When I was a kid, driving for two hours was such a looooong trip (and usually boring); I wasn’t a huge fan of traveling at all. By contrast, the last office I had to be in for work was over a two hour commute each direction which I did three days a week for a number of years with only mild complaining. Karma laughing at me? Quite possibly.
To be honest, I didn’t enjoy traveling until my mid to late twenties. Being at the destination was great, getting there….ehhh not so much. Then I married my second husband, Chris, and suddenly, we were always going somewhere in our time off. If there was a road nearby (or not so nearby) we hadn’t taken, we would eventually find it and see where it went. For the most part, he made the journey exciting and fun which is good because there rarely was an actual destination involved. We were always off on an adventure sand thanks to him I grew to love traveling.
I find the beauty of the treks is in the moments, both the good and the bad, as probably everyone who goes on these little or big adventures will gladly tell you. Personally, I believe one’s attitude and choice of traveling companions have the biggest impact on whether those “bad” times are actually awful or become a humorous story when told later on. How to Be a Cautionary Tale is a good example of a “bad”moment with good company.
Where is this babbling leading to? Oregon.
Less than a week after surviving FanX, Dave and I embarked on our nine day journey to visit my parents in Oregon. My parents live in the western side (also known as the rainy side) of Oregon so it was about a twelve hour drive each direction. We had decided from the beginning planning stages that we were not simply going to drive straight there and back. This was one of our vacations for the year and we wanted to enjoy it. With that in mind, we started our westward journey by stopping a mere couple of hours from home to see Twin Falls. Having spent more time in the area than I have, Dave has seen the falls when it, well, looked like a waterfall and not a leaky faucet such as the few occasions we’ve stopped by together and I’ve seen it. The wet spring we’d been experiencing meant the falls were now gushers with a constant, almost circular rainbow effect. So beautiful. My favorite view was seeing a colored light emanating from below the horizon of it before realizing it was a rainbow.
We spent the night just shy of the Oregon border. The rv park we chose to stay at was unimpressive but it was only a layover so there was no need for a wow factor. Had we not gone for a walk the evening would quickly have been forgotten. Across the road from the rv park was a small trail next to a single house which looked like it would lead to the river the back road we had been travelling on followed. We were chatting as we walked but both quieted when we passed the house and stood at the edge of an airstrip. For a moment we were both confused as our trail picked up on the other side of it next to another house. We looked both directions to determine if it was safe to cross and if we even should. There was a line of houses sitting on either side of the airstrip creating a neighborhood of sorts. What an odd place for an airstrip but maybe it had to do with the forest service as we were in the mountains and the middle of nowhere. We traversed the strip then strolled by another house to enjoy the river as we played on a couple of fallen trees near a small children’s playground. On the way back to our camper, we stood by the airstrip still puzzled and looked around this neighborhood which horse shoed it. Large, nice homes nestled behind a tree line as to be invisible from the only road in the area and nowhere near a town. Each house had a garage and…a hanger. Wait…what? Yep a hanger; we had discovered an aviation community. It felt like being in an adventure book, stumbling upon a strange unknown civilization and briefly wondering if you’re going to be captured for discovering some hidden secret. Of course, I may have too good of an imagination some days. Still, it was a wonderfully curious travel moment to remember.
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