Oregon, the Helpful State

Thursday, we left Idaho and then we drove…and drove, and drove…across Oregon. We have a new respect for the pioneers who traveled the Oregon Trail in horse-drawn wagons. The west must have seemed endless to them, and I hope they found western Oregon to be all that they had hoped it would be! We found Oregon beautiful; it only seemed like such a long drive because it was a slow and twisty road. Eastern Oregon looks much like the western states that preceded it, a high desert of brownish grasses dotted with grayish-green sagebrush, and lots of wrinkled hills. We passed a truck pulling the only motor-home to which we would consider upgrading: a log cabin on a trailer! We imagined pulling into an RV park, putting down our cabin and setting out yard furniture and landscaping. Sandeep said I could bring a pony, too, tied on the porch. We also saw very long trains, pulled by as many as five engines.

Eventually, we entered national forest lands: the fun-to-say Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, as well as Umatilla National Forest, Malheur National Forest and Ochoco National Forest. I don’t think we’ve seen such a stretch of uninhabited land on our whole trip. We stopped to take Molly for a walk on a beautiful trail through tall evergreens and next to a shallow brook; she had been confined to the van for most of our national park time, as the parks do not have very kind pet policies (no pets on trails!), and we thought she deserved an outing.

A little later, we turned into a “scenic view” pullout to look out over a valley. A motorcycle was parking in the same area, and as the couple riding it got off, we saw that they, too, had a long-haired Jack Russell. Their names were Chip and Sandy, and their dog (Digger!) looked very much like Molly, except that she was even shorter. I know that is hard to imagine, but you can see the photographic proof. Molly and Digger examined each other skeptically at first, but then played together in the parking lot. Chip and Sandy live in Boise, and take Digger with them on motorcycle trips in a backpack! They said she seems to enjoy it. Sandeep said Digger reminded him of Danny DeVito...

It’s hunting season around here, and, as usual, the animals seem to have gotten the memo. We saw almost no wild animals except for a herd of antelope standing in a field filled with cows. We stopped to take their picture, and they started walking away, quickly. We thought we heard their leader saying, “We may have been spotted…let’s just move away quietly…act naturally and try to look like a cow.”

We drove through the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, and stopped at a very high and windy overlook point. A sign described the geologic origin of the layered hills and rock formations in the valley below. The drive through the valley was spectacular, with the road passing through a long, narrow, winding canyon. Later, we were delayed somewhat by road construction, but we were amused by the little truck bearing a sign reading “Pilot car – follow me” that ushered one line of cars along the one-lane road, and then turned around to take the waiting cars back in the other direction. We thought we probably could have navigated the road even without a pilot car, but we have decided that Oregon is the “Help You” state; state law mandates full service at all gas stations, as well. Thank you, Oregon. We do appreciate your care, and Molly appreciates the dog biscuits dispensed by the gas station attendants.

We spent the night at a campground in Prineville, Oregon, next to the fairgrounds, and Molly ran around an open field in the fairgrounds like a tiny white racehorse.