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So, It's been over a month! Sorry about that.

First, the rest of the Boise trip.
After leaving Boise, we headed back on I-84 and came across snow/ice on the freeway in the mountains east of Pendleton, Oregon. It was actually staying on the road for several miles and for the most part only one lane was open each way with plows working at cleaning it all up. Most of the big rigs were getting their chains on for those going Eastbound. The ones we passed going Westerly, didn't seem to. They were just going really slow. I think because going Westbound it was a more gradual climb.
If driving East from Pendleton, and about 20 miles east of the town, you'll drive up a very steep climb to the summit.
Anyway, we'd hoped to stop for the night at the Wild Horse Casino and Hotel which is just a bit past the base of the grade I mentioned above from Pendleton. They are in the process of building a new Hotel expansion and since it is a ways from being completed they have very limited rooms available and so they were booked, even on this mid-week date. So after Stacy tried some of the machines, didn't win, we headed off.
It was now getting to be sunset and I hoped we would come across a small town motel along the way. We'd opted to go some back roads to get over to the 395 freeway, that was a mistake and the drive would have been more enjoyable if, 1. we hadn't been so tired, 2. if the route had been driven in the daytime and 3. if the route we had taken wasn't so isolated. We passed lots of farms but no towns until we got back near Pasco, Washington.
I had decided to press us on, another mistake, to the town of Connell, Washington, since we'd stayed at an older motel several times during the move trips from California five years ago.
Now, back then the motel had been a throwback to the 1970's in construction and operation and had a kind of charm to it.
When we finally got there after 8 PM, only to find that the few years since our last visit had not been good ones there. It was now a motel-run down low income apartment establishment. It was very creepy and Stacy didn't want to stay there and I didn't really want to either after we went in and then saw the room we got.
Like I said though, we (mainly I!) was too tired and so we stuck it out there. Stacy was very unhappy about it and I had no one to blame but myself for trudging on when I shouldn't have. Luckily we didn't get killed in the night and the truck was right outside the window so nothing happened to it. Stacy called it the "Bates Motel" because the desk clerk was movie "cliche" creepy. Odd looking and wearing the all the way buttoned up starched white shirt, with glasses and balding. He also sounded the part too.

Next morning everything was frozen outside and the "continental breakfast" at this motel was a couple of boxes of Cheerios, the very small boxes you'd get in one of those variety packs and nothing else. The milk, we believe, was in the fridge in the room but we passed. There was also no desk clerk, I guessed he or she wasn't up yet, so we quickly packed up and left. We drove through town, for the first time actually, and saw that although there are several other motels in the area they seemed to be about the same caliber as the one we'd stayed at. We stopped at the town "stop and rob" and filled up on diesel. The clerk said we were lucky because in any minute the computer would be adding the twenty cents a gallon new price for the day to the price of $3.59 a gallon price we'd paid. While I was in the market getting change for the fuel Stacy said another kind of creepy guy wearing shorts and a sweatshirt in below freezing temps just walked up to the truck and opened the door not expecting to see anyone in it I guess and looking for the easy theft of anything he could reach sitting on the seats or dash. She said he saw her and just turned and walked away like nothing had happened as he text on a cell phone. As we drove through town after fueling she pointed him out to me. Still walking along texting on his phone.

The rest of the trip home was uneventful. We stopped 50 miles along for breakfast, stopped at the airport to pick up the Kia I'd left those few days before. It had snowed quite a bit and looked like winter again on the return.



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