Cross Country Road-Trip Day 1 (July 2):

Corvallis, OR to Burns, OR.

       I spent a good part of the day Tuesday preparing the trailer and truck for the trip and loading everything up.  I had to run out and get a few last minute things, and by the time we had everything ready to go it was about 4PM.  Nathan was going with me on the trip, but Ashley had class and Holly didn’t have enough vacation days built up to make the road trip.  We also decided to leave Sadie and Lillie home since I would be very busy in North Carolina for the first few weeks, and I would not be able to give them the kind of attention they needed.   Sadie and Lillie were very sad to see Nathan and I leave, especially since we were taking the trailer, and they love camping so much.

Nathan and I left Corvallis a little after 4PM, and headed east on Highway 20 through Lebanon, Sweet Home, and up through our first pass.  Tombstone Pass is at an elevation of 4236’, so it was quite a climb from our starting point which was just a few hundred feet above sea level, but the truck was doing fine.  Nathan and I took a break and a few photos at the summit.  Even though it was July, there was still quite a bit of snow in any areas that did not get direct sun during the day.

We kept going on highway 20 and went down a bit in elevation before making another climb past Hoodoo ski Resort as we reached Santiam Pass.  Santiam Pass (4817’) is at a little higher elevation than Tombstone, but the road going through is wider and easier to drive.  From here it was mostly downhill through Sisters and Bend Oregon.  We grabbed a bite to eat in Bend and continued across the rain shadow of the Cascades. 

The change in vegetation is striking as you make the trip across the Cascades and into Eastern Oregon.  Dense Douglas fir forest turns into Ponderosa and Lodgepole pine forests as you crest the Cascades.  As you move further east into the Cascade rain shadow the vegetation changes from pine forests to juniper.  Further east of Bend the Juniper gets thinner and thinner until there is nothing but isolated sagebrush.  All of this happens within a couple of hundred miles. 

East of Bend both vegetation and population thinned out substantially.  Although it was night, we could tell there wasn’t much out there.  Between Bend and Burns there were many stretches where not a light from a car or house could be seen for miles and miles, and this was relatively flat, wide open desert.

We arrived in Burns RV Park at about 10:30PM.  Although Burns is in the middle of a high desert, it is an oasis so there are many sources of water around.  With this water was a lot of mosquitoes.  When Nathan and I got out of the truck to set up the trailer, we both got several mosquito bites within the first minute or so.  We had to douse ourselves in mosquito repellent before finishing setting up the rig and getting ready for bed. We quickly drifted off to sleep after a long day.   

We had traveled about 270 Miles this day in about 6hours.  I put in 23.5 gallons of gas in Corvallis before the trip at $4.209/gallon ($98.86) and another 34.3 gallons in Burns at $.429/gallon ( $151.59 …Ouch!).  Burns had the most expensive gas on our trip, probably due to the isolated location.