Hey!!! I'm back!!! God, what a great vacation. And I plan to tell you all about it--one day at a time. I figured I'd go through the vacation and try to relive the interesting bits chronologically. I've got pictures for most days, and Sweety, if you don't go to the Redwoods after seeing these pictures...
Enough foreshadowing. I left work at about 3:15 on Tuesday afternoon, raced home, and Matt and I jumped into the car, which he had been working on loading all day. On our way south to catch the freeway, we drove through the town of Emmett. I like to say that I spent a decade living in Emmett one year. Actually it was more like three years spent there. I have bad feelings about Emmett, mostly attached to my destroyed relationship with my mother, via the Jehovah's Witless experience.
Anyway, after driving as quickly as possible through that, we hit the world's ugliest stretch of road. Highway 20 runs between Ontario and Burns, Oregon. There isn't one damn thing to see there except for the Shoe Tree. It's about 30 miles east of Burns. Every year, the graduating high school seniors in Vale, Oregon (15 miles west of Ontario) drive out to the Shoe Tree, tie the laces together on their sneakers, and pitch them up into the branches. There must be 200 pairs of shoes in the tree, which leads me to believe they've been doing it for quite a while, as Vale probably doesn't graduate more than about 15 people each year.
My boss had told me that the Pine Room in Burns was the place to get a steak in Oregon. It was right next door to our hotel, so we decided to go for it. I ordered the small size New York Strip. The meal started out with shrimp cocktail, which meant about 15 baby salad shrimp buried under 2 tablespoons of cocktail sauce. I figured this was going to be another boondoggle sponsored by my boss until the soup arrived: tomato/tarragon bisque. Heaven in a bowl. Salads came and mine had homemade bleu cheese dressing. Not too shabby. And then the steak...ahhh, the steak. I don't know how the cook got such a perfect sear, but it was delightfully crisped on the outside and rose pink and juicy in the middle. I think there might have been a potato. After we finished, the waitress brought us complimentary slices of pumpkin bread with strawberry butter. It was great. We turned in early that night with very full tummies.
More to come tomorrow, this time with pictures. You'll likely notice two recurring themes to my little travelouge: food, and the orange shirt. You'll see what I mean.
Mucho thanks to Sweety and Chris for taking over while I was gone. You guys did great and I owe you one!