On the Road... to Boise

Good morning campers!

While most of you are hunkering down in the extreme weather in Portland tonight (lightning, heavy rain), Charlie and I (and Charlie's parents) are overnighting in Eastern Oregon. Baker City, to be specific. Thanks to wifi at the Best Western, I can share a few nice road photos with you.


The drive has been beautiful and relatively uneventful--sunny most of the way, though we ran into a few storm cells as we were heading into the hills east of Pendleton. We had a nice dinner at the Red Lion in Pendleton, and though the hotel itself was kind of a blast from the past style-wise (and age-wise with regard to most of its patrons!), the view out the restaurant's big picture windows left us looking mostly beyond the walls.

Tonight we're hoteling it up, watching cable and bouncing on the beds, but tomorrow will find us up early to make a rental-house-viewing appointment at 10:30 am in Boise. We had somewhat of a distressing realization as we were coming into Pendleton--we'd arranged a 10:3o am appointment, planning to leave Pendleton at 7:00-ish am. That appointment was on Boise time, however (Mountain Time), and we were on Oregon time (Pacific). We did some last-minute plan changing, though, and worked it out just fine--we've a 6:30 am breakfast date with Charlie's parents in the morning, and hopefully will be on the road to Boise at 7.

I haven't been south of La Grande since I was 15 or 16, and I really didn't remember how spectacular the valley containing Baker City is. We drove in right at sunset, and the sky was lighting up the snowy mountains that border the highway on both sides and turning the clouds pink and orange.

Anyhow, time for me to pay attention to Charlie now, but let me leave you with a few photos from the Emigrant Springs area viewpoint just outside Pendleton.