Oregon | heidiola

Our Comfort Inn was cozy and had a fine hot tub and it really filled up. We hit the road early to get through SLC traffic…and an hour later, we were still going through SLC traffic. I really like the location of this city, but there’s just a bit too much…city.

We scooted around the south end of the Great Salt Lake to charge the car near Tooele and hunt for some coffee. Discovered the very first Starbucks I’ve seen with no lobby; it is drive up and walk up only. This area is designed for cars…we could see Starbucks across the “street”, a road with 6 lanes of traffic plus a turning lane and no sidewalks anywhere. Even so, there were at least 8 other people who walked up instead of drove through. We were a diverse group of humans…how did we all get here? And yay for bi-peds who use their feet.

Neither of us had ever driven hwy 80 across the salt flats. The road is long. It’s straight. It’s fast. But not as fast as driving on the salt itself. When the season is right and the lakebed is dry, people test all sorts of rolling contraptions at the Bonneville Speedway. We had to go check out this storied locale and discovered a simple two lane road that dead ends at the salt flats. We knew we were in the right place because of the fancy sign. We contributed a photo to science; see a time lapse of the salt flats here. We did not get Indian food at the gas station, but many folks do and say it’s good.

We grabbed coffee at a Starbucks in the Golden Nugget in West Wendover because it seemed the thing to do and gotta say, I wasn’t tempted to drop any cash. Onward to Wells for more excellent Taco trucks then Elko for some Western History (amazing handiwork).

Originally we were hoping to spend the night in the ghost town of Unionville, and head to Oregon the following day and maybe stay at Alvord Hot Springs near the Steens Mountains. The weather had other plans. The wind had picked up, snow was in the forecast and by the time we hit Winnemucca and the snow was really coming down. After hemming and hawing, we canceled the place in Unionville and then our backup hotel in Winnemucca, grabbed food for the road and drove north to Oregon.

I don’t remember how I learned about the Alvord Hot Springs, but I’ve been wanting to go for years. It’s a bit out of the way, so the opportunity had never appeared. But they had room for us and had a place to plug in the car (a necessity to get up to the next charger near Burns) and the weather forecast was better than where we were, so off we went for two more hours of driving. It turned out to be a good choice.

Finishing all this up several days after returning home.

Woke up to the rustling a little mouse friend trying to get out of the garbage can, so we released him outside and hung up our food from the ceiling. When we woke up for reals, there was a light dusting of snow on the desert but we had stayed warm in our Gulf War-era bunker.

After an excellent soak, we used our trusty portable water kettle to make coffee & instant oatmeal (finally ran out of our own home roast so this was a purchase). Enjoyed talking with John the camp host and Darcia the office manager. Darcia told us to check out Harvest Host (free RV camping at wineries & such) and we told her about Plug Share (app that shows you charging options and lets you review them.) Played Set with Darcia’s kids (and gave them our game) then headed out into the snow.

We learned exactly how much range 30 miles of gravel uses (another third as much)…which made us glad for every mile of range we had put on overnight. Saw some huge rabbits, bright blue birds, quail and grouse on the way out. Sadly, did not get a view of the Steens because they were covered with snowy clouds, so we will have to come back in summer and take John for a ride on the salt flats.

We didn’t have driving issues in the snow, but we saw some folks who did (but they were sorting it out) and waved down another car to warn them about the congestion they were about to encounter. Those people told us “we just helped a guy turn his car right side up!” and sure enough, a few miles later we saw the skid marks. John had told us “be careful on 78, but once you get to Cove it’s easy” which was good advice. Flynn (our car) is good in bad conditions.

We were looking for someplace off the beaten path for our night’s stay, but when we charged in Bend and saw the very welcoming Marriott Springhill Suites right there and they gave us a better price in person than I expected, we decided to stay. Had a good walk & checked out the cute downtown strip & split a burrito. Hung out at the hotel bar for a beer, cribbage and some chatting with other guests & staff.

On Saturday we drove to Eugene. Had an easy time over Santiam pass and noticed much more rebuilding and new greenery along the McKenzie than the last time we had passed that way. Still hard to see and there are people we know who have not returned.

Brought Yumm Bowls to Mutti’s and had a good visit. Enjoyed watching the turkeys strutting around; there seems to be one hen and 5 males. She tends to ignore them while they display for each other. We planned to go to the Black Wolf Supper Club for dinner with Colin and Enzo and on the way were reminiscing about the Oregon Electric Station and how sad we were that they had closed. It turned out that BWSC now takes reservations which we didn’t have and the Old Spaghetti Factory has opened in the Electric Station building! So we pivoted and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. It is a marvelous space and I’m glad people are using it once again.

On Sunday we hung out with Mutti, made some soup for lunch & to stock the freezer, watched the SC women play Iowa, then drove home. Two hours up I-5 was the shortest drive of our trip and we arrived on a beautiful spring day with everything in full bloom. No food in the house, so walked to Hawthorne for cribbage and a burger at McMenamins right before the skies opened up and dumped some spring rain. Picked up groceries and then we felt like we were home.

Dylan’s Flickr Nevada-Oregon photos & Sandhill cranes. More will get uploaded at some point.