June 10, 2015. Grand Island, NE, to Home.

June 10, 2015.  The first two pictures are taken at the Mormon Island State Recreation Area in Grand Island, NE.  The other pictures are representative of the highway between Grand Island and home.

Obviously, we are home.  The trip added 4900 miles to T-Harvey's odometer.  The average MPG was about 15.  We were out 29 days and crossed 11 states and two Canadian provinces. We stayed in 14 different campgrounds which ranged from excellent to poor.  It is good to be home.

We will be back on the next trip.  We aren't sure when that will be.  It could be in August, but more likely in October.  We also aren't sure of the direction, but it will likely be north.

See  you then.  Bye for now.

June 9, 2015. Rock Springs to Grand Island, NE.

June 9, 2015.  We drove from Rock Springs, WY, to Grand Island, NE.  We are 300 miles from home.  We spent more time driving today than Annie likes.  But, she does like the idea of a shorter driving day tomorrow.  Tonight is spent at Mormon Island State Recreation Area, a place we have stayed twice on previous trips.

The first couple of pictures are from last night's campground.  I told you it paled in comparison to the campground in Mountain Home. Now, you can decide for yourself.  The campground's entrance is guarded by enormous petroleum tanks and the streets are lined with rock.  What else would you expect in Rock Springs.

I have a very weak satellite signal tonight so this will be short.  God willing and the creeks don't rise, we'll be home tomorrow night.  I may do one more blog entry just in case your haven't seen enough barns and to let you know we are home.  And, I may not.  When you see me, you'll know we made it back.  If you don't see me . . . well that's not good.

So long.

June 8, 2015. Mountain Home, ID, to Rock Springs, WY.

June 8, 2015.  Today marks the 47th anniversary of the marriage between Malachi and Annie Farkley.  It also marks the ?th birthday of Annie.  She is still the radiant bride I pledged myself to, lo, those many years ago.  I am a lucky man.  And, I am the best birthday present she ever received.

Mountain Home, Idaho, to Rock Springs, Wyoming, is about 440 miles and that is the distance we covered today.  We have gone from manicured campsites there to gravel sites here.  There is a pool here, heated to 89 degrees.  We didn't get in, however.  It simply didn't look that inviting.

Did you know there is a Sublett, Idaho?  I knew there was a Sublette, Kansas and a Sublette County in Wyoming.  I didn't know about the town in Idaho.  Well, actually, it is a fuel stop, but it does have its own zip code.  We didn't get off the interstate to inspect the community.  The town isn't listed in the Atlas so I have no idea what the population is.  It evidently isn't large enough to be listed in the Atlas.  Proofreader Annie points out that there is no "e" at the end of Sublett, so maybe it has no connection to the Sublette family.  I am curious, though.

We are about 900 miles from home.  My present thought is to spread that distance over the next two days.  That will have us home Wednesday evening. We will likely spend tomorrow night in Nebraska somewhere.

We will see you soon.

June 7, 2015. Oregon Trail Interpretive Center - Baker City, OR, to Mountain Home, ID.

June 7, 2015.  We spent three hours at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center this morning and about four hours driving this afternoon.  With time out for lunch and diesel, we managed a scant 170 miles today.  Tonight, we are in the nicest commercial campground we've seen so far on this trip.  It is owned by a group called G-7, a family business which owns campgrounds in Oregon, Idaho and Arizona.  The grounds are manicured, there's a pool (unfilled), a dog park and the sites are concrete and level.  Each site has a yard lamp and a picnic table.

Time spent at the Oregon Trail Center was time well spent.  It was an impressive display of the history of the 300,000-plus emigrants who traveled from Missouri to Oregon.  Another 250,000 turned south to California at Fort Hall, Idaho, seeking gold and quick fortune.  Most failed in California.  Those bound for Oregon fared better.  They were farmers and ranchers.  You had to be pretty tough to walk the 2000-mile trail.  And, most did walk.  There was little room in the wagons after a family's possessions were loaded.  And, most preferred walking to the constant jostling of the wagon.

One in ten emigrants failed to complete the journey.  Cholera, malaria and other sickness took the lives of many travelers.  River crossings, accidental discharge of guns, falling under wagon wheels and Indians took the lives of many more.  Surprisingly, comparatively few lives were lost to Indians, fewer than 400.  More Indians lost their lives to the emigrants.  Actually, Indians traded with the wagon trains, often filling the need for protein in the diets of the travelers.  One of the great fallacies depicted in western movies is that wagons were circled as a defense to Indian attacks.  The wagons were circled at the end of the day to create a corral for livestock.

Of course, no tour of western migration would be complete without mention of Annie's Uncle Bill Sublette.  We found his name several times in the Center.  In addition to leading the first wagon train along the Platte River, he is credited with charting the Sublette Cutoff and played a role in pointing wagon trains through the South Pass, which allowed travelers to cross the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of less than 8,000 feet.  Many travelers didn't realize they had crossed the Continental Divide until they saw streams running west rather than east.

We continue our eastward travels tomorrow.  My guess is that we will finish the day either in eastern Utah or western Wyoming.  But then, we may find something else which demands our attention.  We have no firm deadline for arriving home other than it will be sometime this week.

June 6, 2015. Nehalem to Baker City, OR.

 

 

June 6, 2015.  It is 396 miles from Nehalem State Park to Baker City, OR.  We talked about staying around The Dalles tonight, but neither of us was ready to stop at 2:00 PM, so we just kept driving.

We took a wrong turn out of the state park.  Actually, we took the turn the GPS told us (me) to take.  And, we didn't take the turn that the Atlas (Annie) told us to take.  The result was thirty miles of winding, hilly, bumpy road which was no where near the ocean.  It was also no where near Cannon Beach, a place Annie wanted to revisit.  So, there was an hour of unpleasantness inside T-Harvey.  I maintain the blame should be placed on the GPS.  Annie has a different suspect in mind.

The winding road with no name took us through harvested forest.  I was disappointed that the land hadn't been reclaimed and reseeded.  It was a blight on the land.  Or, as John Denver put it, another scar upon the land.  But, most of the deforested areas we saw were showing new growth.  I assume the laws in Oregon have changed in recent times to require reforestation of land where the trees have been cut.

Mount Hood is between Portland and The Dalles.  It is an impressive landmark.  I have no desire to climb it.  There is still a lot of snow up there.

The rest of the pictures are the through-the-windshield variety.  You will notice a sprinkling of barns, landscapes, and the Columbia River.  We are in a commercial campground tonight outside of Baker City.  A camper at Nehalem recommended a tour of the Oregon Trail Interpretative Center here.  We may do that in the morning before resuming our drive east.

June 5, 2015. NSP.

 

June 5, 2015.  The wind was stronger today than yesterday.  I have sand in my eyes, hair, ears and nose.  As a result, we didn't spend much time on the beach.  We were there long enough to snap a few shots of the waving sea grass, kiteboarders and Annie bundled against the wind.

Nehalem has camp sites for horses.  Well, they are actually for the horse owners, but each site has two small corrals to hold the horses overnight.  The horse people arrived today, no doubt, planning for a weekend of riding along the beach.

There is an old Volkswagen bus here.  It looks to be several decades and several hundred thousand miles old.  It has Alabama tags on it, so it is a long way from home.  I am guessing the bus has a couple of bunks in it, but the occupants also overflow into a tent. The bus has been here as long as we have.  I know there is a story there, I just don't know what it is.  Each time we've passed by, there has been no one home.

There is an airport here.  It is one of the few state parks where guests can fly in. The runway is 3400 feet which is more than adequate for private planes.  It can't accommodate jets, but then we don't see many jet owners in state park campgrounds.

Nehalem also is flush with deer.  We saw four more today.  The deer are absolutely fearless.  I was nearly as close to them as the pictures suggest yet they didn't run.  They would take a few slow steps just to maintain a safe distance between us.

We will leave Nehalem in the morning.  We will drive from here to Portland, OR, pick up I-84 and continue east.  We don't know where we will finish the day.  Annie doesn't want to spend the entire day driving, so it may not be far from here.  We will see.