We put in a good days' driving yesterday, heading east out of Seattle over the Cascades, then south across the Columbia back into Oregon, finally landing on the Idaho border, along the Snake River, at Farewell Bend.
Crossing the Cascades was stunning of course, not just the raw beauty of the mountains, but also the amazing contrasts in the passing. The lush Northwest forests of the west side are replaced, half an hour later on the east side, by parched scrub brush and rugged, desolate vistas.
In Oregon, we did the old wagon trail in reverse, thankfully not in rickety wooden wheels as we wound over the Blue Mountains and their foothills. Having been on the road long enough now to make overblown, sweeping generalizations about The True Nature of America and so forth, I'll say that The Oregon Trail is representative of a core American trait (perhaps not uniquely American, but still): We seem willing to go to any lengths to get a chance at success. Imagine crossing thousands of miles, packed in a small and creaky wagon, facing treacherous terrain, bandits, and possibly hostile Indians, all to get a patch of land or a shot at gold. Not necessarily the best odds or payoffs, but I guess they at least got a warm and fuzzy Protestant work ethic feeling.
In any event, we took some nice pictures of the drive from Washington to Utah.
Before closing, a short note on the Casualties of Travel.
First off, I would propose that no road trip is complete without a good spill. Years ago, on a stint out East, I made my own herbal bug repellant, with oils of citronella, pennyroyal, and eucalyptus. It of course spilled across the floor of our van, full of aroma. On this trip, it was the herbal shampoo, with wintergreen and tea tree oil, which slowly leaked through the backpack with our camping gear. I had to empty it out, hose it down, and finally throw it in the washer to rinse out the suds.
Now, I mention this because, when I hosed off the backpack, I had failed to unpack one item, the matches. And though they were in a ziplock bag, the bag leaked, and the matches got soaked. We need to get more matches, I thought. And then, we stayed with friends for the next several days and didn't need the matches, and we forgot about it. Until last night, after setting up the tent in the dark, about to start cooking on the stove. Oops! How about a salad?
Oh, and you remember my nice, new bicycle? It got stolen while we were gone. Our housesitters called us while we were in Vancouver. Stupid of me, I hadn't left it locked up, being overconfident in the security of our house compound and gates. Obviously someone saw me riding it, because it was the only thing stolen, and there were other bikes in the same area. So much for my 30th birthday present. Still, it was the Demon Bike, slowly destroying my knees and, I feared some day, much worse. So it's almost a blessing. Almost.
Miles: 2754
Posted by yozhik at July 15, 2003 10:46 AM