Bend, Oregon
Originally written April 3, 2010
Blonde is stuck in my head and I can't get her out. You know when you get a tune stuck in your brain and you can't seem to rid yourself of it, no matter how hard you try? Well after dropping Dave off at work I turned on the radio and Blonde was playing... what does it mean?Dave and I are finally home! We left Grand Junction on a Tuesday and pulled into Bend around 8 pm the following Thursday evening. No blown tires. No truck episodes. There were a couple of tall peaks (7800 feet elevation) in Utah and Nevada, but that was all on the first day of driving. The truck ran an average of 44 mph. She doesn't like the peaks and down hill was fun for her, much like a roller coaster. Tuesday night we parked at a truck stop in Ely Nevada, and Wednesday we rested our heads under the halogens of Winnemucca's Wal-mart. We had a good trip stopping along the way for a letterbox or two, food and fuel, and a pee.
There is so much open land out there. Land not fenced, or built on. Land flat, curved, and pointy. Sometimes we'd drive hours without seeing anyone and at other times there would be one car after another. I remember driving through the desert, in Western Utah, and thinking how much it reminds me of Alfalfa, Oregon. The iron enriched soil, the color of a summer sunset, dotted with dwarf junipers and sage brush. Tucked into the surrounding plateaus were small mining outposts, skeletal remains of a time long gone. Their only inhabitants a few jack rabbits and lizards, with the occasional snake curled up in a mud cracked wall. The sounds of the whispering wind swirling through open rafters is the only voice heard. It's a bit eery, a lot of
untamed territory, and absolutely breath taking views. "We" cram ourselves together like sardines in a tin, never stepping outside the safety of the security, which technology has created for us. And living this way "We" never see what is in our backyard, or just down the street, or in the next county over. When "We" do walk outside it is with our heads down, dark glasses shaded over our eyes and plugged into the latest gadget. Am I the only one who knows the pine forests smell sweetest after a spring shower? Maybe not, but sometimes it sure feels like it.
It is good to be home! Dave and I have been staying on some property outside of Bend. Like the desert in Utah, we are surrounded by iron-rich earth, junipers, with cottontails crossing from one sage bush to the next. The white peaks of Bachelor, Faith, Hope, Charity and Broken Top spread wide along the horizon welcoming us back. A friend expressed to me the other day, "I feel like I have my right arm back again". It is the familiarity of knowing a place, its people, its roads, its ways, that is a comfort to me. Dorothy had it right when clicking her heals she repeated, "There's no place like Home, there's no place like Home". Knowing you have someone and someplace to return to always makes the leaving that much easier.
It's good to be Home, so watch out everyone WE'RE BACK!
photos are as follows:
Dave and I in the Deschutes Badlands.
The desert along Utah's route 21.
Rest stop outside Winnemucca, stopped for a LB
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