27th day (Boise - Baker City)

The Holiday Inn is more expensive than a motel - but you are also treated to a special breakfast. Not necessarily completely different, but qualitatively much better. After almost 4 weeks, my desire for industrial food in the morning has dropped to zero. At the beginning, it may still be funny, but eventually it really gets on your nerves.

I stay on Interstate 84, which turns out to be a mistake. Because once you are in Oregon, the landscape becomes much more varied and spectacular. The agricultural, rather flat Idaho gives way to a more mountainous and natural terrain, with a highway that runs through deep valleys surrounded by wild overgrown slopes that exude the ruggedness of nature. But since I'm running late and don't want to reach my destination, the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, too late, I stay on the interstate but decide to avoid it tomorrow.

The center is located on a hill surrounded by wild land, and the view of the mountains towards Baker City, where my motel is located, clearly shows the contrast where man makes nature usable with water. The almost desert-like ground changes to a lush green area. I imagine how the pioneers must have felt, who found completely uncultivated landscapes on the long 5-month trek from Independence to Oregon City. And the exhibition in the large hall also clearly shows, through reconstructed scenes and panels, how arduous the journey was. One out of 10 people died, children were treated as adults, only with fewer physical abilities, and the onset of winter was the great fear when crossing the mountain ranges, of which there are numerous here. The 8 dollars admission fee, which you have to pay at a small house below before you can drive up the driveway, is more than worth it.

After visiting the exhibits, I walk along one of the trails behind the center, a small paved path that leads 4 km through this desert to a panoramic point, where you can admire the transition between the landscapes once again. I'm alone, it seems that no one wants to take the path in the rather hot weather. There is also no shade along the way, except for a small shelter about halfway through, before you can enjoy the panorama a bit cooler at the endpoint under a wooden roof. Only on the way back does a group of three come towards me, and otherwise I enjoy this silence and tranquility all to myself. It is a privilege to be able to enjoy it like this, with the certainty of being able to end the day with a cool beer and a made, clean bed.

My motel is a little gem. It has the same amenities as all the others, and the room is rather small, but the wooden floor is newly made (no disgusting carpet) and the fittings shine much better than at the Holiday Inn a day before. You can clearly tell at the Bridge Street Inn that attention to detail is being paid here, and I definitely consider it the best of the budget accommodations on my long journey.

Baker City also offers a lot of history, many buildings exude the smell of the Wild West, and the manageably sized city can easily be explored on foot, which I do in the evening. A cool beer outside at AJs Corner Brick Bar & Grill as darkness falls and the daily heat is bid farewell lets me go back in a very good mood. The somewhat disappointing drive over the much too busy and unsuitable interstate is long forgotten. But now melancholy is also mixed in. Only 2 more days and I'm flying back.