Along the Oregon Trail

We left Boise before the sun came up, but not before the traffic began. But it was okay because we were going OUT of Boise, not into it. We have come to realize that Eastern Oregon and Southeastern Washington look a lot like Idaho which looks a lot like Utah. There was a pretty pass in Oregon for a few miles (which had one rest stop which was closed) but then it turned to sagebrush again. I had always thought Oregon was pure trees. Not so.

For those of you that read my twitter post about the barns full of dirt, I don't think it was potatoes. It was in Oregon that we saw them, and they were seriously full of dirt. We saw about half a dozen of them, just piled up with dirt; some were in a tree area, and others a no tree area. We seriously can't figure it out. Hmmm.

And the speed limit was 65 the WHOLE way through Oregon. I kept waiting for it to go up, but instead it went DOWN to 60 when we got to Washington. Weird. Lucky for us, Dora, our GPS unit warns us when we get over 9 miles past the speed limit. We owe  her cookies for helping us avoid a ticket.

The Kennewick signing at Far West Books was awesome, thank you to those ladies that came out for that--we sold some books, chatted with the excellent staff and tried on some dresses. Anyone looking for dresses for the Whitney Award Banquet (April 24th 2010) really ought to check out the Dress Shop they have put together--they've combed catalogs for modest dresses and they were so darn cute. These are the two I'm trying to decide between. Anyone have a vote?





Then we headed toward Lake Oswego, which is apparently in the Portland area. Anyone that remembers my 'fantasy World' post from a couple months ago knows I have a dream-like-affection for Portland. It's the place I go in my head when my real life seems complex. However, I'd never actually been there.

Holy Cow.

All that 'hoping for trees' from the first trip of the day was totally rewarded. Closer we got to Portland the more trees there were, and then there is a huge city springing up on the edges of a gorgeous river. Wow. I could so live here. My fantasy world just blossomed before my eyes and I'm feeling even more regret for never having visted Mike and Alisha when they lived here. It is gorgeous.

Julie had never been to Trader Joe's, so we had to go in and get some Vanilla Meringues and Triple Ginger Cookies. If you've never been to Trader Joe's, well, I'm very sorry. You should go! They have amazing stuff you can't find anywhere else.

Cookies and merengues in hand we went to the Deseret Book store. They didn't know we were coming TODAY, but if being unprepared always ends in as great a signing as we had, we shouldn't have made any plans at all. Ryan, the manager, threw together a table and chairs, Julie whipped out her table cloth and we settled in for what should have been an hour and a half and easily stretched to 2 hours. They have recently remodeled this store to have a distribution center in it--like last week. But it's a rather brilliant idea as many people come by the distribtion center on their way to the temple which is right up the road. We had good traffic, good conversation and they gave us Utah Truffle bars on our way out the door.

We went up to see the temple, but missed our turn. As we weaved around, catching glimpses of the temple through the trees, we eventually found a little cement path that led to the temple ground. It was covered with fall leaves, wet with rain, and I could have pulled out my sleeping bag and camped there. The temple was beautiful, even if the pictures I got were so lousy I daren't include them here and included one instead from about the vantage point we had, although our view was in the dark. Very pretty.

We are now at the hotel with full tummies, tired eyes, and 7 hours of driving in the morning. We'll be at Classic Books in Cottonwood California from 4:00-5:30 tomorrow, November 11th.
Now, off to my 68 e-mails...


Topics of conversation: In-laws, free agency, Jay's Journal, eBay, barns of dirt, thrift shop finds, Lancome mascara and dead people.