Wow, thirty-five already. But eh, you know what? Just for kicks I went back to the very beginning of this road trip advencha, and I’m so glad I’m posting so many photos! It’s a real trip down memory lane for me, and even though this is taking a long time to finish, I love seeing all the photos again. It’s like I’m taking the trip all over again! Love it!

So last time, we had just seen the first tree ever in a really long time. And now, try look: there are several of them!

This photo I particularly love. I can’t help but think that this was some settler’s first log cabin here. Maybe I’m wrong, but even if it isn’t, it’s just like a settler’s cabin would have looked like when they first came here.

I cropped it so you could see a close-up of it. It sure looks real to me. Imagine living in something this small and being a family of four. Or five.

Shortly after seeing the log cabin (I sure hope I didn’t Make A and it was really a barn or something), we came across a field of Suffolk Sheep.

And shortly after that, we found ourselves on the wrong side of the freeway again. This is about the third time it’s happened on this trip. First time, ‘way back in Montana. Or maybe Idaho.

Weird, yeah? There’s our real side of the freeway up dea. The one going makai. We’re on the side going mauka. Except really, we’re also going mauka. So confusing da mainland. Back home, oni easy. Mauka is mauka and makai is makai. Always da same. But here, we stay going makai. Towards the sea. But we’re also going mauka. Towards the mountains. Go figgah.

We came across another ranch. People are living here.

On this trip we saw a lot of pīpī that I took photos of for AFK. But I was also always on the lookout for lio for Izzie. And by zooming in on the previous photo, I was able to get a great shot for her. Hele on, sistah. ʻRound da Koʻolau Hills we’d ride on horseback…” ♫ ♪

Straight ahead are the Blue Mountains. They were often the last big mountain range pioneers had to cross, and even for travelers today, are not easy to cross when the weather is bad. We crossed them in the middle of winter when we first moved to Portland from Twin Falls.

We came around a corner, and there was a train! But Nolemana couldn’t get the camera out fast enough to get the engine, so we faked it and took the pushing engine. Sneaky, yeah? I love how it looks against the Blues.

We saw another old barn as we flew by… sometimes we came across them so unexpectedly that there just wasn’t time to snap a really good photo. Nolemana did a great job, though, considering his wahine would suddenly holler, “Barn!!!” Heh heh.

This time we got the front engine! Oh yeah… I also would holler, “Train!!”. But I bet you couldn’t guess that, could you.

Almost to Baker City! The mountains really do live up to their name, don’t they?

Nolemana and I made a trip back to Idaho about twelve years ago but we didn’t come home this way. I wasn’t blogging then, and all the photos are prints. We didn’t even have a digital camera back then. This wide open sky beckoned us on.

As you can see, the clouds have really moved in and are replacing the brilliant blue skies of several hours ago. Musubi, riding point, was in awe of all the places we were seeing.

We’re now at Milepost 310. Milepost 1 is in Portland. We still have a long, long way to go.

We’re almost there!

“Train!!!!” she hollered.

Something about old houses just fascinates me; this one just looked so sad and forlorn. I wonder if it shakes when trains go by. We used to live about two blocks from train tracks (yes, on the right side of the tracks, I’ll have you know!), and when we first moved in we didn’t know they were there. Our tiny house did shake a bit, but believe it or not, we did get used to the noise. I used to take our daughters down to wave at the engineers sometimes. /nostalgic moment.

And here we are!!

We got off the highway, and headed into Baker City. This is the Record-Courier (newspaper) Building. By the way, gas prices were $2.88.

It’s a gorgeous old building.

And this is Baker City Hall. Magnificent.

I love the detail on this old building… it really gave me a sense of history.

And this is the Carnegie Library. I could see that it would be really easy to spend an entire day in this town.

We’d also wanted to see the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, and were really sad that we couldn’t see it on this trip. If you click on the link, you’ll get a small glimpse of how awesome a place it is. You can even walk on the ruts left by covered wagons! Check out the website…it’s worth your time.

The library was having an art da kine, but we just couldn’t take the time to go in. Sad.

Another old building in the town. I’m going to check and see if there’s a map somewhere that says what these buildings used to be.

This is one of the main streets of Baker City. I love towns where there’s diagonal parking like this. Nothing big city about this place! I couldn’t stop smiling!

And then I spied a sign that was a siren call to me…a used bookstore! I will never, ever, turn down one of these. And we really needed to stretch our legs anyway. Did you know I used to work in a used bookstore? I did. Loved every minute of it.

And this bookstore was shaka!! I walked down an aisle and found what every single bookstore needs: a pōpoki!! Isn’t she gorgeous?

Books were piled everywhere! I was in heaven! And the gorgeous pōpoki was so friendly, too. I took several photos of her…wish I could remember her name!

She was like a queen on her throne, up there at the top of the stack, ruling her kingdom.

We just couldn’t take time to spend all the time we wanted to here, but Miss Queen loved showing us her books so we browsed a bit longer.

We asked the Queen’s permission to leave, thanked the store owner and told him we’d be back next time we were in the area, and made our way back outside. This was a really hard place to leave. I did leave it a really good review for the store on Yelp.com, including that gorgeous cat!

Okay, so this is how far we came in this part of the trip.

And along with a bunch of other places, this is how far we’ve come on our trip. It may be kinda hard to trace it with all the placemarks, but you get the idea.

We have almost made a complete circle, but our advencha isn’t anywhere near over yet. We ended up having a wonderful surprise when we had lunch. But that’s another story, and we’re not there yet.

Mahalo plenny for tagging along!