Thursday, August 14th

Yesterday was our first day on the road. We drove through B.C. and part of two states. We left at 10:15 and we were in the US by 12:30. We would have entered the US sooner, except that we had an hour wait at the border. Currently, in Eugene, I am now farther south than I had ever been in a car. The farthest south I had previously been in a car was Seattle. I learned something too, the state of Washington comes before Oregon, and then comes California.

It is interesting how a road trip is unique. You drive for several hours and then you stop and have moments of action. But it’s not that a road trip isn’t captivating. There are SUVs to spot, scenery to watch slide by, and new towns to get the feel of. Our first stop was, not surprisingly, a bathroom break. This was on our way to the Mima mounds (my-ma). At the same place we bought hillbilly smoothies. They were like soft berry ice cream. And there was a hillbilly port-a-potty, labeled “the honey pot” Lets just say, the only good thing about it was that it didn’t smell, and that we hadn’t peed for six hours. And also, a cold drink is really welcome after a hot drive.

The Mima mounds are a strange geographical feature that covers miles of ground. They are like giant ant hills, without the ants They are about two meters high and four meters wide. To see them from above is truly amazing. No one knows how they were made. They aren’t burial mounds because of the lack of human remains. They weren’t made by humans because they are too regular and cover too much area, or at least, they used to—before humans leveled some and built on others. Also, even today, with our fancy machines, you can’t move that much dirt. One of the hypotheses was that Pocket Gofers made all the hundreds of mounds. This is quite inconceivable if you see how many there are. You can read more about them at http://southsoundprairies.org/visit.htm

In our last hour of driving before we entered Eugene we drove through a horrendous smell. It was like rotten, boiled cabbage, times ten. It was all pervasive, and disappeared only to come back again in renewed force. Finally, it disappeared and we all breathed a huge sigh if relief.

At 9:30 we arrived at our friends house in Eugene and we gratefully fell into bed. Though, since it was very hot, that was about all we could do. The heat made your limbs feel like they were filled with lead weights and you couldn’t walk five steps without breaking into a sweat. We all sleep with only a sheet that night.