Commentary: On the road again, this time heading for home, sweet home in Oregon

By BEN OLSON/For The Herald — A trip of 2,300 miles begins with a fifty-dollar fill-up.  The quote isn’t famous yet, but it’s as true as any other quote about beginning a journey.  I did a lot of things on my trip back to Wisconsin, but I’m not going to bore you with all the details, at least not right now. Instead, I’m going to do a travelogue about my drive back to Oakridge.

All packed the night before, I pulled onto Interstate 90 westbound at 7 a.m. on Monday. It would be dark for the first hour. It was blustery, with gusty winds coming out of the northeast, pulling rain from Lake Michigan. By the time I reached the Mississippi River at Lacrosse, I had driven out of the rain and there was a stunning sunrise that I could see in my rearview mirror.

As the highway comes out of the river valley on the Minnesota side, it travels up a broad valley where the westbound traffic is on the north side and the eastbound is on the other side of the drainage, a half-mile away. This would, in most years, be arrayed with bright reds and oranges, but fall colors were very subdued throughout Wisconsin and Minnesota this year, fading to browns and dull yellows.

Mmmmm. Spam, anyone?

Although I’ve been through Austin, Minnesota, a number of times, I’ve never taken in the Spam Museum. This trip was no exception. Perhaps the thought of all the Spam I could eat at the end of the tour was not appealing to me. Aren’t spamalopes endangered?

A little after noon I crossed into South Dakota. It looked quite a bit like the part of Minnesota I had just driven through. At Mitchell I passed up a chance to see the Corn Palace. After driving past 400 miles of cornfields, I just couldn’t get enthused about seeing a palace commemorating a type of grass planted in rows. My destination for the first night was Winner, South Dakota, where I would get a chicken dinner and hopefully a good night’s sleep.

When I took the road south off the Interstate toward Winner, I was still 140 miles from Wall Drug, but had already seen 25 billboards touting its many amenities.

Tuesday morning I was on the road, once again at 7 a.m. About the time it got light, at 8:30, I passed into Mountain Time and got one of my hours back.

‘Hanky Panky’

As I traveled west, I entered the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Scanning the dial on my radio, I found the native station. The morning DJ read today’s birthdays, followed by several native chanting and drum songs, and then, by request, two songs by Tommy James and the Shondells, followed by more drum music. Then, right on schedule, I saw my first herd of buffaloes on the trip. Because the Sioux can’t follow them anymore, they are fenced in.

At Martin, I turned south toward Nebraska. The last 10 miles before the border, the countryside was filled with spiky, cactus-like plants. When I got to the Nebraska line, they virtually disappeared.

Nebraska is billed as the “Home of Arbor Day”, which is probably more high-minded than say, the “show me” state. Just east of Chadron I saw seven rooster pheasants standing on the shoulder of the road, picking at the gravel.

Pioneer graffiti

As I continued west, the Nebraska National Forest could be seen to the south — rugged bluffs covered with junipers. Crossing into Wyoming, patches of snow and herds of antelope began to appear. The railroad ran parallel to the highway and a long train, carrying nothing but coal, chugged eastward. Low clouds scudded across the sky and tumbleweeds rolled swiftly over the road. By the time I reached Casper, I had a chance to use all the intermittent windshield wiper settings.

At Casper, I turned south and followed the North Platte River for a while, on my way to Independence Rock. It is a solid granite mound 130 feet high, 1,900 feet long and 850 feet wide and covered with graffiti chiseled into the rock by the pioneers traveling through here on their way to new lives in Utah, California and Oregon. Between 1840 and the opening of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, it is estimated that a half-million migrants passed by this point on their way west.

With the Sweetwater River flowing right by the rock, it proved to be a good spot to stop for a few days and repair the wagons and let the horses and livestock graze for a bit. I walked around the base of the mound and then scrambled to the top of it. By the time I came down there was a blizzard settling in. Visibility was limited, but it was too warm for the snow to stick to the road.

After crossing the Continental Divide twice in 30 miles, I pulled into Rawlins, ready to relax for the rest of the day.

The hits just keep coming

I came out of my hotel to grab something out of the truck and there stood a 10-point buck 50 feet from the hotel door.

The next morning I slept in because I only had about 5 hours to go to get to my sister’s place in Heber City, Utah. Getting on I-80 westbound, I crossed the Continental Divide again. Arriving at my sister’s in the mid-afternoon, it was good to look forward to a day off from driving. The next afternoon I played a concert for all the folks at the assisted living facility where my mother is staying. They are a most appreciative audience and enjoy getting to hear live music. Many of them aren’t any older than me, so I can play some of the pop songs from my youth, knowing that that’s the same music they listened to growing up.

Friday morning I was up and on the road at 5 a.m and was through Salt Lake City and almost to Nevada by the time it got light. Turning north off the Interstate at Winnemucca, I was on the home stretch. The road that leads to Lakeview, Oregon, takes you through one of the most unpopulated parts of the entire country. The panoramas are breathtaking, although some appear more lunar than earthly.

I stopped in Paisley to fill the gas tank. I had fallen back into the drudgery of pumping my own gas everywhere else, so when the young man came out and filled my tank, I tipped him with a crisp two-dollar bill.

The lake at Summer Lake was a long, long way away from where the shores were at one time in the not-so-distant past. At Silver Lake, the sign says, “there is no silver and there is no lake.”

Almost home

At the junction of Highway 31 and Highway 97, I headed south to the Crescent cutoff, knowing I would be home within the hour. That’s where the rain began, which was not a surprise to me, as I had spent October in the Cascades before.

After being on the road for almost a month, it was good to get back to my wife and get to spend my first night in the new house- the closing didn’t take place until after I headed to Wisconsin. Now that I’m back, I promise to stay on topic and write, once again, about life here in the place I’ve chosen to make my home, the Highway 58 corridor of the Cascade Mountains.

Oakridge musician Ben Olson, entertainment editor and columnist for The Herald, can be reached by email at [email protected]