July 7, 2009

Pendleton-Maupin

After a nice leisurely morning at the park and lunching in downtown Pendleton, we headed toward Maupin. The big RendezVW wasn't scheduled to start until Friday, but we wanted to have some down time to settle into our campsite before the festivities really got started.

On I-84 we saw a tree farm that totally took us by surprise. None of us, Esmé included, had ever seen a tree farm like this before. It was sort of eerie how the trees were so nicely growing in rows. Some plots had massive trees, and some were only saplings. They were just so...uniform. And the farms went on and on as far as we could see over the hills south of the interstate. 

Perfectly spaced, see? I wonder how those trees are planted. By hand? How big are they when they're planted? Do the saplings require a lot of care so they don't die? Do insects ever just wipe these monocultures right out? Intellectually, I know it's reasonable, it just seems so much stranger to me than food crops we grew up seeing in Nebraska. 

The Columbia River Gorge with Mount Hood as the backdrop. So so scenic. And it's nice to see river traffic. It's sort of reminiscent of the container ships I remember seeing between the Channel Islands and Ellwood Beach coast when we lived in California.

Mitch drove the gorge this year, and we had a headwind the entire time. This Bud Light truck was the only one I was able to draft to cut the edge on that damn wind. That's Mt. Hood in the distance on the right. It last erupted in 1907. Look out, Portland.

Tater Tot enjoyed listening to Here Come the ABCs by They Might Be Giants on this trip. She still sings parts of "Go for G!" even though we haven't listened to the album again since we've been back from the trip. I think we also spent a fair amount of time singing some songs from the Missoula Public Library's Tiny Tales.

Doesn't it look like Ludwig is parked way out in front of everyone else? He was. I was somewhat...encouraging...about having a perfectly level spot since I knew we'd be sleeping in Ludwig for 3 nights. 

(miles 220,824-220,991)

1 comment:

Lisa said...

How fun. That VW on the rights seems to have more going on outside their van vs. inside. Do you ever do that?

Can't wait to see tater tot. I love how she wears eleventy-billion bracelets!

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