Our Trip to Austin

We left attempted to leave Portland on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. It's a little short jaunt on I-405 to get the Marquam Bridge to cross to I-84.  It isn't rush and so we're thinking it'll be clear sailing to get the hell out of Dodge.  Well, this as in every other trip we have taken, was not to be the case.  We get on 405 and traffic is at a complete stop.  Of course, there is an accident on the top of the bridge blocking the left lane JUST before the other lanes from NB I-5 merge onto the bridge.  Well, 20 minutes later we are finally travelling at freeway speed. WE get out of Dodge and are travelling along at a wonderful pace.

We decide to stop for lunch in Hood River.  This is such a quaint town,  It has an old-fashioned downtown.  It's artsy without being pretentious. And, it's the last vestige before you get to the high desert of Eastern Oregon. We stopped at a little bar and grill called The Trillium.  They had an awesome menu and we opted for the turkey and cheese and ham and cheese sandwiches both with dill Havarti.  They were both excellent, but the ham sandwich was a little better because the turkey got lost in the dill Havarti and the onion mayonnaise.

They have live music from local artists and we may make a 2-day trip out there sometime and check out one of the acts.

After leaving Hood River, we have a beautiful drive through Oregon.  The desert isn't quite as brown this time of year, so it wasn't our usual 'OMG, get me through this' drive as per usual.  We stop in Pendleton to get gas.  We're not really all that enamoured of Pendleton.  It's a rancher's city.  It might as well be in the middle of Colorado.

Next stop, Twin Falls, ID to get some food and some sleep.

The crossing from the border of OR into ID is always such an aromatic experience.  First you pass by the OreIda potato factory just outside of Ontario, OR to get the wonderful smell of rotten potatoes.  Then it's across the border to pass by a cattle feed lot for your healthy aroma of cow shit.  Just past all of that there is an RV park.  Yeah, they have the hole in the ground toilets.  Let's just say you need to have your windows up when passing this because they don't clean those toilets very often.  Welcome to Idaho!!

Once we cross the border the Jeep starts to act up.  It's in cruise, but when it tries to control the speed on an incline it starts cutting out and jerking really bad.  We limp along because there Idaho is pretty flat and if I took it out of cruise and controlled the speed myself, it didn't do that.  On our way we pass an electronic reader board announcing that there is an accident 46 miles ahead and to expect long delays.  We're thinking it's a better part of an hour and they will have it cleared up.  Nope.  just outside of Jerome traffic comes to a screeching halt.  And here we sit.  We decide to get off at the Jerome exit and stay the night there.  We get to the Best Western and someone in the parking lot informs us that they are full.  So, it's only six more miles to Twin Falls and we get back on the interstate.  The accident is just off of this on ramp.  As we pass by the scene here is what we see.

Apparently, the driver of this truck was coming down the on ramp that we just cam down on.  There was an abandoned car on the on ramp and the driver tried to avoid it.  In doing so, the soda he had between his legs fell to the floor.  Instead of dealing with that later, he reached down to grab the soda and hit the abandoned vehicle.  It's not clear how his truck caught fire, but the interstate was closed for the better part of two hours.

Well, we finally make it to Twin Falls and get our room.  Upon asking the clerk at the front desk about a goo place to eat, she suggested Jaker's.  She was not wrong.  The food was excellent.  The waitress was awesome and it was quiet.  We ordered a Philly steak sandwich to split with fries and onion rings.  The waitress came and informed us that they were out of the sirloin they use for this sandwich and asked if it was OK if they used rime rib instead.  You had to ask?!?!?  The sandwich was awesome and the onion rings were to die for.  Unfortunately, that was the last night they were offering the onion rings, so don't expect to get them if you should happen to stop.  It's a little pricey, but definitely worth it.

We finally get back to our room, but neither of us can sleep.  We had no down time, the stress of worrying bout what's wrong with the Jeep and the people in the room above pounding and stomping until I had to call the front desk and complain made for a horrible night.  After getting about three hours sleep, we decide to head back to Portland.  The Jeep is even worse.  We pull to the side of the road and discover that the transmission fluid was low.  We added some and did not have another incident on our way back to Portland.

Needless to say, we are home and sadly disappointed that we didn't get to Austin as planned.  But, all is not lost see the next post.

Things learned on this trip:

1. Check all fluids before leaving home

2. Keep the damn camera always at hand.  We missed some awesome photo ops because ours was in the bag in the back of the Jeep.

3. Sleep and stress in the morning.