Moving to Oregon
September 8-11, 2008
Dawn, September 8, 2008. Packed to the gills and ready to roll.
Mark and his pa.
Ed, Mark, and Jean.
My first day took me through Montevideo, Ortonville, and Aberdeen along Highway 12 through South Dakota. The road became more hilly and interesting at Mobridge, and for the rest of the day I was driving through big sky country, west and north to the town of Medora in the North Dakota badlands. I met up with Sara Simmers (the botanist I worked with over the summer) and her brother Walker, and we hiked to the petrified forest in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
North Dakota badlands.
Shadows, petrified stumps, and rock/clay layers.
The trees here were petrified after being trapped in a volcanic ash fall. They were closely related to modern sequoias and redwoods, and some of the rock stumps are quite gigantic.
Potentially painful...
Badlands + me.
Badlands + Sara.
Lots of petrified stumps.
This buffalo bull forced us to make a detour, as he was grazing right next to the trail.
Nearing dusk - time to get some food at the Iron Horse Saloon.
After breakfast at the Cowboy Cafe, I resumed my westward trek along Interstate 94, following the Yellowstone River all the way to Livingston, Montana. Stopping at Livingston, I noticed that my Subaru was idling hot and that a good portion of my coolant was in the overflow reservoir. Back up at road speed, the temperature returned to normal, so I continued over Bozeman Pass to Bozeman.
Letting the car cool a bit in Bozeman.
BNSF grain train coasting down from the pass.
Full telephoto zoom.
I stopped to eat at a Chinese buffet and picked a campsite near the continental divide just east of Butte. Soon I was off the freeway on Montana Hwy 2, en route to Toll Mountain.
Toll Mountain campsite at dusk.
I was the only camper at the site, and Great Horned Owls hooted through the early hours of the night. I slept well but woke early to continue the journey.
Ready to leave Toll Mountain.
I stopped at a Subaru shop in Butte to replace my radiator cap (which didn't fix the problem, but ultimately the problem never got worse), and drove through a steady rain to Deer Lodge, after which the rain lessened to scattered showers. The interstate follows the Clark Fork of the Columbia River to St. Regis, after which it climbs to Lookout Pass through the Bitterroot Mountains on the Idaho border.
Rest stop near the top of Lookout Pass.
Lookout Pass crest (4680 ft), looking east.
Lookout Pass crest, looking west.
After 700 miles across Montana, it's only 70 miles across Idaho, mostly downhill but with another ascent over 4th of July Pass before a beautiful lake at Coeur d'Alene. From Coeur d'Alene to Spokane is a busy stretch, and through Spokane the concrete pavement has inch-deep ruts that pushed my Subaru around in a disconcerting manner. I rolled on through without stopping until a rest stop just east of Ritzville.
BNSF mainline and I-90 on the lava plains just east of Ritzville.
At Ritzville, I finally left I-90 behind and rolled down US 395 - a freeway-standard 4-lane road with little traffic - to Pasco, where I briefly picked up I-82 down to Umatilla. I stopped at Umatilla for dinner and had my first experience buying gas in Oregon (Oregon law prohibits self-serve filling, so attendants pump gas and sometimes even wash your windows.) Here I picked up I-84 and drove straight into the sun until it dropped behind the hills bordering the Columbia River. I camped at Deschutes State Park with about 100 other people crammed into little cubicle-like spaces on the irrigated grass.
My camping cubicle on the Deschutes River.
Deschutes River at dawn.
I set off early through the dry country of eastern Oregon, soon entering the stunning scenery of the Columbia Gorge through the Cascades. At one point the road pointed me straight at Mt. Hood (at 11,249 ft, the highest mountain in Oregon), and I managed to take this surprisingly-good picture by aiming the camera forward and pressing the shutter. Point-and-shoot at 70 mph.
I got into Portland just in time for the tail end of rush hour, and then rolled down the 75 miles of boring-and-busy I-5 to the Corvallis exit. I tried to call ahead to the house but got no answer, so I arrived unexpected at 10:30 am. Ebba and Ali were home to help me get started moving in.
By the end, I was rather fond of cruising along open highways through beautiful country, and I almost wished I had another thousand miles to go. But in this era of high gas prices, 1800 miles is enough. I do forsee making the journey again at some point, and it is something I will certainly look forward to.