ROAD TRIP

Well we returned from our vacation on Saturday after being on the road for quite awhile. In nine days our trip calculator tells me that we covered 2,037 miles and were in the van for nearly 36 hours. The average speed was 57 mph, which I will attribute to a large portion of our trip taking place in Oregon where driving more than 60 mph is a worse sin than not bathing! I would also tell you how many miles per gallon I averaged, but I will spare you that tidbit of useless trivia since no one cares except perhaps my grandfather.
With a sister near Boise, ID, a brother in Vancouver, WA, and another brother in Corvallis, OR and not having been to see either of my brothers’ new homes it was time to take the plunge. They have all been to my house on multiple occasions – I do live in Provo which is for all intents and purposes the Mecca of Mormon-dom.
Our trip started Friday July 2nd with a 6 hour drive to Boise where we spent the night. Thanks to my sister Ilene who is a gracious host at what is becoming a B&B on Booth Avenue.
Saturday we drove to Corvallis an eight-hour drive that would have been an hour less had the environmentally-minded in Oregon decided that eastern Oregon speed limits should mirror those in other arid western states (heck Utah even has a stretch along I-15 where the speed limit is 80). There is nothing picturesque in eastern Oregon unless you like tumbleweeds and scrub oak and any air pollution emitted travels east not west to the Oregon coast and population centers. Of course, these are the same ‘rational’ beings who won’t let you pump your own gasoline.
Corvallis is a small, pretty town. For a college town -Oregon State (**hiss** for Ilene and Dan’s sake)- it has its share of Oregon liberals. The river walk on the 4^th of July was coated with tattoo-adorned, midriff-baring, unwashed bodies with many sporting a cigarette between two fingers. Something about driving a vegetable oil-powered VW bus to save the world while inhaling toxic chemicals from a filtered cigarette seems to be the ultimate in oxymoronic.
We used my brother’s newly remodeled home as our day trip hub. We went to a local farm and with 6 kids and 5 adults managed to pick 23 pounds of strawberries in 45 minutes. These strawberries weren’t the big fire engine red plump ones you buy at Costco. These strawberries were smaller, more purple in color, and so much more delicious. Picking your own strawberries for 75 cents a pound really can’t be beat. All 23 pounds were devoured in the space of 3 days and that doesn’t include the amount already on hand upon our arrival or the bucket of blueberries that was also available for snacking. I haven’t picked strawberries since I was a very little boy back in the days when Chino, CA was mostly farmland and dairies rather than the suburban sprawl that most of the surrounding LA area is today. I now know I like a warm berry picked right off of the plant better than a chilled one.
We also came to meet our newest niece – Kami. She is a sweetheart and we all had plenty of chances to hold her.
This is Oregon so of course there is bound to be water. With water comes trees and bushes. We water our trees and bushes everyday to keep them from withering in the Utah sun. Here they grow wild. I saw spirea taller than me – ours are still only three feet high after 4 years in my front yard! There were several deer sightings in my brother’s back yard snacking on his shrubs as if they taste better than the ones growing wildly in the hills they came from. We drove to Silver Falls State Park and hiked to two of the nine major falls in the park.

And because the desert-dwellers had arrived in Oregon the temperatures rose into the mid-90s. Just fine if it is dry heat, but that kind of heat just pulls the moisture from the soggy ground and makes it humid. We did go to the city pool and let the kids spend some of their pent up energy.
We also stopped at Cynthia’s tia Olivia’s home in Lebanon. Lo and behold, her mom and dad were there at the same time. So we feasted on enchiladas and tacos with all of the accessories that two wonderful Mexican-American women could concoct. I hadn’t had enchiladas that good since Tina and Olivia made them for our wedding reception 15+ years ago.
After four days with John we drove the two hours to Vancouver, WA making a stop at my aunt Lori’s house in Keizer for strawberry/banana milkshakes. Mark’s house is just a few miles over the Columbia River and while Mark prides himself on his sense of style I know that most of the design decisions had to have been made by his wife, Alison. I readily admit that most things cool that I wear or am surrounded by are a result of my wife, Cynthia. Alison your “avocado” paint may require a new paint job somewhere in our home!
From Vancouver we crossed the Columbia and went to Multnomah Falls. Four of us (John, Michael, Nathan, and I) climbed all the way to the top and looked down the 600 feet that makes the falls. Luckily the entire trail was shaded otherwise the four of us who did make the trip would have stayed behind like the majority of the family to eat snow cones and enjoy the mist from the falls.
 
We grabbed a pink box of Voodoo Donuts which were delicious – why they even have a vegan section of doughnuts is beyond me.
Then it was the return trip to Boise – only 6 hours this way since we were in Vancouver rather than in Corvallis and then back to Provo.
So there you have it a whirlwind trip full of activities both large and small interspersed with hours of driving. My cousin Robbie put is best when he said he would visit his parents more often as soon as they invented teleporters. But then we would miss out on all the fun travel games of ‘yellow car!’ and ‘buggy what color?’ played by my three children. And who would want to eliminate the inevitable rest stop detours and the sound of crayons or goldfish spilling all over the floor!
Thanks to by brothers and sister and their spouses for putting us up and putting up with us. It was a fun trip and one we will have to do again some time – just not any time soon.