We returned home from Utah yesterday. We sure had a long, strange trip home! We awoke to find a couple of inches of snow had fallen overnight. Mike kept checking road conditions and finally thought it was okay to head home at around 9 a.m. on Sunday.
So, we said goodbye & thanks to Paul & Marilyn, and off to I-84 we went . After driving for a couple of hours, we came upon a traffic jam in Idaho. We sat there for a while, maybe 30 minutes. Mike got out to check to see what the problem was. A trucker pulled up alongside us, in the shoulder of the highway, and said the highway was completely shut down! We considered our options and decided to drive through a bumpy median (in our minivan!) and just head back to Utah. This detour (not including the longer drive home) added about 4 hours and 200 miles to our trip. :o(
We took I-80 through Utah (got to see where Morton Salt is made), Nevada, and finally to southern Oregon. We intended to stay in Winnemucca, Nevada (um, where?) but Mike insisted that he wanted to drive until we reached Lakeview, Oregon, which was almost four hours away. We were on the most desolate road! Rarely did we pass another car. You wouldn't believe the stars we could see! In Nevada there were all kinds of warning signs showing deer crossing or even to watch for cows in the road. These signs had no words, just a silhouette of the animal to look out for. We seriously saw a sign that said to watch out for donkeys! Lol. At that point we were quite delirious and started making jokes about which animal would be on the next sign: a giraffe, an elephant, or even a shark. We had a good time with that!
With all those signs, we never saw one that warned of jack rabbits. I think we easily saw two dozen of them cross in front of us; Mike hit the brakes (hard) at least 10 times because they would cross right in front of us. My theory is that the jack rabbits like to play chicken. What else do they have to do with their time? Seriously, we're the only car out there and they need to cross right that second? One rabbit was very unlucky and I'm sorry to say we hit it. Mike slammed on the breaks but couldn't stop in time. Poor bunny! At least we were able to save the other rabbits.
We also saw one coyote on the side of the road. I rationalized that he could go eat the rabbit that we hit...survival of the fittest?
Then we were in Oregon. I know that really you are only crossing a state line but the difference was quite obvious between Nevada and Oregon! The roads in Oregon were not as well-marked or kept-up as in Nevada; that was the first obvious difference. Then there were the winding, twisting, downhill roads. And trees! The trees started showing up almost immediately. We were so happy to cross that Oregon border.
So, we're driving along in very, very rural Oregon. This is close to midnight. There was a full moon (or close to full) which made visibility great. We saw more signs that said to watch for cows so we both really started paying attention. Right when we relaxed, after about the sixth sign, what do you think we saw? Well, not a cow in the road, exactly, but right next to it! A huge cow, just standing there at midnight, munching away on the grass. We adjusted our eyes to look out for more cows and realized they were everywhere! There were so many just lying next to the roadway. Most were happily eating but some were trying to sleep. It was a very surreal experience!
We arrived at our hotel around 1 a.m. Now, Keaton loves hotels. He pronounces it "hoe-TAY-yell" Lol. He walked in the room and was so excited to see that we had TWO t.v.s and even our very own electricity!!! (wall outlets, lol) We all went right to sleep (after a few excited minutes by the little ones happy to be out of their carseats). Sully woke us up around 6:30 so we ate breakfast and hit the road again.
We drove from Lakeview to Bend, OR where we stopped to play in a park. Pictures to follow on a different post. After stopping for lunch in Sisters, OR we drove straight home, arriving at about 3:30 p.m.
Sooooo....our 12 hour trip (driving time) turned into about a 30 hour trip! We are so happy to be home!
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