Saturday, August 5, 2023
Road Trip , May 27, 2023
Road Trip 2023
May 27, 2023
Towards the end of May, we began final preparation to pack our 2012 Sienna for another cross-country trip to Oregon. Our good friends, Greg and Dottie Woods have been spending the past few weeks with their grandchildren in Oklahoma. They would be taking the road trip back to Portland with us. Our grandson, Dawson is graduating from high school and we certainly want to be there. We were there the day he was born and have watched him grow up into a nice young man and all the way to graduation.
Our traveling companions, the Pinkertons, will not be making this trip with us as they have other plans with their own family. But Greg and Dottie are excited to be taking this adventure with us once again. It will be like old times as we have taken this trip with them before. Not to mention that Greg and I drove our car from Portland to Oklahoma City in 2020 when we moved to Arkansas.
Ron Pinkerton was kind enough to drive me to the Oklahoma City area to rendezvous with Greg at a famous Route 66 iconic stop called “Pop’s”, a gas station and burger joint boasting selling over 600 varieties of soda pop. I always like going there because it’s one place where you can buy sodas that are nearly extinct; like Big Red, Orange Crush, Nehi Grape, Grapette, Jolt Cola and many, many others.
Greg and Dottie arrived on time with his daughter-in-law and two grandkids. After a few hugs and tears with the kids we headed back home to Arkansas. We spent the next two days relaxing and driving to Branson to see Silver Dollar City. It was a short trip but long enough for us Codgers.
On Friday we relaxed around the house and began packing our Sienna. Saturday morning, we finished the loading and said goodbye to our Pinkerton friends. Nancy would be busy the next few weeks watering and taking care of things around our house. I had rigged up an automatic watering system for my garden so she would not have to worry about that.
We drove away a ![]()
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little after 10:00 and stopped in Tulsa for lunch. From there we made our way to the home of Mark and Dawn Doberenz to participate in an afternoon BBQ with some Pacific Northwest friends, many of whom now live in the OKC area. It was a great gathering of about 32 friends. There’s no way I can remember all their names, as I’m old and often can’t remember my own! But it was great seeing Paul and Bonnie Howard, their son, Seth (I think) and his little boy; a good surprise was seeing Kevin Lawrence. We got to see the now grown up Meaders kids Ben and Katie and their spouses, Bill Goad, Coby Poole and spouse, Jake Doberenz, and of course Mark and Dawn, as well as Brian and Sharon Simmons, Greg and Dottie Woods and me and Debby. There were others plus a few newbies I had not met before.
There was of course plenty of conversation and much food. We had a great reunion and vowed to do it again sometime. We spent the night with Brian and Sharon, long time friends and fellow Christians from Oregon.
Sunday morning, we packed the car before leaving the Simmons house for church services. Brian, our former preacher at the Metro Church of Christ in Gresham, Oregon, in addition to his full time teaching position at Oklahoma Christian University, is now preaching part-time at the Oakridge Church of Christ and we wanted to hear him today. It was his usual great sermon and it brought back some old memories.
After church we said our goodbyes to Brian and Sharon and headed west for New Mexico. We grabbed a quick burger somewhere along the way as we had a long way to go to get to our motel in Tucumcari. We had loaded the car with cold drinks in the cooler and quite a few snacks. Debby also had managed to make a few sandwich items like egg salad and chicken salad. We would not be going hungry on this trip, what with all the chips, peanuts granola bars and fruit! Greg was a talented driver and we wanted to keep the talent happy! The miles clipped by in good succession as we headed west.
We pulled into a no name motel on old Route 66 and checked into our rooms. As it was past dinner time we thought about eating. Debby and Dottie opted to remain in their rooms so Greg and I ventured out. We passed a few closed doors before we pulled up to a burger joint. Greg was staring at the big sign and remembered that he might have been here before. At that, he backed out of the Parking slot and drove away. I looked over at him and he looked at me. He said, “I still remember it was not good!” After seeing a few more closed places we found Pizza Hut still open. So that’s what we did.
The next morning, we left early to make Tucson before dark. We pointed out some of the old iconic Route 66 gas stations with 1950’s vintage cars and old motels to the girls before we left the area.
Greg and Dottie would be meeting some old college friends outside of Tucson and would stay with them a couple of days. Debby and I had reservations at a Worldmark Resort in Oro Valley, a nice place we have stayed at before. We had no plans for sight seeing because we have already seen it. We wanted to take a rest and vege out. The evening of our second night we invited long-time friends, Phil and Patti Amburn, over for a Beef Stroganoff dinner. They were in college when Debby and I were there in Emporia, Kansas. I had known Phil’s family since we moved there when I was just 13. They went to church where we did. We had a great time talking about the good ‘old days and family and reminiscing. Phil and Patti live in Oro Valley. Deb and I were tempted to move there when we left Oregon but the Ozarks were calling louder.
From Tucson we headed North to Las Vegas where we spent two nights in another Worldmark. We got there early enough to take the shuttle downtown after dinner. The problem was that the bus turned around a couple of miles from where we thought we would be. We wanted to see the laser light show off the outdoor water fountain at the Bellagio Casino. With nothing else near us worth seeing and knowing the shuttle would be returning soon, we just waited outside for its return. Back to the resort and soon into bed.
Debby made breakfast for us the next morning. It was about 10:00 when we walked over to the far side of the resort grounds to catch the shuttle to downtown. From the drop-off point, we hoped to catch a bus or Uber to get to the Bellagio. We sat down on a bench and waited for the shuttle for quite some time. Soon a friendly staffer came by and struck up a conversation. During the course of our discourse, he caught on that we were waiting for the shuttle. He told us the shuttle would not be running until this afternoon. No wonder we were the only ones waiting in line!
After discussing Uber or not, we decided to take our own car to downtown “Lost Wages”, park it in paid parking and figure out public transportation along the strip. The public transportation part didn’t work out too well but we managed to see the sights we wanted to see. We ate lunch at Señor Frog's Mexican Restaurant. The hamburger wasn’t too bad; expensive but large portions. I didn’t find out until much later that this was THE place to see the famous Drag Brunch. Google that if you have no idea what I’m talking about.
We did not spend a lot of time walking around. Crossing the strip’s 4-lane road was difficult. There were cross-over bridges for pedestrians, which meant a lot of stairs for us old timers. There were elevators and escalators but most of the elevators were being used by the homeless as toilets. Pretty gross. Toronto doesn’t do escalators unless he is wearing his boots. Dogs are more likely to have toenails pulled out by escalators than any other way. It was a hot day and the black pavement was getting too hot for Toronto. I failed to bring his Nike’s to protect his feet so we cut our trip short and headed back to the car.
The next day we left early and headed North. We stopped along the highway where the Pacific Crest Trail crossed State Highway 395 in northern California. At this point, a through-hiker, going north, has hiked 1,373.4 miles since he started at the Mexico/California border. Greg and I took a Trail Codger photo op and pretended we had walked all the way from the Mexico border. For those who believe that, well, you might be a Redneck.
We spent our last night in a motel in Susanville, California. From here we would be only a day’s drive into Oregon and on into Portland. That last day of driving tired Codger Greg and fried his brain, but not so;s you could tell. But he was a trooper and made the best of it. By evening we arrived in Portland. We dropped off our friends and then headed to our former Son-in-law’s place where we would be staying for the next week. It was great seeing our Great-Granddaughter, Melody again.
It was a great week traveling with Greg and Dottie. It will probably be our last road trip of this nature. The many hours sitting inside a car takes its toll on old bodies. Air travel is much faster!
Mike
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