No regrets

Had a good day on the road again today. Started off great with a leisurely breakfast with Karen and the girls. Then it was down the I5 to Oregon. There was some really slow traffic just south of Seattle, but after that it was a good drive.

Have you ever been close to a major attraction, but not taken the time to go and visit it

and then regretted it later? That happened to me several times while working in different parts of the world, including missing out on Machu Pichu and Everest base camp. Finally I resolved to take the extra time. To visit attractions if I was close enough. So, today we headed south to Eugene, Oregon. This was slightly further south than we had planned, but there was something I had been wanting to see for quite a while - Hayward Field. This is the historic running track

where Steve Prefontein set many of the American records in the early seventies while being coached by Bill Bowerman. It has been extensively renovated since then and has a new surface to the track and new buildings, but it is still impressive. The front gates were locked, but I managed to find a way in at the back, kicked off my sandals, took off my shirt and ran a mile on the track barefoot. That was cool.

The drive east of Eugene was really picturesque, with spruce-lined route 126 running alongside the Mackenzie river. Eventually we headed into the Cascade mountains, but the route we wanted to take was closed, probably because of snow. We finally made it through the mountains and stopped for dinner in Bend before searching for a campsite, although there were plenty of campsites in the mountains and along the river, there were none east of Bend. We kept driving until we reached Burns, without any sign of a campsite. BY this time it was almost 11pm, so we decided to check into the Knotty Pine Motel. So here we are, somewhere in Eastern Oregon in a motel in Burns!

Hopefully we will do a little better tomorrow, when we will be continuing east, hopefully reaching Jackson Hole in Wyoming, and finding a campsite before nightfall.

I learned today just how many bad George Michael songs there are (and I'm only half way through them!), and decided they are a waste of space on my ipod, even where space is not at a premium.

Trip Facts:
Driven Today: 925 km

Driven in total: 7451 km

Run Today: 1 Mile
Run in Total: 118.6 km
Number of TH Stops: 16
Number of Speeding tickets: 1
Ipod progress: 519 Songs Last: George Michael "A moment with you"
Song of the Day: "Hard Sun" Eddie Vedder