Winding Roads

It wouldn't be a trip west if I didn't set out early to catch dawn's earliest blue splinters. Thanks to the peaks of northeastern Oregon, there were no glimpses of the sun until I reached La Grande. While I missed little but state troopers running radar in Idaho, I had enough light by the time I crossed the Snake River into Oregon to observe the ragged, strange cliffs and peaks hemming I-84. Soon enough, the weirdness would break into the Baker Valley, once a stop on the Oregon Trail. Wind whipped the valley and cast a chill in just a few seconds outdoors.

After crossing another pass, I realized I had a lot of time to spare before my appointment at Dunham Cellars in Walla Walla (I forgot the change to Pacific Time). La Grande seemed large enough that it might host a good breakfast place or two, so I left the highway. Instead of the nearly dead small-town city centers common across Tennessee and Ohio, I found a throwback in La Grande - a highly livable corridor. If the attendants at thr Texaco work white uniforms, the retro state would have aced every detail. A JC Penney store co-existed with the local theatre, and local businesses held their own below the peaks.


I found a bakery with coffee and excellent spinache quiche and struck up a conversation with the owner. She told me the road to Joseph should be avoided, despite the majestic views - the state didn't maintain it from October till June and without any cell phone services, it would be easy to land in a ditch thanks to the packed ice. The conversation was engrossing to where I didn't realize Tom Waits' "Please Call Me, Baby" payed in the background. Should the world go to hell, I'll think hard about migrating to La Grande.

On the way out, I stopped for gas, and ran into the biggest quirk of Oregon law. Before I could reach the pump, the attendant snared it, and I remember what Dennis wrote all those months ago: Only New jersey and Oregon forbid the consumer from pumping their own gas. It's hard to remember the last time I even encountered another human being when pumping gas; thanks to credit cards, I only go inside when the machine won't print a receipt. When I came back through those valleys, I stopped in North Powder for one more dose of its novelty.

From La Grande the highway rose into the deciduous forest I expected of Oregon. Little did I know how familiar I would get with the forest later in the day. While this road ran about 4,000 feet above the valley floor, the width of those valleys made it all the more spectacular. The descent into Pendleton came steeply, winding down the wind-battered rock into a verdant landscape flush with vegetation so green it almost appeared fake.

From there the road turned to Milton-Freewater. It frog prince logo ensured no one would ever confuse the little board town with Milton Friedman, the influential free-market economist. These little towns out here held onto their character in ways which those back East have not. Perhaps it owes something to their remoteness or the culture of the Pacific Northwest. but somehow, they all had it in spades.

Shortly up the road, I came to Walla Walla, one of Washington's prime wine-growing regions. I strolled the main drag near Whitman College and grabbed a quick lunch at a little cafe with uber-friendly staff (the waiter apologized if he disappeared for stretches due to training a new employee). An elk burger with sweet potato fries would suitably fortify my stomach for the tasting to come.