After second pre-opt appointment of the week on Thursday, we loaded up the car and started heading north. Our trip started a bit late, because we were waiting for a change of antibiotics. After waiting about an hour at Smith's in Syracuse while they were trying to track it down, they suggested we head north and they could arrange for it to be delivered to another Smiths or Kroger store along our route. We ended up picking it up in Twin Falls, Idaho, which worked out as a good stop for our late lunch as well.
The idea for this trip had been bouncing around since 2020. The Benjamin and Jane Owen Family (my grandfather's parents) have held a reunion for about 145 years. (My grandfather was number 12 of 15 kids and didn't marry until he was 40 years old, so we are "off generation" from most family members who are near our age. He was 54 when my mom was born.) As siblings, some of us had been back to Oregon where most of our 1st cousin relatives still live, but we have never all gone back at the same time. We set 2025 as the year and we decided to built it around this Owen Reunion which is held on the second Saturday in July in Dallas, Oregon. Since all eight of us were going to be there (plus spouses and some of our kids), we decided to also add a visit to the Oregon coast and a trip to Richland, our hometown for the first 16 years of my life until we moved to Amarillo, Texas in 1971. This would be the first time we had all gone back to Richland since we moved--and the first time that some of my siblings have ever gone back since a family trip in 1973 (which I didn't go on since I was earning money for college that summer.) It was a bit of a production to get put together with people coming from different directions and with different things to see and to do, but we were excited for this chance to gather and to share time together.
I think Gary thought I was a bit crazy since I felt miserable, but he was a good sport, did all of the driving both ways except for about 1 1/2 hours on the way home, and kept a good watch out for rest areas and clean bathrooms along the whole trip.
Thursday and Friday travel photos--We drove from Syracuse to Pendleton, Oregon on Thursday and then into Portland on Friday, arriving in the early afternoon.
The Columbia River
And there were lots and lots of trains on tracks on both sides of the road, and also both sides of the river---fun if you like trains like we do.
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