Fly Me To The Moon

We officially crawled back into our silver shuttle and we are headed homeward. I don't even want to look at a map because I know how many pages I have to turn in the Atlas to arrive at our destination. We (I, that is) decided not to kill ourselves with outrageously long days and take a more modest approach so we can decompress at a slower pace. I know my husband is envisioning our lawn burning to a crisp for each minute that ticks by, but, oh well.

We took a scenic route called the Old McKenzie Highway through the McKenzie Pass in the Cascade Mountains. After we wound our way through curve after curve, my husband remarked that he probably would not take this road again because "all we are seeing is more trees." A few curves later we saw a feature that puzzled us. It looked like a dump truck had backed up and unloaded tons and tons of rubble in a very large pile along the side of the road. A sign indicated that this was a crater site. As we continued along the way we saw more and more of the rich black obsidian rock piled up in a helter skelter fashion around us. It was evident that we were passing through the rubble of a volcanic mountain. The landscape looked eerily like a moonscape. Life seemed to be screeching to a halt, but for a few scrappy trees and the birds soaring overhead. It was truly a magnificent place.

We continued down the mountain and entered the high plains of Oregon. I discovered that one does not need a volcano to slow down the pace of life. We drove for miles with nothing but sagebrush and the shadows of hawks reflecting on the highway ahead of us. I was waiting for the credits of a John Wayne movie to start rolling on my Garmin. Hot and dry and more of it.

We finished our day with a chicken dinner from the local Safeway (only store open on a Sunday evening in a tiny town on the high plains).  It was a gourmet feast for two weary travelers who had been to the moon and back.