Home from WESTERN U.S.!
Sep. 10-15 2022
PART 1
The September Surprise continues! The meatiness of this fact-finding mission justifies a whole second photo shoot - with 10 parts - just to cover the trip's second half!
When I call this trip the September Surprise, I mean it. I mean it like a dictionary. A big ol' unabridged, no less! This video shows that this trip gives me another state I'd never visited: Oregon! As I visit Oregon, I've now been to every state in the lower 48! In this clip, WA 125 becomes OR 11 as I pick up my last state in the contiguous U.S.!
Signature Oregon speed limit sign on OR 11.
OR 11 at OR 332 near Milton-Freewater.
OR 11 goes under a rail bridge in Milton-Freewater.
Another signature Oregon speed limit sign.
And another, as OR 11 approaches an unusual traffic island.
A very slight variation of the font dimensions of the Beav State's speed limit sign.
OR 11 in Milton-Freewater again.
The hill on the right here on OR 11 looks like a big snuffleupagus.
Approaching Athena, like that song by the Who. (Another Horizon memory!)
OR 11 goes under another rail bridge.
OR 11 again.
Still OR 11.
OR 331 in Mission on the Umatilla reservation.
Our southeasterly shift beginned in earnest as we bipped onto I-84/US 30.
I-84 will soon provide some of the greatest scenery of this trip, so hang on to your appendix! You can see that the median is already pretty wide here, with I-84 west way off to the left.
I-84 overlays US 30. It was I-80N from 1958-80 and I-82 before that. Changing the signs from I-80N to I-84 cost $140,000 in Oregon alone. I-84 roughly follows the Oregon Trail.
We're getting ready to kick off one of the biggest surprises of this trip...
Surprise! Splat! This is the start of the Emigrant Hill stretch of I-84 in which the median is perhaps a mile wide. We're on I-84 east, which was the old path of US 30. I-84 west uses a newer roadway. Even earlier, US 30 used a different roadway that apparently was the Oregon Trail.
This is one of the tighter curves on I-84.
I-84 continues its jaunt through this stunning stretch.
We don't call this trip the September Surprise for nothing! You can actually see I-84 as it curves around.
Today's big enemy: wildfires!
I-84 is the road that keeps on giving!
This appears to be another view of I-84 curving around.
As we end the Emigrant Hill stretch, you can see traffic on what appears to be I-84 west up on the hill.