Baker City to Nampa, Idaho

We truly had a great time in Baker City - as mentioned in the last post we woke up Sunday morning and went to see the historic downtown. We were really impressed with the historic buildings and houses which we viewed by walking a few blocks up and down main street.

Being Sunday everything was closed but we did happen upon the last day of a garage type sale in one of the large stone buildings.  Everything was free and so Cassia and I headed in to take a look while Derek spoke with the owner of the building on the sidewalk. It was neat to see inside the old building and I did find a book to take along with us.

Main Street Baker City, Oregon

My favouite house in the neighbourhood - the one on the left.

After that we headed back to the I84 east on our way to Idaho - losing an hour along with the way as we entered into the mountain time zone. We stopped briefly at the first Idaho rest area/visitor center thrilled to find free coffee and wifi.

We made good time to Nampa arriving around 2:30 at our friends place where we are currently enjoying their hospitality - good food, a queen size bed, a huge living room for Cassia to run around in, lots of toys, laundry and showers - ahhhhhhh - indoor plumbing. Not sure how long we will stay - time will tell! Rain is gone and sunny skies.

Today's Interesting Links: Just wanted to mention two blogs that we are following - both Canadian couples. The first is Kevin and Ruth who are in Mexico - a really valuable site for us to learn about rving in Mexico. The second is Trent and Teresa from Regina, Sask who are on their maiden voyage south for the winter. Check them out!

Soap Lake to Baker City, Oregon

Well - a double header today! Tonight we are at a truck/restaurant/hotel stop in Baker City, Oregon a great little place. We are parked in the Visitor Info parking and have picked up free wifi - how great is that! Arrival here was around 6:30 pm - we almost stopped at the rest area up the I84 unsure if we could find a place here (no Walmart) but found it too open and so figured we would keep going - glad we did.

False alarm with the last post - the truck started up fine at Soap Lake - we did have a bit of trouble again at the rest area just before La Grande - a very high elevation - around 4,000 ft. We believe the truck has problems adjusting to the higher elevation - we have had this problem before. For anyone who doesn't know and is taking the I84 through Oregon there is either a large climb or large drop just east of Pendleton - for us this time it was a huge climb.

A good day today - after Soap Lake we followed the 17 to Pasco and around the tri city area on the east side of the Columbia River - stopped for lunch along the Columbia in Oregon - sorry no pics. We then took the 37 to Pendleton. We took this route because it is a short cut to Pendleton - we only thought to take it since seeing it last spring when we went  through Hermiston - the longer way around. It was a good road - recently paved because it is an Evacuation Route. The rolling hills and large farms reminded us of Saskatchewan.

The nice thing about that route is that it took us right through downtown Pendleton to get to the I84. To date we have only seen Pendleton from the interstate. We were really impressed! It is a quaint, clean and historic looking city.

Here are the pics from today - a statue at the Soap Lake rest area, the sign from the truck stop here in Baker City across the street and the parking lot beside us with the lights.

Derek was looking at the visitor signs and reports about the history here and the walking tour along the river - we will do that in the morning.