Starting Point: Portland, OR
Ending Point: Boise, ID
Distance Traveled: 450 miles
This Morning I left Devida’s house at 5:30AM, almost immediately after waking up at 5AM. Given that I’m a morning person, I have been finding that getting early starts has been a habit that’s been working extremely well so far. By the time it’s 8AM or 9AM I’m a few hours into the day and have already made significant process in terms of mileage and experiences.
On this day, I started by driving on the Columbia Gorge Scenic Byway, a beautiful road running parallel to the Columbia River which is surrounded by towering trees on both sides of the highway and several waterfalls along the scenic road. I ended up stopping at Wahkeena Falls, Multnomah Falls, and Horsetail Falls.
I then continued on into Oregon’s dry farmland and field terrain, which greatly differed from my general expectations of Oregon being a completely green, wet state. After a few hours driving through dry, hilly terrain and crossing through desolate, I reached the quiet towns of Huntington and Ontario.
When I arrived in Boise, I made a bee-line to a section of the Boise River Greenbelt that’s immediately adjacent to Ann Morrison Park and Kathryn Albertson Park. Ann Morrison Park is a huge, grassy open park with relatively little picnic tables, sports fields, etc. Most of the visitors seemed to use the park as a launching pad for their river tubes along the Boise River. Kathryn Albertson Park is an architecturally-designed walkable park with interesting features such as roaming ducks, lakes, bridges, and much more. Both parks and the Boise River Greenbelt are rated about 5 stars on Trip Advisor and it was really convenient being able to see all three within such a short amount of time.
After visiting the parks, I texted Sue Boydstun and drove to her house.(https://www.couchsurfing.com/people/epe) She was doing some work in her yard and her koi pond. Sue is a former elementary physical-education teacher, and she is very kind/goodhearted/nurturing. Her foot was hurting, and I couldn’t help but feeling bad at how she’s living along and will probably continue to live alone. She’s doing very well by maintaining hobbies, keeping active in church groups, hosting couch surfers, but it’s just tough that she’ll probably be living alone and it will become increasingly difficult with her progressive immobility as she ages. Family is so important and they definitely need to be cherished and not taken for granted, even though it’s so commonplace and normal in the community I grew up in.
Sue and I went to a bar to watch the Women’s Fifa World Cup Game between USA and Japan. USA won 5-2 and as soon as the game was over, we left. Sue suggested that I could try and drive all the way to West Yellowstone tomorrow, rather than just stopping at Idaho Falls. Apparently, the route to Idaho Falls isn’t too interesting and Idaho Falls is a quiet town, so I’ll probably heed Sue’s advice and head straight to West Yellowstone.
