I-84 East is pretty much a no brainer. You know that you go past Multnomah Falls, then there is Hood River, then The Dalles, then Biggs Junction, then there is a spread of various towns like Hermiston and Boardman and Pendleton and then Cabbage Hill…so we were set in for a eight hours of driving down 84 without much entertainment. We were so wrong.
I forgot that there is the Mary Hill Museum and the mini-Stone Henge near Biggs Junction. Now to tell you the story I am about to tell you, I have to tell you a few things first. I am “reading” (and by “reading” I mean listening to on audio book on my iPod)Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. It is enthralling. I am somewhere in the second book. But the first book is where the action starts (duh). So, all I can say is, without ruining the book for you, is that one of the main characters goes to a mini-henge near Inverness, Scotland and falls through a cleft rock into another time. SO! When I remembered the mini-henge of our own, I asked Mom, “Can we go up there?” She says to me, “We don’t really have an agenda, so yeah. We can do whatever we want really.” So we get off the freeway at Biggs Junction and holy cannoli, that off ramp sucks. Its one lane, and there is a stop sign at the top, and the road at the top isn’t not-busy. So there was a line, and it took like five minutes just to turn left and go over the Columbia to Washington. I commented to Mom that it was a crappy off ramp and she says “As long as there is an on ramp back onto eastbound, not like one of those crappy ones.” And I remarked “Not likely at Biggs Junction” and she wittily says back to me “Then it wouldn’t be Biggs Junction, it’d be Little Junction.” “Ha.” I said. It was funny. Not hilarious, but entertaining enough to write down and remember for when we wrote the blog for the day. ANYWAY. We get over to the mini-henge and started goofing around, and it was SO EFFING WINDY! Like, at one point I had to sit down on a rock because I thought I was going to get blown over the edge of the cliff and well, die.
I may or may not have pretended to fall through a cleft in a stone, and I may or may not have actually fallen through said cleft, but I thankfully did not end up in another time or place. Just the gravel on the ground on the other side of the rock.
But we had fun at the min-henge. Goofing off and being, well, Newberry's. I tried to take an arsty picture of an ancient looking fire hydrant out in the middle of tall grass. It was an entertaining little pit stop (yet there was no bathrooms so no actual pit-stopping).
Then we went searching for some of the windmills you see lining the gorge. Those things are finking huge!! On some level you know this, but then you see them on the hill behind the Mary Hill Museum and it hits you just HOW big they are. I mean the MHM isn’t a small building, but it looks like a dollhouse that a doll would play with compared to the wind turbines. Then we discovered that the turbines have this nifty little tail on them which makes them look a little like an airplane with three really sporadically behaving wings. After that we got back on the freeway and continued our trek East.
Somewhere just West of Pendleton we saw our first “Orange Squeezer Thing”. I have no idea what it is really, but when we (Josh and I) were little on road trips with Mom and Dad (before the Zackman Era obviously) we would be out in the middle of no where and see these funky little buildings. I asked the parentals what it was, and they did not have an answer. So one of us (I have no idea which one of us it was) said “It looks like an orange juice squeezer thing. Like you use to make fresh orange juice with.” Ever since, they’ve been “Orange Squeezer Things” to the Newberry’s.
Pendleton passed pretty uneventfully. We had glorious sunshine until just before Cabbage Hill and then it started raining and didn’t stop till almost Ontario. I looked for a sign that pointed towards Cove, so I could tag my buddy Evan in a picture on FB, since he is from Cove. Saw a sign that pointed towards Meacham so I tagged my homie Joel in that one today. Got to Ontario, fueled up (gas) and left again. Not much farther to go at that point.
We crossed over the Idaho border and I was DELIGHTED that the speed limit went from 65 (in Oregon) to 75. I LOVE to drive fast. It felt wrong, but amazing to be going 80 and know that there was only a tiny chance that I would grab the attention of a passing law enforcement professional. This euphoria lasted all of five minutes, when we hit a construction zone. The speed limit went from 75 to 55 in a blink. I was so bummed. I made some grumbled comment to Mom about how that sucked, then I looked ahead of me and saw two more speed signs, one said 45 and about 100 yards past that it said 35. I actually cried out in dismay. I mean really. REALLY?! The construction lasted until almost Meridian, and we were getting off the freeway at Meridian/Kuna. Crappy crappy crappy.
We had arranged to stay with my friend (and first ever boyfriend) Jonathan. His mom and step dad weren’t home, so we had the house all to ourselves. Mom slept in Janie’s (Jon’s mom) room and Jonathan and I were bunking in his room, as we had some catching up to do. We chatted a while, then he fell asleep. I couldn’t. We went to bed at like midnight, and at 4am, I was still awake. Jon snores a little, but between that and that it wasn’t my bed (nor was it nearly as soft), and the fact I was cold, I just could not get to sleep. So I went and crawled in bed with Mom. I think I ended up with three or four hours of sleep last night. And today, we have 12 hours of driving to do. Thankfully Mom is taking the first leg.
Alright, I will report back later with the excitingness of those 12 hours between Boise and Denver. Hope I didn’t bore you too bad with yesterday’s happenings.
Sean
License Plates Seen:
In Oregon
Texas
Alaska
Utah
Idaho
Arizona
Colorado
Iowa
In Idaho
British Columbia
California (on a couple of motorcycles, though neither were Harley's)
The Day's Playlist
Jason Derulo
Lady Gaga
Lifehouse
Melissa Etheridge
Billy Joel
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