Trip 03, Day 5 (Day 26): A Good Encounter
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2006
Sunshine greeted us today, a welcome improvement from the gloomy cloud cover of Wednesday. It took us the better part of an hour to drive out to Brothers. We did the 3.7-mile moving offset again, but it was after 11:00 by the time I started.
Starting point: 43.80987 N, 120.58877 W
Ending point: 43.73806 N, 120.38100 W
The endless carpet of dun-colored sagebrush served as foreground for now-familiar vistas. The road stretched in a straight line to the southeast, bending slightly only once on the entire day. The walking was mostly level, but the road did undulate somewhat. The potential for developing blisters now seemed to have passed. We had been gradually climbing for a couple of days, and today we hit a high elevation of 4,789 feet, not far off our project high point of 4,831 feet at Santiam Pass in the Cascade Mountains earlier this year.
At about 2 miles, a car pulled over in front of me, and someone yelled out asking me if I needed a ride. I waved them off, shouting back, “No, but thanks,” and they drove off. I walked another 10 minutes, and a utility truck (for towing a boat, I learned), pulled off, slowing. I tried waving it off, but it came to a stop anyway. I noticed the flashers on the truck’s roof and wondered for a second if the state patrol might be driving tow trucks out here in the desert. The driver got out and walked toward me. He wasn’t wearing a state patrol uniform. When he got closer, I said, “Howdy!” He started grinning and said, “You’re my Uncle Frank!” I did a double-take as I recognized my nephew, Jason Crow, Michelle’s brother. We chatted for several minutes before continuing on our separate ways. Jason lives with his wife BJ in Redmond, Oregon, and works for a pleasure boat manufacturer. He had made a delivery of a boat to an Idaho customer who had met him “halfway” in eastern Oregon, and now Jason was on his way back. He had heard from Ron and Michelle that Joe and I were walking. He had first spotted Joe, then the parked pickup, and finally me, then turned around and driven back to this encounter. I was pretty tickled about meeting up with a familiar face in such an isolated spot.
I continued on. Ahead on the left, the Hampton Buttes rose from the plain. At about 3.5 miles, I began finding lots of chunks of black obsidian (volcanic glass) beside the road. This is one of the materials that was used by Native Americans to make arrowheads and other implements. I put several of the rocks and chips in my pockets, but it quickly became obvious to me that I wasn’t going to be able to pick it ALL up. I later gave this mineral collection to Lisa, Joe’s wife, who does wonderful things with stuff like this in decorating her house.
Each time I reached the pickup and drove ahead to where Joe was, I would call him on the walkie-talkie to make sure we didn’t miss each other (which, historically, has sometimes been a problem). These things sure would have been handy on several occasions during our rulks along the Pacific coast.
We had our longest distance day of the project so far, ending at 11.6 miles.
Walk rating: 5.2
Money found: Day: $.16 Trip: $1.40 Project: $12.09
Distance: Day: 11.6 miles Trip: 53.0 miles Project: 241.3 miles
Walking time: Day: 3:45 Trip: 17:06 Project: 89:04
Significance: None.
