Portland Bound

So, we left Paonia at around 11 am on Tuesday. We were eager to get on the road, but driving across the Utah desert in the middle of the day in the middle of August was, well, just plain dumb. Betsy, my '93 GMC pickup with 220,000+ miles on her, doesn't have a/c and isn't a crew cab, so the kitties had to ride in the back. Betsy was fully loaded with just enough room for the kitty carriers in the back of the bad. There is a topper, so it wasn't as if they were hanging out in the wind, but they were cooking back there. We put a couple of ice packs into the kitty carriers and that seemed to really help. I also made the mistake of driving with my window open and got the classic trucker tan/burn on my left arm and my left knee. But our day of woe was not over yet. We arrived in Provo/Salt Lake City right around 6pm dead smack in the middle of rush hour. By the time we got to the hotel we were oh so ready for a shower, dinner and some quality time in the room staring at the t.v. The cats loved their first night in a hotel.

Day two should have been better and in many ways it was. Betsy did great hauling the little 5'x8' U-Haul trailer loaded down with all, well, some of our stuff. So we were feeling pretty good as we set out for Idaho. Now, I have always imagined Idaho as a pretty lush place and apparently it is, up north. However, southern Idaho is as much a desert as Utah is. We didn't have any way to re-freeze the ice packs the night before, so the kitties were gonna suffer right along with us. Around 1pm we stopped for gas and checked on them. The poor things were panting like there was no tomorrow. For those of you that don't have cats, they don't pant unless they are really bumming, so we bought a bag of ice, split it up and put a half in each carrier. After that they were fine. We, on the other hand, were still sweating like pigs in the cab. Finally we passed into eastern Oregon! If you haven't ever been to eastern Oregon, you guessed it; desert. We rolled into Baker city ready for a nap, a margarita and more staring at the t.v. Not necessarily, but probably in that order.

Day three, the final countdown, was much better. We still had a little desert to drive through, but it was more high alpine style desert, much like Colorado. We were sailing along until we dropped down to the Columbia river. I have heard that Bob Camp once held the wind surfing speed record sailing on the Columbia or Hood river and I believe it. We fought against a constant headwind. A headwind if we were lucky. Sometimes we would get side gusts that pushed that little trailer all around. Fun stuff. After a couple of hours of this things started to get much more lush. High alpine desert gave way to big, green trees as we headed toward the coast. Finally, after all this, we hit Portland around noon to oohs and aahs from Adriane.

We got our keys, unloaded the truck and returned the trailer to U-Haul. On the way back from the U-Haul we passed a hardware store and decided to get some keys made. While we were waiting I turned around and saw a woman walking in that I knew from Carbondale. She didn't see us so I walked up behind her and said "Excuse me, miss." She turned around and her jaw dropped. She tried to speak for a moment, but couldn't and then she just freaked out. It turns out she is a chef at a little place down the block from the hardware store and mentioned to Adriane that they may be hiring. So, two hours in Portland, ran into a friend out of the blue and Adriane may have a job. Not a bad first day.