Life of Brian

Here is something I don’t see every day driving around Fairview. Barrelling along south on OR-7, I saw a stock trailer parked on the opposite side of the road on the shoulder. There was a guy standing next to the cab, I waved, he waved, and around the next turn I saw why he was parked there…

I found all four of today’s planned catches, but only three of them count. As you can see in the last photo on the right below, it was obviously a post office in the past. So even though I only found three real post offices, my total post office found count went down four.

Tomorrow I head to Utah to get ready for my Everyday Driver adventure. The event really starts on Sunday evening with a group dinner, but I didn’t want to get there on the day of, so I called and added Saturday night to my reservation. They actually had assigned rooms for the group already, so it was easy to put me in that particular room. I would have been happy to pack and move rooms, but now I don’t have to.

Today went pretty smoothly; only one of the post offices was not where Google said they’d be. Richland had a Main Street address, but for some reason Maps had me turn left before getting there and was showing a back way into a parking lot. But there was no alley, and when I circled back to Main Street, there it was, and there were zero routes to get behind it. Sigh.

The morning was damp, wet, or rainy, but the afternoon was dry and sunny. If I let Ms. Google pick my route, there would have been about 15 miles of I-84, and it would have saved me a whole 6 minutes, but I chose all backroads. I ended up traversing two different mile and a half sections of gravel road that way. It was some of the best-maintained gravel I’ve ever driven on; 45 MPH was easily doable. The only real downside was the car came out covered in light brown dirt.

On my way into town tonight, about five miles out, I passed an Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, I almost stopped. Seeing as tomorrow is a real short day, I think maybe I’ll backtrack to it to kill some time.

I think this is my longest day, 200 miles on I-84 and 240 miles of backroad post office hunting. It was planned to be a long drive picking up the six post offices and then just retracing the route back to La Grande. Got the first two, Elgin and Wallowa, but the third, Lostine, stumped me. I pulled up in front, it had a handicap ramp that zig-zagged to the door that was a faded postal blue and a flagpole with no flag, but there was no signage at all. It was definitely a post office in the past.

I thought I’d keep moving and figure it out on the way back. When I got to Enterprise, I spotted the post office, but there was absolutely zero parking out front. I circled the block, and when I got back there was an open spot, but it was for the handicapped. Maybe there will be one open on the way back.

The next town, Joeseph, was a mere 6 miles further along, but it is a touristy type town and parking was at a premium. There was nothing in front of the post office, but this time the block circling worked, and I got a spot right out front. The last one on the route was Imnaha, and it was 40 miles into the hinterlands. It was an easy find as long as you didn’t miss it while following where Google Maps was telling you it was. They were showing an extra 7 miles along a paved Forrest Service Road, then a half mile along a dirt Forrest Service Road.

When I got back to Enterprise, I had my choice of spots out front. When I got to Lostine and had cell service, I went to the postal website and found that there was a new post office practically around the corner from where the old one was.