This post is going to be quick b/c it is late. Yesterday we left little Hermiston around 10:30, after a nice swim in the hotel pool. I was pleased to see that neither my bike nor bell had been stolen in the night as we had had to lock the bike to my car. :P
So, we got on the road fand hadn't gone far when we came upon the little town of Pendleton. What is significant about this trip/finding is two fold. First, my mother made this same trip (from Seattle to D.C.) with her mother, just as I am now, when she was about 27, except I'm 28. Mom was eastward bound then b/c she had been hired by the State Department. My mom and her mother stopped at the Pendleton Wool Mill store on their way east and got some wool cloth. So, we stopped at the Pendleton Wool Mill and got some cloth, which my mother is going to sew into a dress for me. It was a historic occasion.
Shortly after, we continued on our journey eastward. We stopped at a scenic view, which is apparently protected in Oregon. A sign at the site said over 7,000 signs and billboards had been removed from the transit area as part of a scenic overlooks protection act or something. I thought that was very liberal of them.
Continuing on, we drove on I-84. I can't remember anything really noteworthy happening for most of the day. My Mom and I finished listening to "Around the World In 80 Days", which is part of my goal to be more literature-ified or educated or something.
We drove like the little steam engine that could until about 7:30 pm when we realized we needed some gas and also some food. At that point we had a little under quarter tank. We stopped at the first place we saw, a sinclair station in a little podunk town. The sign on the door of the station said "Enter Carefully, Baby Rattlers Display". Unfortunately, the door wouldn't open b/c the station was closed, and the pumps were all pre-pay. So... we got back in our car and continued down the road, knowing that we didn't have far to go on the tank of gas we had, and also noting that we were in the middle of nowhere and we often went 30 miles before another exit.
So, we continued on our way. We knew Snowville was about 38 miles away, but told ourselves "surely we won't have to go that far, there will be something sooner." There was nothing sooner. I slowed down from 78mph to about 65 in order to get a little better gas mileage. While the semis were passing us by, we were just looking ahead, waiting for an exit with a gas station. We looked at every exit between us and Snowville for gas and niente! Nothing. About 10 or so miles from Snowville the gas light came on, and at that point we weren't even sure Snowville would have gas, but like the little engine that could we just kept saying "I think I can, I think I can." We knew that when the gas light came on we had a couple gallons left, so when it did, we knew we could go 20+ more miles. My Mom was pretty stressed out at this point, but I just suggested she make sure we had phone reception, check the GPS for gas stations and not worry. She worried, I didn't worry, but I was giving God a little shout out for some help. I felt sure we would be ok. Then we saw a sign for Snowville, which was 7 miles away. I let God know it would be good if there was gas there, and I think he concurred. 7 miles later, we puttered into the gas station, and I was sure the car was about to give out. We thankfully filled the tank, the 15 gallon tank, to 15.3 gallons. Does that mean we were running on celestial gas? I think so. We said "holla" to God in each our own special ways, grabbed some food (it was not around 9) and made a break for Utah, arriving in Bountiful around 10:30.
Thank goodness for miracle gasoline and for faith and for "Around the World in 80 Days". This is going to be a long trip, but also monumental and memorable.
Today is 'get ready for the funeral day', our journey will continue on Monday.
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