Sunday, August 12, 2007

Idaho Trip 5 - The Trip Home

Virginia and I left Moscow about 5:00 Wednesday afternoon with the plan to drive about 3 hours down the road and do the rest of the trip on Thursday. We did that, but Wednesday was a bit more eventful. It turns out Hwy 195 was closed due to a big accident, so the highway department guys were re-routing everyone to the right or left at an intersection. Most of the cars were turning left, and the guy in the orange vest said we should follow them since we needed to get to Hwy 26... so we did. About a mile down the road, the guys in front of us turned right onto dirt road that wound up and over hills, disappearing into the wheat fields. The road had a name (although I don't remember it) and it was easy to follow the dust clouds, so we took a deep breath, switched the vent to recirculate, and followed. For the next 20 minutes or so we drove literally over hill and dale, past workers in the wheat fields, sometimes barely able to see because the dust was so thick, eventually arriving at a paved road which took us to Hwy 26... amazing!! Interestingly enough, nobody behind us followed us on the dirt road... probably that California plate... so there was likely a more conventional way to get where we arrived. My guess is that we were just following some locals who knew the shortcuts.

Below are some shots take on the way home.

A couple of shots along the Columbia River.


Mount Hood in the background from Hwy 97 south.

From right to left, the Three Sisters peaks and Broken Top (I think).

Back in California, Mount Shasta from the north.

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