Road Trip Revisited

 "The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous." - Frederick Douglass

About three years ago, I flew to Boise, Idaho to purchase and drive home a S600 AMG Mercedes.   

While that road trip was somewhat fun and interesting, yesterday's road trip was more like a death-march.  I drove to Boise and back after gathering a few things that my mother needed for her extended stay.  It's a 470 mile trip in one direction, and I ended up driving the entire distance twice in a single day, for a total of 940 miles, or 1512 km.

The initial plan was to get to Boise, drive about halfway back, then finish the trip on the following day (today, August 8) 

Yesterday I woke up at 5 AM and was on the road within about 30 minutes in the same Mercedes.  I'm glad I took that car instead of one of the others - the interior is very quiet and the ride is smooth.  The only thing lacking was an infinite supply of music.  The old girl has a 6-disc magazine in the trunk, and a single-slot CD in the dash.  If i decide to hang onto this car, the audio-video system will need a significant upgrade.  The only reason I haven't upgraded it yet is that the car definitely is not a practical one for these N. Idaho winters, and it's not clear if I'm going to keep it.

Back to yesterday's fun:  There are a lot of pictures, but the purpose of the trip wasn't images.  The purpose of the trip was to get a load of stuff up north. 

 

I was already on the freeway at 5:34 according to the timestamp on my phone.  It had rained the night before and cooled down overnight, thus the clouds hanging low to the ground.  This is unusual weather for August, as the summer climate here is described as "Mediterranean".

The main goal for the very early departure was to get across Spokane without being killed by an aggressive driver.  The secondary goal was to get across Spokane without getting into an accident of any kind.  I accomplished both goals, with no assistance from the local drivers.  One woman almost took off my rear bumper when she abruptly veered from the fast lane to an off-ramp in an insane four-lane maneuver.

 

Once on the other side of Spokane, life became much less stressful.  Open road, pretty scenery, and no daily commuters.  Below:  The trees began thinning out as the desert neared.  There is a great radio station out of Eastern Washington University that I can barely pick up on my normal commute, but since I was driving right past the University, I tuned it in and listened as long as possible.  Great stuff!

 Below:  Heading south on Hwy 395.  It's not a very inspiring drive, but there's much less drama than driving straight south through Idaho on Hwy 95.  While scenic, that route is a two-lane road that has landslides, detours, repairs, and road work that cause delays all summer long.

 

Scenery along the 395 route includes great panoramas of the sky, and the odd grain silo/elevator adjacent to the railroad tracks - to get dry-farmed wheat to market.

 Below:  An abandoned homestead.  Only the pump shed, some power poles and a scruffy tree remain.

 Below:  A few rocky outcroppings left from the Missoula floods - which washed much of the topsoil away.

Below:  A profitable operation in the Eastern Washington desert town of Connell.  Prison.  Grim.

 Below:  About to cross the Snake River where it empties into the Columbia river near Pasco, Washington - the first of a few crossings of the day.

 Below:  A few pictures of the Wallowa Gap, taken about the same point where the light was lost during the previous road trip post - except these were taken while driving in the opposite direction.  The Columbia river is on the right, held back in a reservoir here by the McNary dam.

 

Hermiston, Oregon is the halfway point on this journey, and I wanted to visit the little farmhouse that we moved into after we left Bakersfield.  The place was very charming, if tiny.  The little front-yard sapling has gotten huge.  I sent the picture to our family group text.

Below:  Approaching the Blue Mountains from the west side.  During the November road trip in 2022, I was concerned about being waylaid by the snow these mountains are notorious for, but not on this trip.

Below: I had passed a lot of slow-climbing big rigs in the next 15 minutes and was quickly up top, near cloud level.  It's really pretty country.

 

 

Below:  Dropping down into the Treasure Valley, about to cross the Snake River into Idaho again.  I still needed to reach the East end of the Treasure Valley through some insane traffic to get to mom's house.

I drove past a power plant named "Langley Gulch"  A couple of my old co-workers and very good friends had attained management positions here at one point.  They attempted to bring me on board, but I've been pretty happy with living in the forest over the sagebrush :).  They've since retired, and I'm not far behind them at this point.

 

 

 After about 50 more miles, I reached mom's house, and started a video chat with my wife and my mom, who were at the Rehabilitation hospital back home.  I went room-to-room taking directions, to make sure I gathered everything that my mom was going to need.  Got her mail, checkbook, laptop, more clothes, prescriptions, etc.

 

Following that, I immediately got back into heavy traffic and left the city where I grew up.  I'd be OK with not going back ever again, but that's not going to happen :)  I took a couple of pictures overlooking the city and local foothills from Federal Way as I made my way back to the freeway to get out of that place.

Below:  A generic highway picture of the area quite a ways West of where I grew up.  Sadly, much of it no longer looks like this :(

  

Below: Crossing the Snake River from Idaho into Oregon on the way back home

 

 

 I was about 30 miles past Ontario, Oregon when I realized that I was quite low on gas.  When you commute, this really isn't an issue.  You kinda have a routine and know about how long it's been since you fueled up - also there is fuel available at either end of the commute!  Fortunately there is a travel center near the town of Huntington, Oregon for big rigs that also sells gas to motorists, so I didn't have to return to Ontario for fuel. 

 

Below:  Approaching the off-ramp near Huntington, with the Snake River on the right.

  

I had spent just 30-40 minutes gathering the stuff mom needed and throwing it in the trunk of the big baller car.  My original plan - which I still intended to follow - was to get about halfway back home, and then stop for the day.  That plan was to get back over the Blue Mountains, hit the buffet, and sleep overnight at the Umatilla Tribe's Wildhorse Casino near Pendleton, Oregon.

 

The problem was, as I neared the Umatilla Indian reservation, that it was only 4:30 PM, and there were several hours of daylight remaining, and I was only about 4 hours from home at that point.  So I decided to continue.  In hindsight, not a great call to make.

 

At this point I was having a difficult time focusing, both visually and mentally - but I really just wanted to get back home again.  

 

Below:  Stopped at the main intersection in the tiny town of Stanfield, Oregon.  This is very close to  Hermiston, and it hasn't changed much in the 14 years since we left. 

 

 Below:  A couple of pictures while leaving Hermiston on Diagonal Road.  I had stopped at this roadside gas station hours earlier on the way to Boise for an energy drink.  None of the customers or cashiers were speaking English.  I guess that's what we should expect in an agricultural community nowadays.

 

Below:  More or less where I was when I took the final photo from the previous road trip as the natural light faded.  I can see the Wallula paper mill on the far shore.

Below:  The final picture of this trip.  This was taken at a truck stop in Tokio, Washington, while I was still out in the desert.  This captures everything American:  Abandoned sign from a previous era, a big new sign to get traveler's attention, construction in progress at the lower left, and it's in the middle of nowhere. 

I lost my balance getting out of the car, and was wondering if the other travelers thought I'd been drinking, LOL.  My body was absolutely vibrating at this point, and I could barely focus on vehicle tail lights ahead.

Below:  Google Earth view of the scene of this last image.  You can see the two gigantic grain silos to the north in both images.

In the end, the trip worked out fine, and I took the following day off work to recover.