Leaving Corvallis

This season of blogging has been pretty disjointed, therefore I'm not sure what life experiences are chronicled here. I decided that some of the recent experiences might warrant description. If you've been reading along, you know that I spent the last week working in Corvallis as a "bachelor" because I put Georgia on the plane for Indy to be picked up by her sister. Seems that as much as we try to plan ahead, some plans just interfere with each other. Georgia, therefore had to do one of her least favorite things all by herself. Fortunately, and most likely guided by the power of prayer from lots of people, the trip went pretty well. To top it off, I'll steal a little thunder and tell y'all about her welcome to Indiana. Her sister and mom were waiting in the Indy airport for her. The young man who was assigned to help her navigate the airport (some value in using a travel agent)... was fantastic. Then they stopped at a Texas Roadhouse (Have I told you that Texas Roadhouse originated in Indiana????)  (Squirrel!!!)  You have to have seen "UP" for that to make sense. Back to the trip home from the airport... Georgia wanted to treat them to dinner since we were in Oregon for her mom's 91st birthday. As they entered, a gentleman opened the door for them and "fawned" all over them. They enjoyed their meal and the waiter came to box up the remains. He said, "Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"  Georgia said, "Let's start with the good news".. He said, "someone who just left has paid for all your meals".. Apparently that gentleman comes there often and enjoys "blessing" unsuspecting strangers... How bout that???? Oh, the bad news; "I have to work for 4 more hours, have a nice evening".  So with Georgia safe on the ground in Indiana, and me in Corvallis with not much to do in the evening, I went up to Mary's Peak... (See recent post.) Less than an hour after work I was at the highest elevation in the Oregon coastal mountain range. That was Monday nite. Tuesday thru Thursday nite, I packed, cleaned a bit and listened to the Cardinals via the computer (My link to life at home.) Jumping ahead to this weekend, I am bummed that the Cardinals traded Ryan Ludwick http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/lee_jenkins/08/03/dodgers.padres/

Filbert trees along McKenzie Highway

(Squirrel!!!) Thursday nite, I had eaten all the leftovers and washed all the dishes, so decided to eat out. I remembered that Jack from work had mentioned Murphy's in Southtown Corvallis, as a "fun place".. Well, I found it, just as I was about to head into the grass (grown for seed) fields south of town. There was a big banner advertising their barbeque. http://www.murphysrestaurantlounge.com/ . It was early, just after work, so not many foks were there. I went in and said, "I want some of what I'm smellin'". The guy at the bar pointed me to their Barbecue menu. I ordered the Triple thing (don't remember the name, but it was a pile of pulled pork, 2 slices of smoked turkey breast, 2 ribs, some fantastic beans and slaw).. (I passed on the fries). Got it to go, cause I could see that if I were to eat it there, I might not get "home" for a while. Again, MMM mm good. If we get to do another stint in Corvallis, you can bet we'll be eating some from Murphy's.. Thanks Jack.. That left me one more day. I got up about 5:30 Friday morning, stripped the bed, took a shower and put the sheets and last towel in the washer, then dryer, then put the last 2 bags in the car and headed to Sharon's Cafe for breakfast. Some of the folks from work thought they might make it, but I ate my last breakfast in Corvallis alone... No worries, I enjoyed the meal and headed back to put the dry sheets on the bed, turn in my keys to Dave with another goodbye and off to work. Finished up the work with the 2 surgery residents, got the cases of the day dictated and pretty well had things wrapped up to leave right on time for the trip across the Cascade range to get "as far as I could" down the road.. I had said goodby to Jack as he left and was finishing up with Becki. I headed out the door with my famous blue "Bubba Keg" in my right hand and my Western Digital portable drive (containing everything I know) in my left. Planned to stop and say goodbye to Jason on my way out. We were met at the door by one of my new friends, Dr. Bailey, a new medicine resident (who came from Michigan State where she worked with one of my former students who just finished her imaging residency at MSU)... (squirrel again) There was this 19 year old cat who had just had a CT (done by Jason). Dr. Bailey was running to see if they could get us to do a "quick" ultrasound of the kidneys as one last attempt to find a specific surgical problem before finalizing their plan for this cat. Of course the owners were "in the house" anxious for the most info we could get. Well, Jack who does most of the ultrasound there had left a little earlier as there were no more ultrasounds scheduled, leaving me and Becki (and Becki doesn't do ultrasound.) My first response was, "hey. I'm outta here.".. Becki did her best to protect me, I think because she has indicated earlier that my planned trip across McKenzie Pass was worth the extra 20 minutes mapquest said it would take me. For a moment, I had the feeling, you know... "the plans of mice and men ..... are usually about equal".... Finally, realizing that I was about to cause a new friend a very tough encounter with the owners of the cat and the fact that her senior clinician was an old dear friend with whom I had worked very closely at Illinois when she was a medicine resident, I succumbed and Becki and I fired up the ultrasound machine and HIS/RIS system which had just been shut down for the weekend... (Remind you of anything Jason???)  Did the study, saved the images and off I went for McKenzie pass. I e-mailed my report to the returning radiologist at OSU from home Monday. Another reason the McKenzie route was enticing to me is that I had made the twisty turney trip up route 20 enough times than I didn't really want to do that this last time. By dropping down to Eugene (Springfield) and taking the McKenzie Highway on one of my favorite drives along the McKenzie river, it dropped me onto the "Old McKenzie Highway (242) which promised to deposit me in Sisters for one last bowl of that fabuous gazpacho at the Three Creeks Brewery where we started this adventure in central Oregon 3 weeks previously. Again. if you've been one of the 4 followers of this blog, you may remember a couple of years ago when I was describing the McKenzie Highway, you might remember me discovering these strange trees which turned out to be a major Oregon crop... Filberts (known to we midwesterners as Hazelnuts).. As you can see by this weekends motion pictures, those same trees that looked so barren and strange are now plush with green. I'm sure the nuts were in there somewhere. I drove past another of our favorite stopovers along the river, "Eagle Rock Lodge", where the Dershams pick up goose poop to create a fantastic wedding site many times through the summer. Oops, another squirrel. In description of our last weekend together in Oregon, we talked about the Lodge at Suttle Lake. When we arrived Saturday evening, a wedding had just finished and they were having the reception in the lawn along the lake.. Got pictures, but don't think I posted them. Hmmm..

Roughly where the snowplow stopped.

Now to turn from the McKenzie Highway onto 242.. Again, let me take you back. In February of 08, which was apparently a season of unusually heavy  snow, we attempted this trip. You can see in that post where the snow plow turned back and there was nothing but a tree flanked snow drift in the road. I think I have taken a picture from near that site which was on past Camp Limberlost, heading to higher elevations. And you Hoosiers thought Limberlost was in Indiana, right?  http://www.genestrattonporter.net/
I found (and had been warned) that I was not escaping twisty turney roads, just substituted some for others. Our Garmin knew just where we were and mapped out hairpin after hairpin as me and the trusty red Explorer ascended. Dang, another squirrel moment. I may be repeating this, but it's easier to risk that and plow on than to go out an check, then come back to posting. I had hit something over the past weekend and after dropping Georgia off and heading to Corvallis, I noticed a faint shimmy in the front end. Because I couldn't go very far into the airport with Georgia due to security stuff, I got away a little early,  so decided I had time to see about getting the shimmy fixed. I dread shopping for auto repair in a strange town, but just like 2 years ago in Rock Springs, Wyoming, we were directed to good and trustworthy people. There are those times when you think God doesn't care or want to bother with your piddly issues, then other times, you can see Him right beside you. This was one of those times. I had shopped at a little at a Napa store on 9th street during the past couple of years, so thought that was a good place to start. I asked where they took their autos... The lady at the counter recommended D & B at Van Buren and Second street. http://www.dandbbearservice.com/Corvallis-auto-repairs.html
I made my way there to meet another Jack at the counter. Turns out that this Jack and his family keep sheep and hogs, etc. and he loves the Oregon State Veterinary School.... YES! (visualize arm pump). We struck up a conversation and of course he presented a pig problem which was strange, but very reminiscent of my first 4-H barrow "Star" ... circa 1952.. He couldn't get me in til Wednesday.. I arranged for Jennifer, one of the surgery residents I was working with to pick me up and drop me off.... Busted strut... I think it would have gone out anyway and I prefer the flatlands of the Willamette Valley as a place for that to happen compared with wheeling around the turns ascending to McKenzie pass or in the eastern Oregon mountains with no one around, or south western Wyoming, where I could see us (me and my machine) hurtling off some mountain curve. I left Corvallis with a pretty secure feeling that I was being cared for... Thanks to y'all for your prayers.

(McKenzie Pass) Finally I broke out of the gorgeous forest into what had only been described to me. The Lava Fields. I can only try to describe this. There were piles of craggy deep red rock interspersed with twisted dead tree trunks. Assuming some of these trees were trapped and killed in lava flow, I can only guess how long they had been there.... I'm thinking around the time of Noah!. I tried to get pictures, but the sun was sinking behind Mount Washington (the one with the spike on top... you should have other pictures of it from the Santiam Highway (20) from previous posts. )   I was in too much of a hurry to set up my camera on a stand to get good still images, so had to settle for som motion, etc.  Sorry. There were people up on the Dee Wright observatory.  with a box cameral on a stand taking long exposures of the 2 visible sisters. Would love to see that picture when they get it back from the lab. http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Oregon/HighCascades/dee_wright_observatory.html

The guide at Dee Wright (in motion)

I still remember Becki nearly giggling when she told someone Friday afternoon that I was going to "Dee Wright"... I get the idea she likes it up there.. I tried to take some pictures, but if you're interested, I suggest you follow the link and look at their pictures. I'll just give you enough to show that I was there. As I'm basking in the glory of this beauty and awesome sight, I'm wishing Georgia could be here to share this with me. Maybe we can make it work... Obviously it will need to be a summer trip... We already experienced attempting this in the winter. Apparently this road is closed most winters. The sun going down was both a blessing and a curse. There wasn't enough light for some of the pictures I wanted to capture, but then you have to admit that the colors were gorgeous. See "Clouds" post. The good thing is that the bad driving part of the McKenzie Highway is west of the summit. It was really a  "piece of cake" going down the east side to Sisters. I passed the connection of 242 to 20 in Sisters where we had stopped the weekend before to take pictures of middle and south sister. I checked the clock and Three Creeks Brewery was still open, so I headed that way already tasting that gazpacho.  Walked in the door and told the hostess that I was here for a bowl of gazpacho....... not on this night.. seems they sometimes have it..... not on this night...... I settled for a cup of Oregon clam chowder (not a bad second) and a barbecue sandwich. Not Lil Porgy's or Murphy's, but pretty good. Finished that and decided to push on to Bend.. I had actually sort of planned to go to Burns, but spent too much time admiring the scenery at the Dee Wright observatory for that. Garmin found me a Day's Inn on my route. Of course, the guy at the desk grew up in Martinsville, Indiana... There are Hoosiers everywhere. Spent a good, but short night. The same guy was mannng the ship in the morning and actually had breakfast ready at 5:30 although they advertise 6am , so I ate, grabbed a couple of bananas for the road and headed out into the sunrise with the Garmin pointed to Rock Springs, Wyoming. The lady on the Garmin promised that I would be there before dark... Sounds good, lets go.

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South and Middle Sister

I have found that I have sort of a "love/hate" feeling about Highway 20 (the central Oregon Highway) from Bend to Ontario, Oregon. There are lots of things to see, yet it is pretty much a desolate drive. However, compared to our first encounter it's a garden center now. We came through in early Feb 08, or was it January??? (OK, it was either January 27 or Feb 3) Growing dusk through snow covered forbidding land. The only people we saw were trying to right a camper than had gone out of control and was lying on it's side almost into the basin. The emergency people had arrived. We had to make Corvallis because I had to lecture on Monday. Now we find that there is actually a stream running along part of the road and several places where they irrigate and grow real crops. So here I am feeling pretty much like a mover and shaker, making my way along this high desert road when I start seeing these people all dressed alike, spread over maybe 15 miles coming from somewhere east of me.,... on bicycles. OMG, just the thought of pumping my old single speed Schwinn (used to belong to Georgia's dad) up those long grades made my knees burn. Why not just go over and beat your head against those big rocks. I could see that some of the people "in the back" who I encountered long after seeing the leaders, might have had the same thoughts running through their heads. Hopefully they knew what I knew... Burns was miles to the west, then another 100 to Bend. Wonder what their destination might have been..

I know the pictures are fuzzy, but I had to include something that intrigued me from our first trip out. I probably posted some back then, but, what the heck. Most likely because of the plethora (love that word) of rocks and the difficulty in sinking stable posts here, They make corner and end posts for their fences from piles of rocks enclosed in fences, much like the way decorative rocks are displayed in landscaping yards in the midwest. I think that is really good adaptation and use of resources. Sorry the pictures are motiony, but I think you can get the idea.
As I came near Ontario, the irrigation became more obvious. This is where we had seen the fields of potatoes and onions. As you can see by the signs, these people take their onion farming seriously. I tried to capture the onion irrigation system. They run little tubes down each row. I think there was also a lot of swiss chard or similar lettuce. I remember on the first trip west that I was fascinated by the number of "dog and pup" trucks in the west. Maybe I missed it, but until this trip I wasn't aware that they have now increased that. I don't know what they call it, but there were several instances of units where there were 3 pieces tied together for a short "train".

Fast forward across Idaho and Utah. Again, gorgeous, be we've "been there, done that".. Don't believe I'm saying that about such beautiful landscape. With 75 mph speed limits and not "too much" roadwork, I made pretty good time. I can see those folks who settled Ogden, Utah saying, "We've arrived in paradise. Why go any further?".

I got to Rock Springs and although we seem to have a tie to this place and I really thought about staying there so I could get an early morning shot at seeing the wild horses (See post "Wyoming to Oregon" or something like that... or maybe the one before it.)  I decided it was really too early to stop and the only difficulty ahead might be going up around Elk Mountain just outside Laramie... I check with the Garmin Lady and she said we could make it to Laramie by 10 pm. I swear I heard her say, "Just do it!" ... Sorry, couldn't resist... I know that's old, but then so am I.I didn't count on 30 miles of roadwork causing lane closures just before Laramie. It wasn't like that on "our side" going out. That added to the weariness when I pulled into Laramie, only to be added to the fact that rooms were getting filled up. I ended up at, may I say, a dump. a HOJO. I was directed there by the guy at Super 8 who was booked. Let's just say it wasn't the Hampton. Did I mention that mapquest said I had just traveled 1000 miles from Bend to Laramie. I got in and out of there in time to see the sunrise over Laramie. See if you can find it in the "Clouds" post.

 But we have to take another side trip here. This trail starts back when I attended the 50th reunion of the Silver Lake High Class of 1960... "To make the best better"... Marilyn, our class glue sent some things I put together to her class list which included one classmate who couldn't make it. Judy and her husband Art live just south of Denver and when she recieved some of the stuff Marilyn sent, Judy contacted me and we started catching up on each other's lives via e-mail. I had considered stopping by, but wasn't sure how the timing would work out. My major objective of this drive was to get to Indiana asap so I could help Georgia with her mission. If I could work it out and not jeopardise my arrival time in Indiana, I thought it would be great to see them after a number of years. Judy's folks ran the B&K in Silver Lake where my sister and Georgia had worked during the late 50's and early 60's... You know, sock hops, duck tails, poodle skirts, and root beer stands. I think I remember that there had been a Fats Domino sighting at that root beer stand.. If you don't know who that is, google him... I found my thrill, on Blueberry Hill, Blue Monday, etc. (OK, I didn't warn you did I..... Squirrel!!!! I consulted Maquest and considered my options. I really didn't want to go back through Nebraska and Iowa again. It would be Sunday so the Gothenberg, Nebraska museum would again be closed, so I couldn't get any more info from there about Georgia's mom and dad's stint there in 1940. The last time we drove this route, we also didn't want a return trip through Nebraska and Iowa, so we dropped down through Ft. Collins where I stopped and visited with a radiologist.. (My old friend Dick was off, so we didn't get to see him.) We then stayed in the Denver Area and we have the picture of Georgia coming out of a Starbucks with her lime green mug full of hot chocolate... Did I mention that we were also met with the beginning of a snowstorm that gave us white knuckles til well into Kansas.. I distinctly remember not knowing if we would be stuck in Hays. That was April 2008. Being the first day of August, I though it would be safe and I would rather go that way than back along 80.. I inquired of the Shiotas and found that they were only about 30 minutes south of I-70 and they would be available for me to stop by. Garmin took me within a couple of blocks of their house and left me, so I had to call for Judy to direct me on down the street where she was in front of the house.  They treated me to a fantastic breakfast at a beautiful club, we visited and stopped by their store (For Every Season) in Lone Tree, then back to their house to look at a few family pictures and get back on the road. The visit was too short, but I'm glad it worked out to catch up a little. The magic of e-mail has helped fill in gaps and I'm sure it will continue.  Hopefully I will be able to take Georgia back to visit them, their beautiful setting, and their store that is like something Georgia would seek out to shop in. Although the visit was too short, it also costed me a little. When I got back on the road Lady Garmin said it would be 1:30 am when I got to Springfield, Illinois (where our oldest lives with his family. Hmmm, did I just set back my arrival in Indiana another day??? I had lots of time and miles to comtemplate the issue.

I had to include this picture from an eastern Colorado rest stop. At many of the rest stops there are "pet areas". Well only in the western states would you see a horse staked out while the people took a breather from driving. Pushing on across Kansas where I saw lots of fields of sunflowers... It is the sunflower state you know. I passed Manhattan where Kansas State vet school is planted, then on past Lawrence where our old basketball coach Bll Self hangs his hat to Kansas City. I have noticed that on every trip, there are more and more wind farms. I mused about the ingenuity of using the wind to bring water to livestock, filling "tanks", wether they be round or oblong steel tanks or something akin to a pond in the midwest. Although I saw several, I only captured one and that one with motion at that. So here is the still used salvation for livestock and the "offspring" now turning wind energy to electricity. 

At this point I was sure Garmin had led me astray. I saw no way I could make it across Missouri to St. Louis, then up through Illinois to Springfield by 1:30 am on that day. I had resigned myself to an extra day on the road when Garmin directed me, not on to I-70, but north on I-35. Oh, boy, here I am. It's dark and I don't know whether to over-ride Garmin and follow my past experience or blindly follow... I was wishing I had used my past method of printing out directions from mapquest so I could see where I was going rather than only getting the next turn from Garmin. Well, I decided to follow Garmin... Again, thank you folks who were praying. I said I should take US 36 east after driving 45 miles north. I turned onto US 36 to find that I was on a 4 lane divided highway (VFW memorial) and 250 miles from Springfield via I-72 from Hannibal. Wow!. I didn't have to go through dreaded St. Louis in the dark and I was a lot closer to Springfield than I thought. If there was a downer it was that there was no place to stay over before Hannibal which was only 100 miles from Springfield. I called Rod and asked that they leave the door unlocked and I could come in and crash and see them in the morning. He agreed and I was now committed. Hey, after driving clear across the country, a measly 100 miles was nothing.

Got up about 6:30 Monday morning, got to say hi to and hug our grandkids and kids as well as wave to Jacque's bible study group before heading to home. Stopped by the post office to collect mail that had not been forwarded to Corvallis, then on home. Our neighbor Jan who had been keeping our tomatoes and flowers alive was home working in her flowers. We visited a bit, then I started war against my beloved sweet autumn clematis that will be fantastic this fall, but right now is trying to cover everything near. This Friday is yard waste pick-up day, so I piled it out front along with a bunch of spent hollyhocks and some weeds. Contacted our youngest and his daughter about mowing the lawn... It did pretty much survive the drought of a couple of weeks ago. Got to give them a hug. Having gotten a "home" shower, I was back on the road and pulled up to the house in Gas City about 5:30 Monday. This morning I had a great breakfast at the B&B in Gas City, still my favorite place in America for breakfast.