We got past Bend and the landscape started to change even more. Uncharted lands! Here we were, Justin and Carin, Carin and Justin. The Groonins, exploring. Here we go! Is the first day of a roadtrip not the best? I think it is. You're all pumped and travel-fresh.
It looks...kind of like nothing!
And nothing, like this:
is so, so, so, totally something, when you are on a roadtrip, isn't it?
There's so much...nothing...that you, eventually, might start to worry about...something. Or maybe worry about the fact that you are worrying about nothing. or that this nothing might become something and lose all its nothingness.
It's like being in an old house in the middle of nowhere. lovely and peaceful and far away from the hoi polloi maddening crowd...but what if something happened? Is that something happening? It sounds like something happening. Who will find you Will you be eaten by the local wildlife? Should you have gotten OnStar? Why are you thinking about this?
There's no one on the roads. You don't see a speed limit sign. You take the car up to 80, 85, 95, 100--and you're still not passing anyone, or, more importantly, getting passed by anyone. It's loud from the wind and you wonder if you're going to be able to slow down enough if one of those "livestock" signs you see every often comes true, but there's no one on the roads and the land starts to reflect the sky like water...
...and as it gets dusky and dry and you almost can't see anymore...you pull into Burns.
Pretty much every town we passed or spent time in, save Bend or Portland, or Ashland to a lesser extent, had one street, going through the town, with stuff on either side of it, for maybe .5 of a mile. And then you were done. The kind of thing where you really don't need to look up an address, because it will be on the street.
Our motel in Burns fit this mold. It was perfectly serviceable, with great water pressure and this weird paper towel thing that was under the brochure about the area and motel guide. I really don't know what this thing was. It was thicker than a paper towel, but not cloth. It was like a fancy paper napkin, but bigger and not luxurious-feeling. It was dry. I don't understand it.
Justin shows it off here:
That "weird paper towel thing" was a "service towel." It's what the hotel wants you to use to clean off stuff that's REALLY dirty, like grimy husbands and the like, instead of yoyu using the _nice_ towels. So, shine your shoes, wipe off the car windshield, whatever ... it's a disposable towel.
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