Idaho & Oregon

Trip Start Sep 04, 2009

Trip End Ongoing

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Flag of United States Eugene, Oregon
Sunday, September 20, 2009

On Friday morning we said goodbye to beautiful Wyoming and headed into Idaho. Our first destination was scenic Idaho Falls so we could fix Nel's phone. Heading west from Idaho Falls, we passed through Arco, the first town to be lit by nuclear power, from the nearby national reactor testing station. After that we headed to Craters of the Moon where we felt for the first time in a long time.... heat! Craters of the Moon was over 90 degrees which we were thrilled to experience. We did a quick loop around and stopped for a hike to the top of Inferno Cone, the extinct volcano. We then wound through the foothills of the Sawtooth mountain range to Boise, where our Verizon navigator hit its first glitch and got us completely lost. We finally reached our Doubletree Inn, where we almost fainted due to the amazing accommodations the hotel was offering. It almost made us forget that we were stopping in Boise for the fun nightlife NOT the spa shower and home office. After we finally pulled ourselves away from the amazing hotel, we made it out to the Sockeye Brewery just in time to catch the second half of the Boise State game, which was super fun and our first hometown experience with big-time college football (well other than the majority of Wyoming where the only radio station available was playing the UWyoming game)

Craters of the Moon

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As hard as it was to leave our amazing hotel room we had to move along to finally make it to the end of our trail, Oregon! Immediately after passing the border Andrew got out of the car to pump our gas only to have the station attendant look at him questionably, as we forgot that pumping your own gas in Oregon is illegal. We then passed through the beautiful farmlands and scrubland of eastern Oregon, which we thought was totally spectacular. We first intended to spend the night in Burns, but when we arrived there it became apparent that it had a population of under 100 people (no matter how big it looked on the map) so we went along to Bend, the skiing and outdoorsy capital of Oregon. Here we went out to dinner at Old St. Francis School, an old Catholic school that was renovated into a second run movie theater, pub, restaurant and hotel.

The final morning of our trip, we headed out to watch the Jets vs. Patriots game and then made the last leg of our trip to our home base in Eugene at Megan and Sam's house. Over 16 days we drove a total of 4125 miles, spotted 26 state troopers, drove through 12 states, added several quarts of oil, and spotted a wide array of wildlife, including bison, deer, bald eagles, turkeys, and prairie dogs.

Eugene hotels Slideshow