologized for being slow, seems she was really the horse trainer filling in for the waitress. I think the cooks were "fill-ins" too. But, the good news was that lunch was really delicious. The cafe/post office/saloon/jail was little - just 4 tables in the cafe area. The town was about 4 buildings big.