Day Three: June 3, 2009
Salt Lake City, Utah to Boise, Idaho.
Distance: 367 mi (~ 5 hrs)

Day three was the shortest day on the trip, so we took our time waking up and leaving Salt Lake City. SLC is a breathtaking place. I especially loved Park City which is right outside of Salt Lake. I definitely want to return for an extended visit.

Gassing up in Salt Lake:

Family photo on the auto-timer!

Beautiful countryside:

We bid hello to all the Potatoes you’ll be eating.

We kept seeing ‘Game Crossing’ signs, so of course I had to do this:

Day Two:  June 2, 2009
North Platte, Nebraska to Salt Lake City, Utah.
Distance: 657 mi (~ 9 hrs)

The night in Nebraska was our dog Lucy’s first time in a hotel and she didn’t know quite what to make of it! So many noises and smells I guess! We woke up mid-morning and it was still overcast and soggy but not raining too hard. Nebraska is really quite beautiful.

Lots of time to talk, or not talk..

Lots of time for napping

Nebraska highway stretches far and vast without a lot going on besides scenery. However there were some billboards, and they seemed to be largely dominated by ads for a place called Little America.

Truly a cute Asian boy eating a hot dog says America. These billboards hype Little America for miles. Not just a dozen miles, more like the length of the state. At least a hundred miles, if not more. And darn it we just HAD to stop at Little America when we go there. It’s a clean hotel and a nice rest stop, with couches in the bathroom lounge and everything. Haha. It was definitely the nicest pit stop on our trip, and we got Lucy a stuffed squirrel there.

As we climbed altitude we hit fog with VERY low visibility.

Saw lots and lots of wind turbines, which I have to admit kind of freak me out!

I mean, I get what they’re for and that I LOVE. But the spiky spokes and alarming presence on a serene countryside. I know I’m not the only one that feels this way.

Finally, more state lines crossed on Day 2:

That’s Utah, in case you can’t tell. With a Billboard toting an accomplishment from 7 years ago.

Day One:  June 1, 2009
St. Louis, Missouri to North Platte, Nebraska.
Distance: 673 mi (~ 10 hrs)

As previously mentioned we didn’t exactly leave early. But the timing was in our favor as we missed all rush hour traffic. The closest we came to hitting some was in Kansas City, and this was also a spot where we ran into a detour marked on the road that was not in our mapped route. It was quite a different route but the Atlas proved its worth early on to calm our anxiety about the deviation. The detour only ended up adding maybe 10 extra miles, so not a big deal.

Day one was all about keeping an eye on the U-Haul towing dolly hauling my car. I kept glancing at it, making sure my car was still there!

Day one we also hit a bunch of crappy weather. Make of it what you will, but we were driving through the worst of it in – Oregon, Missouri! Weird huh.

Despite pummeling hail the vehicles were okay. The worst casualty we experienced was the utter battering of the tarp over the back of the truck.

We drove in a sliver of Iowa.

After a rainy entry to Nebraska we drove in the dark on a highway surrounded by vast flatlands, and for a couple of hours we could see lightning storms happening miles away.

OK, so after much confusion about how to become a legitimate Oregon citizen, I figured I would write up my experience in case others are lost as well. When we first moved here we were trying to determine the rules on how to register a 49cc scooter. I also purchased a 125cc scooter when I arrived here. Of course, we still needed to register our passenger vehicles to get new plates, and finally, we needed to get new drivers licenses.

First things first, here is the actual Oregon DMV website. I found like three or four that seemed legit, but the DMV will tell you that they only update one site. Here is the link you will need to do your own research. http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/DMV/

So here is what I learned. In Oregon, if you have a 49cc scooter or moped you need to have plates for it.  That was not the case in Missouri, as you did not need anything for a 49cc there.  Not even insurance. So here is what you will need to register your different vehicles.

MOPEDS / SCOOTERS / MOTORCYCLES

http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/DMV/driverid/driver_manuals.shtml#motorcycle

49cc Scooter/Moped

• Vehicle Title
• Social Security Card or Passport
• Valid Drivers License
• Proof of Residency (Utility Bill)
• Check book

50cc+

If you are getting something above a 50cc (like my 125cc) you will need to get a motorcycle endorsement in order to legally drive it in Oregon.  You can still get plates, (even custom plates if you you want) but you will still not be able to drive until you have completed two more steps.

First you will need to take a written test that shows you know your stuff.  Once you have passed this, you are still not legally allowed to drive by yourself.  Just passing the written portion gives you the equivelant to a learners permit.  You are only allowed to ride if you are accompanied by an Oregon motorcycle endoresed citizen who is above 21 years of age, and even then, you can only ride during the day.

To become fully endorsed, you will need to wait at least a week after taking the written test so you can go back to the DMV to take the skills test.  This is just what it sounds like.  You will need to show them you can ride.  Once you have passed both tests, you will get your endorsement and you will legally be allowed to ride.

Since this all sounded like a pain to me, I found out that you can SKIP BOTH OF THESE TESTS if you take a class at a local college.  The TEAM OREGON program has something called a Basic Rider Training (BRT) course that you can take (costs about $175) where you will will be trained by a professional on how to ride a motorcycle.  The course is three days long.  The first day is 6 hours and you sit and learn.  The next two days are about five hours each, and you learn to actually ride.

Once you pass that class you will get a card that last for 2 years.  You can take that card to the DMV and they will waive both the tests (and their fees) and you can skip right to getting your endorsement.  Pretty sweet if you ask me, and it never hurts to get some professional training!

PASSENGER VEHICLES

Here is what you will need to bring:

• Vehicle Title
• Social Security Card or Passport
• Valid Drivers License
• Proof of Residency
• Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Passing Certificate (Emissions Testing)
• Check book

One thing that surprised me here is that you do not need to do a safety inspection, or provide proof on insurance.  It is legally required that you have insurance, but you are not required to bring that with you.  They will, from my understanding, check that you have it before the licese plates are generated, though I am not 100% sure how they do that…  so make sure you are insured either way :)

DRIVERS LICENSE

I will assume that you already have a drivers license… so all that you will need to do is bring in the following:

• Social Security Card or Passport
• Valid Drivers License
• Proof of Residency
• Check book

Oh ya, you will also need to take a knowledge test to prove you know your stuff. If you have ever driven before, it’s pretty easy. There were a couple of ones I got wrong though as I never really knew them. Those were questions about how fast a “slow moving vehicle” is allowed to travel, and how fast you are allowed to travel on a business street if there are no posted speed limit sings. So make sure to study up on those if you do not know them. Those are the only ones I got wrong, so I still passed.

Here is the manuals again, so you can study:

http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/DMV/driverid/driver_manuals.shtml

They will punch a hole in the top left corner of your out of state license and give it back to you. Then you will get a printed “interim” Oregon drivers license. You will need to carry both your old and new license until Oregon mails you your real license in the mail.

That’s about all I can remember, if I missed anything, or you have any questions… let me know.

Good Luck, and welcome to Oregon!

Our moving day was scheduled for Monday, June 1. PODS don’t pick up on Sundays, so we scheduled to have the POD picked up on Saturday before. Here’s a movie I made crudely showing the “patented technology” of how they load it onto a flatbed truck while keeping it level. I was overseas when they dropped off the POD originally so I was really excited to see it in action for the pick-up:

It is very simple yet effective, and the entire process took less than ten minutes. The POD took about two weeks to get to Portland and now lives in a storage facility somewhere near the city, where it will stay until we call them with our new address and pick a date for them to drop it off. For those moving somewhere ahead of the POD and needing all of their things right away, this timing might be an inconvenience. But since we don’t need our stuff right away it was not a big deal to us.

So, with the POD gone, we had two days in an empty house with just the essentials that we’d be taking with us to our temporary dwelling. And thus I created a makeshift workstation (because I worked til the last minute!):

After one night on an uncomfortable, leaky old camping air mattress that was basically sleeping on a hard floor, we invested in an AeroBed so we could be well rested for the long trip the next day. Those things are pretty nice! They have a cord attached so you just plug it in, hit a switch, and it inflates in about a minute. Deflates in seconds. It costs a lot more than cheap-o camping mattresses but the quality reflects that.

So after a better night’s sleep, it was finally June 1st, Moving Day!!

Some of our dear neighbors kept us company as we were packing up and snapped these photos. So you can see the last minute prep. These photos are by Bob LaRouche.

Yeah, we decided to take two trees with us!! We planted them as seedlings a few years ago on Earth Day and it’s always been a dream of mine to plant them in the yard of our first home. They’re an Oak and a Maple, so obviously our yard may or may not be able to accomodate such someday-large trees, but I’m not ready to let them go yet.

Also pictured here is Peter earnestly tying that tarp down to shield the scooter and some other items from weather we may encounter. That tarp did not even make it through half of the first day before becoming utterly shredded from the winds of driving on the highway. We picked up a better tarp at a truck stop but that tarp also bit the dust within a few hours, at which point we shrugged our shoulders and let the contents of the truck bed face the elements for the duration of the trip. And for the most part they were fine.

The leaves of the trees were but little stubs when we got to Portland but I think they will be okay with some TLC. They’re hardy trees.

Above – Peter tying down the items, me walking to load stuff into the cab of the truck for our ride. Not pictured – my car, stuffed silly with boxes (the “bare essentials” take up a lot of room!). We put it on the towing dolly for the trip. The dolly was rented from U-Haul and cost $510 for the one-way rental plus full insurance for 9 days.

Our goal was to pull out between 6am and 8am. Final departure time: 11:30am. Oh well, at least we missed traffic! Next post: The first 700 miles – St. Louis, Missouri to North Platte, Nebraska.