The Oregon Trail

Our route: http://goo.gl/maps/lQjc3 

Day 1 Sunday: Raleigh to Meridian Mississippi

We left with our entire life of ‘stuff’ crammed into our two cars.   We each had a large bag of road snacks given to us by Jonathan’s parents and Courtney Webb.   We also had walkie talkies.  We drove through North Carolina, South Carolina, and through part of Georgia before stopping in Atlanta to have a late lunch/early dinner with our friend Austin.  Just before stopping we both hit a wall of fatigue.  When we arrived we were greeted with cold carbonated drinks, a spicy bloody Mary, and the best breakfast casserole ever! After some much needed rest from driving and refuel of hot caffeinated drinks we headed back out.  We crossed through the state of Alabama through the dark. There was multiple traffic construction throughout the state for good reason as the roads were roughly paved and made our cars sound unusually load as our tires sped across the pavement. All in all we had driven about 11 hours.  When we finally arrived at the hotel I was never so happy to get out of the car and take a hot shower.  After settling into our room I checked facebook and saw a photo our friend Emily had taken that morning before we got into our cars. The caption underneath said it was posted 14 hours ago. That was a surreal moment realizing how long the day had truly been but we had survived our first day.  

Day 2: Mississippi to Texas

We crossed the Mississippi River with little thrill. In my head we were going to take a steam boat to cross it but it was just a boring bridge.  When we crossed into Louisiana we found that instead of counties they have parishes. We also entered central time. For lunch we did stop at a hole in the wall Cajon restaurant called Herby Ks. We had some crawfish etouffee and a shrimp Po’boy.  

The most exciting thing about Day 2 is that when we got to Texas we got to see our new little niece Gracie!  I sat down a few feet from her and she smiled and army crawled right to me. She was so little and made the cutest little sounds! I got to give her a bottle and read her a bed time story. It was also nice to see my brother Sam. This was the best reward for driving 9.5 hours. For dinner we had Texas BBQ. 

Day 3: Texas to Moriarty New Mexico

This was the hardest day of our journey by far.  Before starting our trip several people had warned us about the pain of driving through Texas but we thought since we had broken it up it wouldn’t be as bad.  We were not mentally prepared to spend 8 hours just getting to the border.  The roads were long, flat, and barren. Occasionally we would pass through a small town that was so depressing it looked inhabitable. For the first half of the day we drove through scattered showers. 

There were no exit signs or road signs letting us know where we were or how much longer we had to be there. At one point we did pass a sign about Indian rock paintings but when we rode out to see them the sight was closed. On the way back to the road I was looking back and forth still trying to find the Indian paintings when I noticed something sitting by the road. It was a huge animal and it was looking right at me.  I stared at it for several seconds before it registered that it was a buffalo and not only that there were two of them sitting side by side!  Jonathan quickly snapped a picture before we got back on the road!

When we finally made it out of Texas we had another 2 hours to get to Moriarty. We had planned to stop here because there was a brew pub that would be a nice reward to an end to a long day of driving.  When checked into our hotel and had a nice hot shower before dressing into regular clothing and heading out. The internet was not working in the hotel so we were not able to look up information on the brewery.  When we arrived at the brewery we discovered it was closed.  The desk clerk at the hotel had suggested two restaurants but they were also closed and Arbys was even closed.  We went to a gas station to get a beer and found they did not sell beer.  The beer store was closed. Finally utterly discouraged, mentally fatigued, and physically drained we found a MacDonald’s drive through open and headed back to the hotel with our quarter pounders.  Once there we tried to get a bottle of water for the room because the tap water tasted funny but the drink machine was sold out of water! 

Day 4: New Mexico to Moab Utah

After spending 3 days of 10 hour drive time with little stopping we felt we needed to slow down some and see some slights to enjoy our trip. The terrain changed dramaticly from boring flat land to red rocks.  At one point we pulled over on the side of the road for a picture. 

We stopped at the Aztec ruins for about an hour walking around and taking pictures. The doorways were quite small in the ruins and Jonathan had a difficult time fitting through. 

We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant.  We had originally planned to drive to Park City on this day but we made an executive decision to break the trip up a bit more so that we could do more slight seeing.  That night we stayed at a bed and breakfast which was much nicer than any hotel we could have stayed. Since neither of us have smart phones Jonathan’s parents found our bed and breakfast online and booked our room.

Day 5: Moab Utah to Park City Utah

We woke up that morning to an awesome home cooked breakfast of pancakes, strawberry slices, sausage links, orange juice, and coffee. This was by far the best breakfast we had had on the journey so far.  There was another older couple also staying at the Inn.  The man was a retired chemistry professor and loved to talk.  We left the Inn and stopped at the Arches National Park just outside of town and did some hiking to see the North and South window and the double arch.  At one point we lost the trial and had to trudge through the snow to find our way back to the car.

As we neared closer to Park City the snow began to fall harder and visibility decreased. The road appeared to disappear under the snow and ice.   Our speed decreased to 16 mph.  I looked down at the dash and a terrifying orange blinking light appeared that resembled a car on windy roads.   I had never seen this signal before and quickly began to panic especially as my car continued to lose traction.  I called Jonathan in tears exclaiming that I couldn’t drive my car any further and that we were going to have to leave my car there in the snow. Jonathan pulled his car over on the side of the road as many others were also doing and walked back to my car.  Three college students got out of a car parked near mine and helped to push it out of the rut of snow without much success.  They informed us that a snow plow would be coming soon so that we were better off waiting to get back on the road after that.  They were not concerned about the blizzard at all.  Jonathan and I decided it would be better for us to switch cars as his Subaru is all wheel drive.  After making this decision we saw the snow plow coming and I ran back to Jonathan’s car.  As I was frantically making my way back to his car I saw multiple people calmly applying their snow chains and cables to their tires.  When I got back in the car and began to pull into the road I glanced at the GPS. We were 2.7 miles from the Park City exit.  At this point I thought of the long flat dry roads in Texas and suddenly missed that portion of the trip.  I slowly and carefully made my way through town and parked the car outside of the parking deck to await Jonathan to come take the bike off the top of the car.  In order to get my car back in the road a State Trooper had to nudge the back end.  After parking both cars in the parking deck out of the winter weather Jonathan and I proceeded to search for a bar and choose the first one which was names Oh’ Shucks we saw to have a drink and settle our nerves from the last 30 minutes of terror we had just endured.

Day 6: We hunkered down in Park City with our friend William and Chelsea to wait out the blizzard that was named Gandolf. It was slowly making its way across the northwest. We made a pot of chili for our hosts.  We also bought and learned how to apply tire cables to my tires. That night we went to the No Name Saloon where we got to experience heated benches on the outside deck.

Day 7: Park City to Pendleton, Oregon

Our last day of driving was somewhat nerve racking because there was still some winter road cautions for some of the roads. In some places we were forced to slow down to one way due to the lingering snow and ice.  The temperature was 9 degrees! At times our drive felt more like we were driving on the moon because all around was white craters with no sign of civilization.

When we crossed the border we stopped to take a photo next to the welcome to Oregon Sign.

Before reaching Pendleton we had to cross over a mountain range while the sun was quickly setting.  We arrived at our apartment at 5:30 pacific coast time. After bringing in the minimal we needed for the night we walked three blocks down to the Prodigal Son Brewery for some much needed dinner as our meals that day consisted of road snacks. We brought back a growler and tried to stay up as late as possible to acclimate to the time zone but only made it till 9:45.

50 hours of driving completed in 7 days we were finally at our destination!