We went through a lot of brown country today, encountered the Snake River twice and ended at the Columbia River. We'd started the day at the Snake River in Idaho, and this is the Snake again somewhere near the crossing to Oregon.
Our next destination on the map was Baker City, where we bought gas and food. Baker City seems to have some Old West charm, but we didn't take time to look around. I liked the sign: "Explore the Baker City Historic District."
Here's more of Baker City after we left the gas station.
This was encouraging. The landscape was turning green and there were mountains on the horizon. We were following basically the same Oregon Trail the pioneers had followed. I wonder what they thought of this after all the many days in the desert. Actually, I don't know their route that well. It would be interesting to look at it.
It was wonderful to see the bright purple lupine beside the road, and we got out for a few minutes on the hillside.
Now the countryside kept changing.
An amusing sign? Actually both of them were, considering how warm it was. It seemed like it would never be icy here.
I believe this is the rest stop parking lot that goes with the sign above. The countryside was turning green, which was seriously refreshing. Notice I'm taking a lot more photos. I think the stress had abated some, and I was excited about being in Oregon. Almost "home" now, wherever that was, and enjoying the hills and the green.
I was surprised and delighted when we began passing through pine forests and meadows. This type of environment always energizes and excites me. Oregon seemed quite OK at this point, and the air had cooled down. We'd gone up quite a bit in elevation.
Hmm. I'd been worried about this chain between the truck and trailer, but I hadn't done anything about it. It had been dragging, and you can see where the links had begun to wear thin. One would think it was obvious to tie it up from the beginning, but (I swear) the rather stupid guy where I rented the truck said to let it hang on the ground. Not knowing that much about did or did not make for the best towing, I wanted to do it right. If there was some reason to let it drag, I'd trusted him and not my own brain. Now THAT was stupid! I don't know what the heck he'd been thinking.
There were nice things to look at here, too, and I took more photos.
In fact, I felt so good, I took a memory book photo of the car up on the trailer. There's my tapir bumper sticker and the sticker Sharon Matola had sent me from The Belize Zoo, even though I hadn't been there yet. The box in the car says, "Toiletries." I put stuff in the car that I would want to get to at rest stops and hotels.Our final goal for the day was the Columbia River. We were cutting across the northeast corner of the state from the Snake to the Columbia. Unfortunately, that brought us down again out of the wonderful mountainous zone into the brown flatland again, and I didn't take any more pictures for the rest of the day. It seemed to take forever, but we finally reached the river at Umatilla a bit before sunset. There was water, yeah, but it was hot, hot, hot. We promptly looked for a place to stay. It was a small motel, our funkiest accommodations yet, and I bought a coffee mug from the gift shop to commemorate the first night in Oregon. I got the least ugly one they had, which was still truly tasteless, I thought. They had some awful souvenirs there, and it made me glad I didn't live in Umatilla. The mug was black with the word "Oregon" in gold script (which was kind of OK) and I don't remember what the picture was, although I think it may have been nondescript scenic. Writing this from the future, I thought I still had it (8 years later), but I think I finally trashed it this year. If I took a picture of it before I let it go, it will turn up on this blog sooner or later :)
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