We had been spending a considerable amount of time in Redwood City, both seeing my friend and taking the car to a mechanic’s shop. It also seems that the more time you spend out and about the more you eat out. We hit some yummy restaurants during our stay; specifically pancake houses and sushi, haha :)
It was so great to catch up with my friend too; we used to compete in Pony Club together in high school.
We left Jason’s sister’s house and got 40 miles away when we realized we forgot our hard drive. Oops. So we pulled off at a truck stop, unhitched the car and Jason drove back to retrieve it. Richie was nice enough to meet him. Unfortunately, it added another hour and a half to our already delayed trip.
We continued on towards central Oregon, excited to see his brother and his family. We drove past Mount Hood and saw some beautiful scenery through the passes. But mountain passes always set me on edge and today was no exception. I kept asking Jason how the temperature gauge was doing and it was running high, but still coming back down when we coasted…until it didn’t.
You would think that having to drive 794 miles, heading west, across Wyoming and Montana would be a little monotonous.
Not for us!
Three hours into the day’s drive, we stopped off at a gas station for some snack refills. Upon walking back to the coach, I noticed the bike rack was hyperextended toward the car, and was hovering about 3 inches above the hood.
NOT GOOD!
We are west of the Mississippi again!
Neither of us had ever been to Iowa before, and since we were headed west, we decided to stop and see my childhood friend, Jenn, who lives near Iowa City. I haven’t seen her for 14 years.
Both her and her husband are veterinarians and they own their own practice. They have a 120+ acre farm filled with sheep, ducks, chickens, horses, dogs—lots of dogs!—and a tortoise. It really is beautiful property but the weather was a little brutal. She told us it was a cool day but it was still very hot and humid. Apparently the winters are harsh also. It was very reminiscent of “Little House on the Prairie” :)
We made it out of Massachusetts just as the rains came and had a nice cool travel day through Rhode Island and Connecticut. It only took 39 minutes to cut through Rhode Island, long enough to ponder the validity of its name since it is not an island nor even a peninsula. In keeping with the theme of New England it should’ve at least been named “New Rhode,” but I digress.