Highways
A Summer Drive
Jul 10th
While the East Coast has been sweltering under triple-digit temperatures and sticky humidity this week, the Pacific Northwest has experienced its own heat wave. Most of Oregon and Washington have seen highs around the century mark, though without the high humidity in the East. Even the normally cool coast reached 93 on Thursday, beating the old record high by nearly 20 degrees. Facing a four-hour drive from my home in Southern Oregon to Portland on Friday, I decided I should leave early in the morning to avoid driving during the hottest part of the day.
What with attending to some last-minute work projects, watering all the plants thoroughly and dealing with a few unexpected interruptions and chores, I found myself finally rolling out of the driveway at noon. So much for my missing-the-heat plan; it was already nearly 90. Nevertheless, I decided to begin my trip with the windows down and the A.C. off. I cranked up the volumn on the Classic Vinyl station on Sirius radio and headed north on I-5. Zipping along at 70-plus miles per hour, I found the wind blowing through the windows kept me comfortable enough, and I was able to enjoy not only the sights but the smells of a beautiful if toasty summer day.
Some of my favorites:
 – The peppery-dry aroma of sun-baked pines as I climbed from the valley floor towards the first pass
– The sweet, fresh smell of new-mown hay
– The sharp, woodsy scent of bark and sap as I passed enormous piles of logs being soaked down by huge sprinklers in a sawmill lot
– The mossy, damp-earth smell of markedly cooler air as the road passed over several rivers along the way
 All these complemented iconic sights of a midsummer day:
– Broad-winged hawks coasting the thermals over the fields
– Heaps of round hay bales (“toilet-paper hay,” so dubbed by my daughters years ago because they do resemble large, tawny-colored rolls of t.p.) scattered across gently sloping hills
– Rippling fields of grain ripening to gold contrasted against dark-green stands of trees
– Piles of thunderheads heaping up against the Cascades in towering billows of white, purple and gray
I have to admit that by two o’clock — when I reached Eugene, traffic slowed to 60 mph and the temperature neared 100 – I closed up the windows and let the air conditioning bathe me in cool comfort. My favorite part of the drive, though, was certainly those first two hours, when all the sights and smells of summer surrounded me and jogged memories of past summer days. I hope you’ll have the chance to enjoy some summer driving this season, with the windows down, the tunes cranked up and the sun high in the sky.
–Â Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editorÂ
Off the Beaten Track
May 29th
Our recent road trip from Chicago to Portland, Ore., involved the usual preparations: map out the route, make motel reservations, rent the truck, pick up some essential goodies and stock the cooler. Daughter Jenny felt it was also important that our trip include a few minor side trips to visit some unique if not downright odd roadside attractions, if for no other reason than to break up the drive and provide conversational (and blog) fodder for the long, dull stretches of the interstate. So she did her research and came up with several candidates, from which we winnowed the choices down to just one or two a day. I wasn’t terribly interested in roaming too far off our westerly route and eating up too many of our daylight driving hours aimlessly meandering unmarked backroads.
While certainly there are numerous historical sites, museums and natural wonders all across the country, Jenny sought the advice of RoadsideAmerica.com (“Your Online Guide to Offbeat Tourist Attractions”) to satisfy her desire to check out the more obscure and unsung attractions (and I’m using that term loosely) along our route. Even taking into account that we were traveling midweek before the summer travel season got underway, these places were quite deserted, and we were generally the only visitors in sight. Most were, as my dad likes to say, surrounded by miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. But I would not say I regretted any of our little detours; it was actually nice to get away from the roar and rush of the interstate and sink into the landscape for a bit.
Our first stop came on the first day of our trip as we ventured out of Chicago, across Illinois and into Iowa. We were looking for “The tree in the middle of the road.” Following the directions from the website and some cautionary words about rutted roads, we trekked several miles down gravel county section roads until we came upon our goal. An immense, 100-plus-year-old cottonwood tree rooted at the intersection of two roads loomed up before us. Its deep green leaves rustled and shimmered in a soft breeze against a beautiful deep-blue sky. We just stood and looked up into the web of branches, breathing in the scent of growing things and listening to the songs of meadowlarks and the peaceful calm of an early spring evening. After a hectic day of packing and then maneuvering an unfamiliar, bulky vehicle through traffic, those moments of stillness were a blessed balm to our spirits. Now that was a roadside (or, literally, in-the-road) attraction I could really appreciate.
Our second day was a long, soggy slog through a very rainy Nebraska, and we limited our explorations to an authentic (and rather tired-looking) tourist trap (complete with a large metal contraption identified as such hanging from an exterior wall) in North Platte just off I-80. This was Ft. Cody, honoring “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who owned a ranch nearby, purchased from the earnings of his very popular Wild West Show. It is primarily a gift shop with a few historical displays and a corny stockade. You can view the stuffed remains of a two-headed calf and check out some authentic cowboy gear (saddle, chaps, guns and the like) and a few impressively heavy and warm buffalo coats. We enjoyed a few giggles over the more tacky aspects of the place — a nice, bright memory on a gloomy, wet day.
The following day found us hundreds of miles away and thousands of feet higher in elevation, standing on a blustery Wyoming plateau at about 6,000 feet gazing up at a 60-foot-tall, pink granite pyramid. The pyramid was built by the Union Pacific Railroad in the 1880s to memorialize the Ames brothers, who figured large in the history of the company — until their shady dealings led to their downfall. A rail line once passed nearby, but now the monument sits alone a few miles south of the interstate and the “town” of Buford (population 1), surrounded by sagebrush, prairie dogs, antelope and fantastical stone outcroppings. Sparse, fluffy white clouds in a chilly blue sky had replaced the previous day’s gloom, and far to the south we could see the bright, snow-covered peaks of the Rockies. Once again we breathed in the quiet and sense of vast space, reluctantly strolling back to the truck as the many miles we had yet to travel pulled us back to the highway.
If you should take a road trip this coming summer, give yourself the gift of a few unconventional stops along the way. You may find them to be the highlights of your journey!
– Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader
Roadtripping the Beautiful U.S. of A.
May 23rd
Right now I am truly exhausted. Daughter Jenny and I have just completed a road trip that covered a good chunk of the country over four days and three time zones, bracketed by moving all her stuff out of one apartment and into another (both on the second floor and a decent hike from where our rental truck was parked).
We began in Chicago this past Tuesday, picking up a 10-foot Budget rental truck and maneuvering it through traffic back to her apartment near Loyola’s campus. Just three of we most able-bodied women managed to load it up with all Jen’s worldly goods in about two hours. It then took us more than an hour to wend our way gradually west of the city and shed the toll roads (a quick observation: I am not sure what the advantage of toll roads is supposed to be, but the money doesn’t seem to be going towards maintenance; the “freeways” and interstates I travel out west are in generally much better shape and gas prices don’t seem to be much different — presuming some portion of gas taxes go to highway upkeep.) We followed I-80 west through Illinois and on into Iowa, crossing the wide and mighty Mississippi. We didn’t stop that evening until we reached Omaha, Nebraska, after crossing another river that figures large in our nation’s history — the Missouri.
Our road trip continued through all of a very rainy Nebraska the next day with an overnight stay in Cheyenne, Wyoming, that night and Ogden, Utah, the next. Yesterday drew us from Utah through Idaho and at last into Oregon, albeit in Pendleton, still a good three-and-a-half hours from our final destination in Portland. We averaged over 450 miles each day with just a few pit stops and pauses for some unusual roadside attractions now and then. I’ve made at least three other such trips across vast stretches of this country in my life, and each one has reinforced in me a deep love and respect for the land and the courageous, curious and independent souls who struck out to explore and settle it when travel was a perilous and uncertain prospect indeed.
A few mental snapshots from this trip:
– Dark, towering sweeps of cloud looming over spring-green fields gleaming in bright sunlight slanting in from the horizon.
– Observing spring retreat as we climbed towards the Continental Divide at 7,000 feet. Trees and creek-bottom brush showed bare and brown as sea-level vegetation was two months ago, and wide sweeps of snow drifts still pushed up against ranks of snow fences ranged along the interstate.
– Grasses and wildflowers in reds, blues, yellows and whites rippling in strong winds that buffeted our little truck and left my hands aching from gripping the wheel to keep us running straight and true in our lane.
– Wide valleys of irrigated farmland in circles and squares in shades of brown and green stretched out below ridges of sagebrush and rugged volcanic rock.
– Ranks and ranks of deep-green, forested mountains showing no sign of mankind’s touch, capped with new falls of late-season snow.
There is something in the wide, expansive vistas of sky and cloud and landscape — mountains, high desert and deep valleys — that lifts my heart. I breathe more deeply and feel a mixture of awe, gratitude and peace as I gaze far out over this America. The pride I feel is not that of ownership; this is my country not because I own any part of it but because it possesses me. No matter where else I go in this world, this vast, lovely, wild, majestic place will live in me and call me back to it. Â
My tip for this week? Take the time to get out and experience a place where you are the smallest thing in the landscape. See and feel how big and varied and beautiful your country is.
– Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader
GPS and Good Old Common Sense
Jan 9th
It seems to be something one can count on at this time of year: a news story of individuals getting lost and/or stuck in a remote area after relying on their GPS system to navigate their way in unfamiliar territory. I’m guessing part of that may be due to a whole bunch of folks getting a Christmas gift of one of those nifty gadgets, and before they fully understand its shortcomings as well as its benefits, they head out to visit the relatives and then go astray.
Within just a few days of each other around December 25, two local incidents became national news stories, and both centered around GPS navigation systems. In the first, a couple traveling from Portland to Reno became stuck in snow on a remote Forest Service road in the mountains here in Southern Oregon. Their system had directed them onto the unmaintained road from a state highway, and by the time they got stuck, weather had closed in and made calling for help impossible. They were stuck for at least two days before the weather lifted and the same instrument that led them astray was able to send a weak signal containing its coordinates to 911. Luckily, the pair had proper clothing and extra food and water with them and were no worse for the experience.
The second story involved a young couple who had, indeed, just received a GPS system for Christmas. They left the Willamette Valley and headed over the Cascade Range on Christmas Eve to visit family in Eastern Oregon. Jeramie Griffin decided to follow the “shortest route” option the device offered him, which would supposedly cut 40 miles off the route he usually took. After spending a cold and frightening night stuck on a remote, snow-covered road with his girlfriend and their baby daughter, running low on formula and with no survival gear, they filmed a farewell video, thinking they would die before they were found. Luckily, a family member used a similar GPS device that duplicated the route Jeramie used, which led rescuers right to the stranded family less than a day after they were stuck.
Reading of such incidents, one has to wonder: What happened to common sense? Sheriff Tim Evinger, involved in the search for the first couple, said it quite plainly: “If there’s any lesson, it’s to understand what the GPS is telling you and not to follow it blindly.” It reminds me of an episode of The Office, where Michael returns to the office soaking wet after unquestioningly obeying the directions of his GPS system and driving right into a lake. Why take an unknown route in the dead of winter in the mountains, especially when it appears to be unmaintained or off the beaten track?
Law enforcement and travel experts offer sound and logical advice: use a paper map in addition to GPS, keep your gas tank full, check the weather forecast and your cell phone charge, keep a survival kit in the car in winter, configure your system for “highways only” or a similar setting. I note on my good old (free) AAA maps that they include notations for roads that are closed in winter, and one can readily see the entire area and detect which routes are “scenic” (meaning narrow and winding) and which are more heavily traveled. Unfortunately, GPS technology doesn’t contain information about seasonal roads or weather conditions.Â
Happily, the two stories I mentioned here ended on a positive note, and the technology that got those folks lost also helped them be found. It doesn’t change the fact that a little common sense (and, maybe, a plain old paper map) would likely have kept both parties and their loved ones from enduring a very scary, uncomfortable experience.
– Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader
