After slightly more than half a year later, I am back to this chilling land (at least it is still, for now).
And yes, I was here one year back, hasn't been diligent enough to do any updates here.
And so after a 20 hours travel journey, I have finally got back on road with the left-driver-seated car, got used to it almost immediately, except that I did made some wrong turns somehow. Contrasting with the low-cost travel last year, I am well prepared to spend some money now.
I have had this plan of writing down the trips that I've been since last year, but the laziness beat me again and again. Got some motivation this time, and would like to keep it up for as long as possible, so, let's start with the first weekend.
The initial plan was to get to University of Washington at Seattle, for a relaxing cherry blossom sight seeing (お花見), but after checking online, apparently the time is still early for the
sakura blossom. The research mission has passed over to my colleague who eventually came up with two other locations, Lava Butte and Paulina Peak, which are located South of Bend. And... I am not gonna make more introduction about these places, as I wasn't the one who searched for it, and, most of all, we didn't make it for both locations, continue reading for more.
Since it's a 4+ hours journey, we decided to set the departure time at 5:45 am. It wasn't the best night of dream, jet lag kicks in, awake once at 2 am, another time at 4 and not able to fall back asleep. Settled down and kick off the road trip at around 6 am. 3 people, 1 car, countless possibilities ahead.
It was a smooth drive, went past Woodburn, Salem, had a short stop at Sisters for breakfast; a revisit on Sisters after the 4th of July trip last year.
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| The Three Sisters - This Year. |
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| A different view from the same spot, at different time of the year - Last Year. |
Along the road, it was quite a different view from last year, with snow covering the fields by the roadside. This was not the first time I see snow, but at such ground level, with all the buildings and soil covered with the white beauty, it was spectacular.
Journey continues as we past through Bend, headed towards South and eventually reached our first destination, the Lava Butte. Saw a signage not far before reaching the turning, stated "Closed", that was when I realized the snow that I saw, isn't exactly the good sign. Yes, the place is closed down because of snow, roads are all covered with snow, the butte is not accessible at all. Nevertheless, call me
snua huan but I was really excited with all 2-inch thick snow on the soil.
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| The snow stuck on my shoe and start melting, wetting it, but still it's fun. |
It was really cold, three of us were fooling around for some time before getting back into car and head towards the next destination of Paulina Peak, in which, all of us think that there's a slim chance that the roads are accessible, in view of the condition at Lava Butte. We decided to still give it a shot, since we have already spent 4 hours on road.
After another one hour drive and a short detour at the small Outlet at Bend, we
happily confirmed our hypothesis.
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| This simple scenic is enough to be "spectacular" for me. |
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| No idea what's that, pretty cool IMO. |
It was close to 1 pm, after a quick lunch at car and a short discussion, we have decided to go to one of the units of the John Day Fossil Beds National, Clarno, which is located North-East to Bend. It was another long drive, including the crooked hills roads, which made me quite intense; got there safely nevertheless.
As the name sound, this is a place where there exists well-preserved fossils of plants and animals from around 50 million years ago (How do they tell? Carbon dating perhaps - just because that's the only scientific related terms that I know). There has a few signage explaining/showcasing the fossils that embedded within the rocks. Honestly, even with the explanation, there are a lot of the fossils that I could not really find them. It probably needs some imagination. I did not take any of the fossils with my phone camera, and am lazy to process the camera photos, so folks, no fossils.
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| A look from the bottom. |
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| It is said that water erodes the rock from the middle, forming the small arc connecting two walls. |
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| A short trail upwards. |
It wasn't that educating since we were having a blind tour ourselves, but the scenery and the indulging environment have made this a worthwhile visit.
Next, we were at the climax of this trip.
I have been the driver since morning, I have decided to pass the car key to one of the passengers to continue on the journey back. There are many "highways" at The State that is really a normal road connecting one *small* town to another. How small? Some probably with just not more than 20 buildings. The "highway" will cross right through the town, doubled as the main road of the town, instead of the normal exit and entrance with flyover and stuffs. We pass through a lot of these small towns throughout the journey, but there is this town that we went through too fast without decelerating to the town speed limit, and immediately, a police car
come out of nowhere and pulled us over. The trick of acting innocence failed, and we got a ticket of $160, a freaking hundred-and-sixty dollar.
What's more, the car was rented under my name, the police officer instructed that I should have been the driver if we don't want to be towed. And the driving seat is back to me again. 20 hours of flight, 4 hours of sleep, 12 hours of travelling, and now I have to continue to drive, needless to say I was exhausted.
It was late, it was dark, I was tired. I wasn't at my best concentration, and was forced to slow down frequently; with the combination of darkness, unfamiliar road, fatigue, light blind from the opposite lane, I think I drove like a drug addict, and that, triggered a concerned road user to report that to the police.
Life is stranger than fiction, how can I deny that under this circumstances.
Should I say we are lucky that we went to the rest area by the highway on time, that the concerned road user who is also a
private detective, get to talk with us to know that we are completely sober and the darkness is the issue, not
meth or
weed or anything else. He called back 911 and withdrew the report, before we actually hit a roadblock or chased by a police car; but that already gave us a big heart attack, stopping down by police twice in a day is not a good sign.
I continue to drove back very carefully, before having dinner at Portland, which I almost gave myself and my fellow passengers another heart attack by nearly taking the wrong turn into a one-way-street.
It's been a long day, 20 hours is long, $160 ticket is long, misunderstood as a drug addict is long. But I wouldn't say I am not enjoying it, since everything is good, everyone is safe, this is not a bad experience to have after all.
Till then.
