It was another successful trip. 1,598 miles covered in the lovely Chevy pickup powered by the extra-lovely Duramax diesel. Get this, we averaged just under 20 miles per gallon. Ok it’s not a Prius, (nor even a Subaru), but it is a super-powerful 4 wheel drive beast that powers through shin-deep snow, tank-trap potholes, and mud-bog low areas on the more sketchy dirt roads of Washington without so much as second’s hesitation. Had we done only the highway driving and parked it during the time in Boise, the final MPG would have been around 21.
This trip was nearly all business. We wanted to inspect our Boise property and meet the latest tenants, visit our accountant to get the taxes in process, i needed to visit the dentist since i’ve not yet found one here in Ashland, and then, once all that was done, we wanted to be there for the gathering for Henry and Peter, the twins of Amanda and Nick.
The trip to Boise was a two-parter broken up by a day in Portland for Annette to get in some work time. I took advantage of that stopover to examine more properties for the potential next phase of our lives.
The trip back was not a two-parter. We opted for the “scenic route” across the Oregon Outback.
Oregon contains a fascinating mish-mosh of environments. Minnesota too has a remarkable number of distinct zones, but because the terrain of Minnesota is largely flat it doesn’t feel as varied. Driving from Boise, either via the i84/i5 route or the shorter, but slower, southern route one crosses low scrubby sage desert, sandy desert, high juniper pine desert, lava fields, high escarpments with lake impoundments, lodge pole and douglas fir pine forests, temperate rain forests, low basin lands, and lots of other stuff i probably failed to note.
The drive from Boise via the southern route is 10 hours plus an hour for the time zone change. Via the interstate it’s closer to 12 hours plus the time change, but it sometimes the interstate seems shorter since you travel faster, there are no speed-trap towns, and fewer dogs, deer and children are crossing in front of you.
But taking the interstate deprives one of seeing the “town” of Wagontire (pop. 3) and, my favorite, the Abert Rim.
