Union, Oregon

Saturday, May 4, 2002

With the memory of Irrigon receeding in my mind (and the delicious beef noodle soup warming my tummy) I continued east on Interstate 84.

I passed near the town of Echo (no Bunnymen were present) and I thought I heard something. It sounded like, "I passed near the town of Echo (no Bunnymen were present) and I thought I heard something." Weird. Pendleton snuck up on me like a rope around a bronco but a clown jumped out of a barrel and saved me. Pendleton is the site of an annual rodeo of some notoriety although I don't know nothin' about no brandin', ropin' or doggy-pokin' so much of the local flavor is lost on me.

The next "major" town along I-84 is La Grande and that's where I left the slab and joined up with OR-237 which eventually becomes Main Street in Union. If you recall my confusion in the previous episode, I had been looking for an establishment called Gravy Dave's. The restaurant I had been looking for in Irrigon was actually in Union and I did finally find it.

Dave's is a small roadside cafe that also includes a drive-thru. I found the drive through while looking for a parking spot that wasn't gravel (it's all gravel) but decided not to try to obtain my rally stamp through the drive up window. The folks inside gleefully stamped my book and I was on my way out of town before anyone knew I was there.

Following Main Street out of town, I travelled along OR-237 more or less south to where it meets up again with I-84. This is a nice road, filled with gentle sweepers and runs through some beautiful farming land. STraddle and I were in tune and we savored each turn because of the contrast to the mostly straight interstate. Alas, the fun came to an end when we joined the freeway near Hutchinson.

Our next destination was Ontario, along the Oregon/Idaho border where we would spend the night, but we had a few hundred miles to go before turning in. Along the way, I had a brief conversation with a State Trooper who wanted to speak to me about my lack of license plate (I've only had the bike for three weeks). He didn't even give me a lecture about my velocity... although you can be sure I thought about it a bit more after that.

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