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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.
(
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!