Day 1 Portland to La Grande

Thursday August 5, 2010

Carla dropped me off at work in the morning; went home to load the car, gas up, and close up the house. She came back downtown to pick me up at 3:15 and we hit the road with her driving.

As predicted once she is behind the wheel I can't pry her out of the seat without a crowbar. Not having one handy, I had to let her drive.

We parallelled the Union Pacific mainline for a good part of the drive, but there wasn't a lot of traffic; across the river there was plenty of action on the BNSF. We'll be on that side of the Columbia on the way home. But we did cross paths with a manifest:

We stopped in at the Cousin's restaurant in The Dalles; nice BLT for me and Carla had a chicken wrap.Carla beat me out the door and back to the driver's seat. I've got to be quicker tomorrow.

We looked at our guide book at picked the Best Western Rama in La Grande. We called and made a reservation. Good thing we did because the single rooms were gone by the time we pulled in at 8:30. Nice room

Some pictures from the road. I hear tell it gets windy in the gorge; must be true 'cause we saw quite a few windmills like this one:

And here is a sign that we are out of the city on our way to the heartland.

Tomorrow we wake up and jump in the car (me first) and head to Ogen, Utah