chipper
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We began the morning in Portland with breakfast at the Tin Shed, yummmm.
Driving out of town ... goodbye Portland.
Driving up the Gorge ...
[Insert several hours ...]
And here we are!
We decided to take a quick stop to stretch our legs, and I tried to get some decent shots of the rolling hills that characterize this region.
(
edbook has posted a bunch of shots of the Palouse in his journal, here.)After the drive, we weren't really up for much besides relaxing, so we spent the first evening visiting and eating.
Next day, we drove into Idaho, to a tiny town called Potlatch, to ride on these guys:
They're called "speeders."
There was a fundraising event that weekend for the town's dilapidated train station ... you could contribute by buying speeder rides. Evidently these things are privately owned, but the operators have to pay a per-mile fee if they want any track time. The town paid the fee in return for the operators' time to cart around passengers all day. The speeders came in a bunch of different shapes and styles.
The train station needed all the funds it could get.
There were loads of folks waiting to ride, so I wandered around to try to take some shots while we waited. I couldn't get many pictures without people in them. For some reason that was important to me. I found a cool pile of spare railway parts, though. Here is my arteesteec composition:
Time to take a ride! Here are The Hang's folks, ready to board:
The Hang and I boarded up as well.
And we're off!
I snapped a few pictures as we zipped along ... we probably hit a top speed of about 35 mph, and the things were so loud and rattly that I'm surprised I came away with any decent shots.
Here we go ...
We saw horses ... these guys ran up to the top of a little hill to watch us go by.
We saw cows, but they were more aloof.
We saw ... um, lots of fields. I liked the stripey patterns cut in the hillside. The Hang told me that the bright yellow plants were mustard. I learned many new things on my speeder odyssey.
Woo hoo! It was more fun than Mr. Toad's Wild Ride!
