Bend - Eugene

The last post sounded a bit whiny, didn't it?  It sounded like "poor me, I have to drive in the snow!"  As if someone was making me take this journey and I was pissed that winter weather was hindering my enjoyment of getting to take several weeks of meandering through the countryside, not working, not doing much of anything other than whatever I wanted to do.  What a big baby.  No more complaining, not for a couple of days at least.

The drive today could have been daunting, at least if I had payed attention to the DOT reports (that's Dept. of Transportation, in case you were wondering) about all the snow on the mountain pass and the flashing lights on the road that said you could not go over the pass unless you carried chains or had snow tires.  I decided to take my chances and ignore all the warnings and ignore the scary photos on the DOT website about road conditions and just get on with the drive.  Hell, if it was too bad, I could always turn around, right?  And it was an incredibly easy and beautiful drive, a little icy but nothing remotely dangerous.   Once I passed the high summit (not very high, actually, less than 5,000 feet) and was down to about 2,000 feet, the snow was gone and the road was narrow and the trees were very, very tall, probably about the height of a 4 or 5 story building.  The tree line was only about 8 feet from the edge of the road so it was as if one was driving through a very tall tunnel of dark green trees.  The road was straight and the effect was so eerie because no one else was on the road but me, just me and these incredibly tall trees.  I could see a small swatch of sky, just a swipe of blue at the top of the trees.  Stunning.

In Eugene now, staying with John and Diane, nice to be in a cozy home, sound of soft rain on the roof.  I am looking forward to good, strong coffee in the morning and that's about as far into the future as I want to look  at this moment.