It was 5:30 a.m. when we hit the road, taking Interstate 50 West, which is also known as “The Loneliest Road” in America.
Arriving in Eureka, Nevada, we stopped at the Pony Express Deli, and while it’s under new ownership the breakfast was as great as it was on our previous visit. We weren’t in town long, though, because of the nearly 800 miles we’ll be driving today. From here, we leave Interstate 50 for NV-278 going north.
Our breakfast was burritos with eggs, while this cicada enjoyed a cannibal burrito of cicada head cheese scraped right from the half-shell. This was not something we sought out by stopping the car and checking the bushes for acts of such barbarity, but the sound of millions of these seasonal insects was here en masse. Rotting cicada corpses baked in the morning sun while their brethren clambered across the highway, trying to get to the other side before another car passed. When we stopped to listen to the symphony, we were startled by a nearby bush that appeared to shift as the cicadas that were occupying it all moved simultaneously away from the sound of our car door shutting. It was there that we spotted this Alferd Packer of the cicada world.
Leaving these millions of cicadas presented us with a relatively serious problem: we would have to kill more of them. We rolled up the windows tightly to escape their screams and put the car in drive. Maybe we should have tried going quickly, but, like crispy potato chips, the sound of the crunching was intrinsically satisfying, so I crept along in the rising fog of decomposing cicada life juice that was evaporating off the hot street. Dear God, do not present us with such an attack of the senses ever again, please.
Green meadows, freshwater, snowy peaks, and blue skies were the nose and eyeball cleansing therapy we needed, and nature delivered after the horrors of our previous stop along the road.
We’re now up on NV-225, passing the Wild Horse Reservoir, just enjoying this beautiful summer drive on a perfect Friday morning.
As we pass into Idaho, the road changes numbers to become ID-51. We are on the Duck Valley Reservation, which is home to the Shoshone-Paiute Tribe.
Somehow, we are able to tune in to an NPR station off in the distance, and out here in the middle of nowhere, we are being introduced to the fascinating story of a Hasidic Jew named Chaim who took on the stage name Curly Oxide and joined the underground band Vic Thrill. Next up, we learned that Marlon Brando died the day before. A strange aspect of our travels is that we are mostly off the grid when it comes to current events, and it has happened that upon getting home, we can be in astonishment at what was going on while we were away. Why didn’t anyone tell us of the major news? Maybe they figured we already knew.
We stayed away from the freeway that would have taken us past Boise, Idaho in order to continue the avoidance of large populations and the frantic nature of cities. Instead, we traveled on the ID-78 towards Marsing, Idaho, staying south of the Snake River, to make our way through Homedale onto State Highway 19, which brought us into Oregon.
God damn you, Rocky.
Here we are at one of those spots on the map where people will tell others about the “ugly” part of the state. In this case, it’s the eastern edge of Oregon that can’t compare to the coast, the mountains, or the Columbia River Gorge. Well, we are enchanted by the beauty of it all as we drive north from Adrian towards Owyhee.
There are more than a few braids of the Owyhee River out here, including this mudflow slicing its way through the heavy, luscious growth. For people needing to drive 800 miles today, we seem to be making a lot of frequent stops. This is the luxury of the long days of summer that grow longer the further north we go.
We left the “major” road for Lytle Boulevard that brought us to the John Day Highway or US-26 and the epicenter where everything is happening: Jamieson, Oregon. Note that this is the entire downtown hub of the place that is known as Jamieson; there is nothing else here. You are seeing it all.
Somewhere on the other side of Unity, Oregon.
Caroline’s standing in the Middle Fork of the John Day River somewhere near Galena, Oregon. We have decided to deviate from the itinerary by taking a “shortcut” past Susanville, which travels a more northwesterly route. It’s approaching 5:00 in the afternoon, so maybe we should start paying attention to getting to Rimrock, Washington, where we already have a room booked. As for our shortcut, I swear the road didn’t look that twisty on the map.
From County Road 20 over the US-395, there was some spot where we ran out of the forest for a moment, but where exactly we are, I cannot say.
We continued on the 395 as far as Nye, Oregon, where the road forked at the OR-74 that became the Big Butter Creek Road. This photo does not correspond to what I’m describing at all, but I have no reference points to explain where we are in this image; I suppose we’ll just have to retrace our steps someday and take better notes.
North of Pine City, Oregon, we merged onto the 207, also known as the Lexington-Echo Highway.
Not many stops anymore as we could feel the time working against us but we couldn’t pass up a bunch of photogenic horses standing at the fence line looking all needy.
We crossed the Columbia River between Umatilla, Oregon, and Plymouth, Washington. Needing to keep up our pace, we drove along the north side of the Columbia on the 14 until we arrived in Alderdale; then we turned right towards Mabton.
Okay, we can afford one more stop, but only one. The Yakima River was calling Caroline to take her shoes off one more time so she could step into yet another American waterway. It’s already after 9:00 p.m. at this pitstop and we still needed something from Walmart up in Yakima. By the time we reached Rimrock and the Game Ridge Motel, it was already almost 11:00 p.m. Our room way out of the way was only $55, but seeing we would have forfeited that money should we have opted at the last minute to call it quits in Yakima, we drove on into the night with all of these experiences of the day traveling with us.