Last couple of days...

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Day Five, Monday, July 2, 2007
Back on the road again, traveling with my son again, he’s in the driver’s seat again… He says I had a chance to drive and I failed, guess I just could not go fast enough. Of course the fact that it was night and one could not see too far ahead has nothing to do with it?

We are on our way north again toward Salt Lake City, UT. Going through desert with mountains around us. This car, Honda Civic, is quite nice for traveling in, lots of leg and headroom. We haven’t had too much construction on the road either or too much traffic.

Just passed a road to Emma Park, so is it a park with the name Emma or is it a road named after Emma Park? Good name in either case! ☺

Back in Wellington we passed a home on one side of the street that could have been lifted straight in from Israel! Then almost directly opposite on the other side was a log cabin that could have been at home anywhere in Alaska! The public works building was shaped like interconnected igloos. I know I should have taken some photos of them but they went by before I could… next time.

So we are in the mountains and came upon some construction, down to one lane. The car in the end of the line, the one we pulled up to had its hazard lights on, so we did the same when we stopped. The next car to pull up behind us put their hazards on, we turned ours off, and so on down the line! There was a sign for slow vehicles to put on their flashing lights but nothing about the hazard lights like we saw and did.

Just remembered something, back in a small town we passed through, maybe Wellington, there was a gas station that was closed, the signs for gas were still up: $1.00 a gallon! Gas was $2.89 in OK, up to $3.29 here in parts of UT, in some cases higher.

We went to visit Mrs. Baxter, my high school English teacher in Salt Lake City! Stayed for a lovely chat with her before continuing our way north. Decided to stop for dinner at Olive Garden. Unfortunately we could not find it nor could Lucy. So we drove a bit and stopped somewhere else that was okay but nothing to write home about, so I wrote in a blog instead. (that last part was Elan’s contribution to this blog installment) I did not want to get back in the car and start driving directly after dinner so we went to Target!! Took our time wandering around, picked up a few snacks for the road and then it was, back on the road again, going places that we’ve never been…(again Elan)

We’ve decided that traveling at sundown is not a good idea as the sun when heading west or even northwest is directly in one’s eyes. So the plan is to try to leave earlier than our usual take-off time of 11AM tomorrow. We have an idea we’d reach Katrina & Josh, and Eric by tomorrow night in Tigard. We’ll call them on Tuesday, July 3, 2007!

So now we pass a truck on the road and Elan thinks the yellow license plate is Alaska, not! It is Oregon, he said, “Bother, if it were Alaska, it might be my shipment and I could stop it to get my MP3 with all my music on it!” Yep, my son packed most all his music except for a few, say 5 cd’s. Tod gave us a few and Elan’s picked up a few more on the way back at Target. Right now we are listening to “The All-American Rejects” which followed “Red Hot Chilli Peppers”. Luckily I like most of the music Elan listens to and visa-versa, for the most part.

Well, we are coming up to our lovely abode for the night, the fabulous Marble Motel in downtown Tremonton, UT so time to sign off and upload this along with the few pictures we took today.

Spoke too soon, though they advertise wireless the signal is almost non-existent so we’ll have to upload tomorrow from somewhere else… Elan just called the front desk and the person there said while they do have wireless it is not turned on and would he like to have it on? The weak signal must have been someone else’s then… Elan is taking matters into his own capable hands and going over to offer his services to get the wireless up and running. He came back an hour later after chatting with the guy, didn’t work, as the wireless is too weak to send the signal to the whole motel.
Day Six, Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Good morning! We got out this morning at 10:30AM- earlier! Lucy has guided us back on the highway and we are to go 93 miles till our next turn. The sun is out and it promises to be another sunny day.

Elan’s always promised to send pictures of what he’s doing with his life in OK. It was not that he didn’t have a camera, had a disposable one I sent him once and his own digital camera. I did get one or two pics that he emailed somewhere along the way. Now I have all of them on my computer, got to download them too. We’ll share a few with you here!

Crossing into Idaho was uneventful though they have good signs, “Dust Storm area, do not stop on road” “Game Crossing” “Idaho is too beautiful to litter” “Deer migration crossing” So far we’ve seen only herds of cattle. We did see a flock of goats yesterday somewhere in UT. We’re not on the open range so no chance, or little chance of a close encounter with a cow up close yet. Camera is at hand just in case.

Elan’s has delusions of grandeur and we’ll arrive in Tigard within the hour. With the release of “Transformers” Elan thinks this car will magically transform and fly the rest of the distance… (this bit dictated by Elan himself)

And today for our listening pleasure while we drove across Idaho, “Disturbed”, like I said good thing we like each other’s music for the most part. Elan likes country though. OK’s influence I suppose.

Rest stop at Ziggy’s café, Elan did some reading in a book for worry warts. Things a cow should worry about: where does hamburger come from? What if I don’t want to be milked twice-a-day? Are some of my relatives, baseball mitts? Will the farmer have cold hands? Why did all my friends go in the truck? What about shoes? In another category: you should worry about the neighbors will report you for being abusive to your children for asking them to turn off MTV so that they can clean violent game video cartridges. What if gravity should fail?

Back on the road, scenery update: rolling hills farmland, lots of green growing crops, herds of cattle, herds of horses, a few wineries, meandering river (Snake River), many trucks on the roads and of course cars galore. I-84 is a nice double lane highway where we make good time as you can imagine with Elan at the wheel. I’m not sure I’ll be doing much driving on this trip.

Nice rest stop at an outlet near Boise. Picked up a few things, good prices on some, high on others. Barely any people there, one salesclerk said that not many people come to that outlet and there were many closed stores too. Afterwards we decided to get some dinner, Elan asked Lucy to find us an Olive Garden and lo and behold she did and it was not too far away. Endless breadsticks and salad and some appetizers made a great dinner. Now we’re back on the road again heading to Pendleton, OR. That is the place where they make the famous Pendleton shirts. We have about 3 hours of drive time ahead of us. That is 3 hrs if the traffic moves, unfortunately we’ve hit rush hour. Oh well… got music, got water, got good company…

First rest stop in Oregon, has wireless but one has to pay for it! Guess we’ll wait some more, just to upload one time is not worth the payment, if we were staying for a bit it would be different.

This is the first state that we’ve come across that has required helmets for motorcyclists for both driver and passenger. Just passed a grove of trees, as opposed to a herd of cattle or bales of hay. Elan made the observation that we are close to the ocean! Woohoo! Click it or ticket! $97 fine for no seatbelt.

We’ve just entered the snow zone with a chain up area. One can only stop while chaining. Don’t pass snow removal equipment on the right either. It is also unlawful to drive in the left lane unless one is passing. Elan promptly moved to the left lane to demonstrate his rebellious side. Hills of Oregon are bare and brow, some brush dots the hills with a big of sage green color. Oh! It is unlawful for trucks, campers, buses and trailers to be in the left lane while passing, so Elan wasn’t being rebellious…this time.

We just realized that we are in a new time zone, Pacific time zone so we’ll arrive an hour earlier than we thought, Elan is thinking that we can go to see Transformers tonight! And in case one did not know that there was a sign on the road that said we are now in the Pacific Time Zone.

The summit of the Blue Mountains! Trees, trees and more trees everywhere. One sees the tall ones with ones half their size growing up around them, like kindergarteners and sixth graders mixed up! A few are taller than all, they must be the teachers! Elan says they are just all trees.

End of our sixth day out and still no wireless!

found wireless on July 4th!

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Comments

[Wendy]

Happy 4th
Hi Marilyn and Elan, it's fun to read about your travels across the West. You missed a rainy 4th, but now the sun's coming out in time for bed. Enjoy your travels and I'll see you when I return from Colorado.