Oregon Trail

My brother Pat just took a job in Portland, OR. He started today (GO PAT!). He had planned to make the drive by himself from KS to OR last weekend. When I let the curiosity get to me and checked his drive time and distance, I thought to myself "that is way to far for just one person to drive!" So, I decided that if Pat would have me, I would drive with him from Denver to Portland. He was thrilled to have me (right Pat, THRILLED). Pat rolled into Denver on Thursday night, and my brother Nick, Dad, Ma, and Grandma Eileen came for dinner.
We left dark and early at 4AM on Friday and headed North West to Boise. We drove North to Wyoming then West to Utah, and then North to Idaho. It was a 13 hour day on Friday. We stopped in Rawlins, WY at Perry's Diner for breakfast. It was fitting since Pat's father-in-law is Perry. Wyoming was fairly boring. The rock formations towards the edge of the state were by far the most exciting thing. As soon as we crossed the border into UT, the terrain became ten times more beautiful. There was also way more road kill in UT, mainly deer. I think we saw at least 3 deer on the side of the road and two in trucks that were recently hunted. We stopped in Ogden, UT for lunch at a Olive Garden. The rest of the drive through UT provided a pretty view of the country side, and sheep. Pat liked to give me his sheep impression, it was hysterical, and took me back to being about 5 years old when Pat was just 2 and Nick and I asking him to make different animal sounds in the car. Pat also found a new love of the horn at this point in our road trip. He started honking at all the birds. If they were on the side of the road, HONK. If they were on the power lines, HONK. It made my afternoon nap a little delayed.

I finally did get a short nap in. When I woke up we had crossed the border into Idaho, and I distinctly remember waking up to the windshield covered in bugs. It was not that way when I fell asleep in UT. We made it to Boise, where we were fortunate enough to stay with our cousin Brendan for the night. Brendan took us to Donnie Mac's Trailer Park Cuisine for dinner. Donnie Mac's was featured on Dinner's, Drive In's, and Dive's on the Food Network. It was a very fun place. Think Gunther Toody's with a white trash flare. Pink Flamingo's, toilets, and tires served as the flower garden. Old cars littered the restaurant, they even had a car with the seats torn out of it and a table in it so you could eat in the car. It was greasy good food though! Pat and I both had burgers, a single wide for me, and a double wide for him. Brendan had the Trucker Mac-N-Cheese with hot dawg and bacon in it. We also drove by the legendary Boise State Blue Football Field. It is really, REALLY blue! They affectionately call it the Smurf Turf up there. It was great to spend time with Brendan in his town. Boise sure was beautiful.

On Saturday morning we had planned to be on the road by 7ish. But, someone forgot to tell us that the sun doesn't come up until after 8AM. We slept until about 7:20, when I got a text, and then got going. It was crazy how dark it was at 7:45 still. You would have thought it was 4AM because it was so dark, and there was no one out. We stopped at a local coffee shop, Big City Coffee, which came highly recommended to us. It was great food, and hit-the-spot coffee. The sun was still barely peeking over the mountains when we got on the Motorway (term via TomTom) at about 8:40. I took this picture at the coffee shop at 8:15AM.We headed off to our final destination. Driving through Oregon was GORGEOUS! It felt like we were driving through foothills forever without actually getting to the mountains. Then we would be driving through flat lands with big mountains right in front of us. We came down one pass, and it totally felt like we were coming down from a plateau. It got really foggy at one point, and when the fog started to clear, we realized that we were driving right next to the Columbia river. It was pretty cool. The river was beautiful, and really big (at least for this Colorado girl). We saw several barges, power plants, bridges, and dams. The leaves on the trees all the way down were just starting to change color, amazing color! It was so beautiful. We even saw a waterfall up on the side of the river at one point.







It was raining as we arrived in Portland around 2:30. When all was said and done, Pat had traveled about 1,860 miles, 1,260 were with his sister ;) We got Pat all checked in. He is staying at a residence inn for a little while until he and Sarah find an apartment to call "home". We went grocery shopping and then into downtown Portland to check out the Apple Store. It was packed in there! I've seen crowded, but never this many people in an Apple Store at one time. We also saw "The Duck Store", so we had to take a picture for Mom. We went to the China Town part of Portland and had a delicious dinner.
On Sunday, we walked to Church and back before stopping by Pat's new shipyard office and then off to the airport. We weren't able to get into the shipyard because Pat wasn't an official employee yet. So, we took a few shots of him outside the fence of the cranes in the shipyard. I had a great time, and I am so glad that I was able to get away and spend time with Pat, I would do it again in a heartbeat.