The Perpetual Tourist

It’s more than a little ironic that right after I write about healthy vacationing, I leave for my trip with something I definitely didn’t plan to bring with me — the flu. Being sick on an airplane is no picnic, but being sick in a car on a 10-hour drive in the middle of nowhere is worse. No rest stops, no comfort, no end in sight. Getting here was not easy, but we made it to Reno yesterday morning, and I’m feeling a lot better now, so I’ll spare the details of my illness and focus on the highlights of the journey.

Oregon is one of just a handful of states in the US that I’d never visited. McKenzie grew up there, and has seen every piece of the state working as a FedEx driver over the past decade. The two of us met on the bridge circuit, fell hard in love, and he left Oregon behind to join me in Virginia. He says he loves it in my home state, and I believe him, but his homesickness is obvious most of the time. I’ve been looking forward to my first trip to Oregon for a long time. He has a lot of great things to say about it, and not a day goes by that he doesn’t tell me about the places he wants to show me. With all this talk over the past several months, you’d think I would have been prepared for what I would see.

We landed in the Portland airport just before midnight on Christmas day. It was cold and wet outside, and I couldn’t really see much in the dark anyway. We drove to his parents’ place in Salem that night, and left the next morning for our 10-hour drive to Reno. My first real glimpse of Oregon came on Wednesday morning just after a light snow had painted the hills white. I didn’t honestly expect the beauty to live up to all of McKenzie’s wistful testimony, but so far Oregon was exceeding my expectations.

We were only on the interstate a short while before exiting for Route 58 through the Cascade Mountains. The road was icy and I was sick, but all of my worries evaporated as I looked out the window of our van at the scenery we were driving through. There are lots of sights in Virginia that are breathtakingly beautiful, and our state’s rich history and visual appeal are well documented. However, most of the best views are off the beaten path, and you sort of just have to know about them. Driving along the highway back home is pleasant enough, but I had no idea you could see such amazing landscapes along any roadside until we hit Oakridge, Oregon, a little over an hour into our drive.

The Middle Willamette River runs alongside Rt. 58 as you drive into the mountains, and the Douglas Firs were covered in snow like I’ve only ever seen in paintings before. Every couple of seconds, I excitedly pointed out things to McKenzie that he has seen a thousand times before. “Z! Do you see that?! Look over there! And there — oh my god, this is beautiful. Oh, wow.” These were the only words I was able to get out in the times that my jaw wasn’t hanging down in my lap. I’ve been moved to tears by beauty in literature, film, and music in the past, but this was my first experience where nature did it to me.

For the first time, I really grasped why McKenzie was so homesick, and how much I must mean to him, that he was willing to leave this behind for me. It was overwhelming, but in the best possible way. When a downed tree blocked our path and we had to stop for a bit, I wasn’t even frustrated. I was happy for the opportunity to get out of the car and take it all in, and figure out how to work my new digital camera.

Even though the flu made me more uncomfortable than I can remember ever being in my life for 90% of this long drive, the scenery along this stretch of road is enough to easily put this trip among my all time favorites. Now that I’m feeling better, hopefully I’ll have some fun here in Reno before turning around for the drive back next Tuesday. I’m studying up on gambling strategy today… Check back soon to see how that works out for me on the casino floors.