the life of a chumber, chapter three - 2 (+) years in the emerald city

Well, I know it's been a while, but welcome back to me.

I (we) arrived in Eugene, OR this past Sunday, after an exhausting but fun (at times) trip across the country.  After starting in Oak Ridge, TN, I spent four weeks working in Tulsa, OK, first languishing at landscape work and then standing and sweating over a hot grill at Sonic on 38th and Harvard.  Finally all of that ended and I hit the road, along with my travel companions, the Hilshers - that is Gerald, Vickie, Ali, Wade and Kramer.  We made our first stop after a 13 hour drive in Breckenridge, CO, which happens to be named after Buchanan's VP John C. Breckinridge.  The first "i" was changed to an "e" when Breckinridge sided with the Confederacy in the Civil War.

After a short walk through town and breakfast at a sidewalk table with the Krame, we started back out for Ogden, UT, which is just past Salt Lake City.  Along the way, I stopped to snap a picture and grab a genuine Desert Southwest rock.  Then came the last major stretch of our journey, up through Idaho and finally taking us into the Beaver State.  Since we had been driving basically nonstop for days, and it was a good 10 hours anyway, we stopped in Bend instead of trudging on to TrackTown.  The resorty town of Bend was definitely enjoyable and merits a trip back as soon as possible, although we did take time out to ride the ski lift up Mt. Bachelor.

After what felt like a year, we headed for Eugene.  The first few days have been consumed by setting up Ali in her lovely apartment, as well as some funner items such as a daytrip to the coast, where we saw the country's largest sea cave, which just happens to be a haven for hundreds of massive potato-looking sea lions.

Today the rest of the crew leaves and real life begins to set in, though fortunately it doesn't really begin until Sept. 29th for me.  Be on the lookout for trip and Eugene pictures to bring some life to the blog.

Until then, should you want to spend a solid 30 hours driving time jaunting across much of the western United States, here's a custom roadmap of our journey.  I should warn you - most of it is pretty boring, so you'll need a good stack of CD's, including a good themed mix such as this one I came up with.