Road Trip - Day 13 – Boise to Bend
8:30 a.m. 48 degrees. Chilly
Sorry no photos on this one. There just wasn’t much to capture.
We checked out and then walked into downtown Boise for breakfast. It was 8:30 before we hit the road. Traffic going out of Boise was light, not so coming the other way though.
Our route is Highway 84 north to the Oregon boarder. Around Caldwell there was a lot of road construction but it didn’t hold us up too much. The road construction lasted for 12 miles but finally we were through.
We are headed towards Bend but we may stop before we reach there if we see anything decent. On Friday evening we are expected in Eugene, where we will be staying with Annie, Tom’s daughter, and Mitch, her husband.
It is mostly farmland we drive through, with lots of cows, sheep, goats but mostly horses. Towards the Oregon border the cattle all but disappear and so have the houses. There is just wide open spaces. We did not see too many potatoes in Idaho. Isn’t Idaho famous for potatoes? Maybe it is the wrong season. Thought I saw a truck load of them but Tom said they were sugar beets.
Just when I thought we were stuck with the open spaces, small farms and cattle were back. At 9:20 we enter Oregon and soon we exit I84. It was time to turn my watch back to Pacific Time. Negotiating our way around the town of Ontario to Highway 20 was a bit confusing but we eventually made it.
This part of Oregon is pretty. Difficult to say why it is different from Idaho. Maybe it is because the grass is greener. What we did notice, though, there were lots of onions around, both on trucks and on farms where they were sorting them. There is even an Onion Avenue.
We pass through the small town of Vale and we are out into the country again. On the right we see large white buildings with two tall chimneys belching white smoke. In my Benchmark Oregon atlas I can see it is called the Eagle Picher Diatomaceous Plant. Tom thinks it is something to do with soil. Will have to check it out later. (Well Tom was right. It is a chalk like soil which is similar to pumice powder and is used as a filtration aid, insecticide, in cat litters and dynamite. It is also heat resistant.)
The road starts to climb and the hills begin to look dry but then we go downhill into Little Valley and all is green again. More hills and more arid landscape but the Malheur River is running alongside us. We drop down into Harper Valley and we are green again. We pass a field of sun flowers, which was a stunning sight.
Right in the middle of nowhere we pass a tree to our right covered in shoes! Go figure.
Tom pointed out to me the novel way the locals anchor fences out here. They fill large wire mesh baskets with rocks.
After traveling nearly 100 miles over hills, we drop down into Harney Valley and at 10.30 we hit Burns. Nothing of interest here. Guess we will drive on to Bend because there does not appear to be anything between here and there. We pass another shoe tree. If anybody knows why there are shoes on the tress, please let us know.
Just before the junction with Highway 395 there was a sign which said ‘Wreck Ahead” and sure enough there was a truck on its side to the left. It was about here we got caught up behind a line of trucks, RVs and slow moving cars. The whole of Highway 20 is just a two lanes with lots of traffic coming the other way. The next 100 miles is a nightmare. Getting stuck behind a huge truck is no fun, especially when they throw up dust and grit. It was on this section we obtained another nick in our windshield. Passing the trucks was no fun as they all seemed to be driving at least 70 mph.
Apart from the few patches of greenery near the Oregon/Idaho border, the rest of our drive has been through some pretty desolate areas. Some of the names sums it up like Stinkwater Mountains and Misery Flat. Tom and have agreed that we never want to travel this highway again. We even shook hands on it.
As we get closer to Bend, we can see mountains in the distance with what looks like snow on them. We must be getting near to civilization because there are mail boxes along the way.
At 12.30 we enter Bend. Now to find somewhere to sleep tonight but first a restroom. We pass a MacDonalds on the other side so Tom makes a left turn. As he is waiting to turn right back onto Highway 20, a girl starts to cross the road so he backs up. Unfortunately he did not notice that a big white pick-up had pulled up behind us and we bumped, gently, into it. No damage to him but we have a couple of dings on the rear dumper. The guy we backed into was very sweet (and he had a wonderful smile) and said it was no problem and off we went on our separate ways.
We turned up at the Best Western in Bend just about 12.45. They did have one room left but we could not check in until 3. So we went to the movies. The receptionist gave us directions to the Old Mill District, which is a new shopping, dining and entertainment area near downtown. By the time we arrived at the movie theater, all the films we would have liked to watch had started but Good Luck Chuck was due to start at 2. So we read the synopsis and bought tickets. What a mistake. Neither of us particularly enjoyed the movie. It was extremely crude and not very funny but the basic story line was good (though Tom disagrees with me).
At 4 we check in at the hotel, have a shower and change and head back into downtown for dinner in the evening. We walked around but there seemed to be just one decent restaurant – Merenda Restaurant and Wine Bar on Wall Street – so we gave it a try. It was a very enjoyable meal. I had vegetable ragout and Tom had tuna nicoise. We shared a hot chocolate cake dessert. It was a lively place, the service was good. Two negative comments – it was noisy and the tables were very close together. Consequently conversation was a little difficult.
October 09 2007 03:08 pm | Further Afield
