Day one of Honeymoon Phase II!

We got a little later than planned start this morning due to a little later than planned bedtime last night.  (Had to finish packing!)  But we were on our way by 7:30 under mostly cloudy, threateningly gray type of skies.  (No rain, but it looked like it might any minute.)

Traffic was light all the way through Portland.  We made an unplanned stop at Maryhill to see the Stonehenge monument, which is actually a WWI memorial for the 18 people from Klickitat County who died in that war.  Up on the hill across the way is another memorial for WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam.  Windy and a little cool on the hillside up there, but the clouds had mostly gone away at that point, and the sunshine was glorious.

We stopped for lunch at Pendleton, right across the street from the Church of the Nazarene.  Not planned, we just looked up from our chicken sandwiches, and there it was!

Our next stop was the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center at Baker City.  It’s very cool!  We spent over 2 1/2 hours just looking at dioramas and reading the stuff all over the walls and watching videos.  Very well laid out, very informative, and very interesting.  And another thing – there weren’t too many people there, I guess because it’s Monday NOT in the summer.  But when we got out of the car, all the way we walked into the building, as well as all the way back to our car afterwards, it was absolutely silent.  No birds, no traffic noise, nothing.  It didn’t feel spooky, though; it felt very serene – very quieting.

We stopped for dinner and gas in Ontario and decided to call it quits for the day and spend the night here.  Tomorrow we are going to spend a few hours in a wildlife refuge south of Boise and do some birdwatching, and then we’re off to spend the night and the next day in Salt Lake City, my old stomping grounds!

By the way, as we have been driving along, in addition to reading each other “The Light and the Glory” (GREAT book!), Sharla brought along a book of “If” questions, and we are each answering all of the questions.  Some of them are pretty easy, but some are really challenging.  (Such as, “If you could ask Jesus one question while He was here on earth, what would it be?”)  We’re still learning more about each other, and it’s a lot of fun!

I have attempted to attach some photos to this blog – I hope it works!

More tomorrow.