Modern Day Oregon Trail

Us being the experienced hitchers we now are we decide to update our hitching tools. We borrow a marker from the front desk and use the epmty 30 pack box to make a nice sign. "Next Exit" is written in big box letters on the front and "Interperative Center" on the back. The destination is 5 miles off of I-84 from the next exit. We walk the entire way to the next exit and about a mile and a half up the road towards the museum without catching a ride. This has got to be the most friendly town on Earth except when it comes to picking up hitchikers. We pass the world's largest farming tool graveyard and a sign advertising fresh beef for sale. We stumble across the full skeletal remains of some kind of small animal on the side of the road. We reach a sign telling us we're 3 miles from the interperative center and the going looks to get much rougher. We hold out our sign at the bottom of this hill and point to the roadsign figuring if'n we don't get picked up soon we'd head on back yonder to the hotel.



Finally we get picked up by a car with three dutes in it (thanks dutes) and they take us up to the place. It's unclear who feels more sorry for who along the way. Us for them for them having to live here. Or them for us for us being stranded here. We ask them what there is to do around here and they say "work." As if we needed any more proof that this place wasn't for us.



We accidentaly sneak into the back entrance of the museum like a couple of Amir's and check out the taxadermised buffalo, wax figures of settlers and indians, and recreated covered wagons. One not so modern display is designed to "recreate" the action of rowing a boat through a muddy river and on closer look it turns out to be a stick connected to a bungy cord. We took about an hour or so to check it out and I gotta say, those people definitely had it rough....better them than me.



The ride home was the days highlight.....we got picked up once again by two young dutes (thanks dutes!) who were driving a tiny pickup truck. We hopped in the back, propped up on the cab of the truck with our matching New Balance backpacks as pillows, put our feet up on the side of the bed and watched the mountains disappear behind us. We winded down the hills with the wind swooping by, the hillsides rising up on our right and the cliffs along our left. They dropped us right in town and we hopped out feeling like we just captured the adventurous spirit of the settlers in the museum.



We watched with glee as the Pistons whipped up on the Lakers while eating stir frys and sipping on Alaskan Ales in the hotel lounge. Then back to the lobby where more battles ensued and one Randy Moss lit up the Steelers (sorry boys) with a record setting 24 catches. Hot Dog.