Day 5: To Chuck and Carla's

We rode out of Pendleton in the early morning and headed South East along I84 - destination Chuck and Carla's house, where we were looking forward to seeing them again. This road has been built almost directly on the Old Oregon Trail, which is the route used by the wagon trains of the 1840/50's.
The road climbs giving great views to the West, it must have been a great sight for the Emmigrants moving West, even though it was desert and they still had a long and dangerous boat trip ahead, they could at least see the 'Promised land', well at least the Cascades and Mt Adams. The road then descended into the narrow Grande Ronde River Canyon, a river we plan to explore further East next week.








We stopped at La Grande for a drink - Joe and Sugars Diner, had a reasonable coffee and a nice cinnamon roll (Sally dared herself to eat a raspberry muffin) and drove on.






I had totally forgotten that Chuck had recommended the Nell's-n-Out at La Grande for a cuppa - I felt bad (well my stomach did) that we had missed this opportunity to try one of the legends of Eastern Oregon.

From there we travelled through Baker City and then through canyons to the Snake River, which is the border between Oregon and Idaho. When we crossed the Snake river the speed limit goes from 65 m.p.h. to 80 m.p.h., so we were able to make good time to Chuck and Carla's arriving at 3.00 (would have been 2.00, but crossing the Snake River moved us to Mountain Time and we lost an hour).

We were warmly welcomed by Chuck and Carla and spent some time swapping summer travel stories and catching up on news.