As
mentioned in this post, I thought
Highway 140 was quite beautiful at some parts and quite scary at others. The idea of a 50 foot drop and no guard rails
is rather creepy. But that is the way
Roland wanted to go - and he was driving.
I
thought 140 seemed scarier driving north than it did driving south - which is
ironic, as the drop is on the south/west side.
The drive didn't seem quite as long, either. But Denise and I had taken I5 through Medford
because she wanted to see the temple. I
just had Roland go by way of Highway 138
to Highway 97 where you can choose to go north up through Bend and over through
Boise, or you can drive down south to Lake View and Winnemucca.
The
Nevada route is only about 30 minutes faster than going through Idaho -
provided there isn't any construction or other barriers that might interfere
with the normal route, but going south requires a lot more traction and winding
- which I somehow didn't believe our car could handle. But it did.
There were many who'd been praying for our safety and we made good
timing, I think.
Jeanie
passed away on the 6th and our plan was to leave on the 7th. It was Jenna's final week of school and she'd
been planning on dressing up for each day.
She'd been looking forward to her final week of school this year and to
watch her 8th grade friends graduate.
She cried when Roland told her that she would not return to school.
I
was appalled at Jenna's behavior - obviously thinking more about the
inconvenience of her own plans than for thinking about her brother and the
grief that he may be suffering. Death is
rarely convenient for any of us. I did
talk Roland into allowing her to go to school one last time. We still needed to go to Roseburg to get a
rental car and bring it back to the house in order to pack it up. There is ALWAYS a delay when Roland plans
things. Wednesday was an early day, and
we could check her out even earlier if we needed to. There was no sense for ALL of us to go to
Roseburg, and I didn't want to watch Jenna idling any time that she could have
spent at school.
We
had made arrangements to pick the car up between 8:00 and 8:30. We were contacted by the rental company just
before we left the house. We were told
the car would not be available until later and that they would contact us. We had planned to go to Roseburg on some
other errands - the delay of the rental would make things easier - I thought. Roland could do all the driving and we
wouldn't have to worry about the second car.
The
rental company never called back, and so we decided to just go there. There had been five people waiting for rental
cars. All the cars that were supposed to
be available were still out - all the cars that were on the lot that looked
like they might be available had expired tags.
We had tried other options, but are actually limited in Roseburg and
didn't want to gamble on driving another 90 miles to a larger city if we might
encounter the same problem with another rental car company. We still didn't
have a car when Jenna returned home from school and so said a major prayer and
ended up taking our own.
The
GPS was taking us through Sutherlin, but I knew we could get through on 138
which was in the opposite direction. We
probably wasted a half hour driving back and forth before we finally got on
route. Our daughter-in-law, Carrie,
commented that our disability of getting out of Oregon sounded like the makings
for a sitcom.
Roland
said he would return through Boise and Bend.
We passed many orange barrells.
We passed many orange barrells.
No workers or slowdowns - probably due to the wind - except for after
crossing the border from Idaho into Oregon.
Loose gravel caused us to slow down.
Tar was being poured ahead. There was actually a utility truck with its flashing lights that led the cars in
either direction - I think it was at least a mile long. I'm not exaggerating. It wasn't bad. It had been the only slow down of the entire
trip.
Once
we got to Hines, we stopped at a Dairy Queen to have lunch.
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