Our Oregon Trail

Have you been to Pompeii?  Travis and I were there in 1998.  It was fascinating to walk the roads of the excavated historic city finding everything impressively preserved.  If you are unfamiliar with the story, the extremely shortened version is - Pompeii was covered in cooled pumice when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79.  The city remained covered until about A.D. 1450.  Herculaneum is a city near Pompeii that was also affected by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79.  Unlike Pompeii, Herculaneum was covered in mud and hot ash.  Pompeii was suffocated, Herculaneum was burned then covered in mud. 

In 1974, oil tycoon J. Paul Getty opened a villa.  The design of the villa was inspired by the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum.  It is thought that the original owner of the ancient villa was the affluent father-in-law to Agustus Caesar.  The replica of the gorgeous Greco-Roman mansion has incredibly intricate detail.  On a walking architecture tour, our tour guide explained the details of daily life for the wealthy of the first century.  Taite and Calla, who have been studying ancient Rome and Greece, loved having a visual to bring their studies to life.  

 

The Getty Villa

Each of the rooms housed various artifacts. Along the tour, our guide referenced the room housing a shrine to Hercules - they did live in Herculaneum, and Hercules was their most precious god.  I made sure to bring our kids there to see what a shrine to a false god looked like.  What I didn’t know is that I’d be bringing our kids into a room filled with statues similar to The David in Florence, Italy.  What good mom wouldn’t ensure her children get to see a bunch of naked men?!  “Um, ok.  Let’s go on to the next room.”

We closed down the museum, made our way to the RV, and began heading east.  We were on our way to Vegas.  We took the next couple of days to recoup and recover.  We had done a lot in just a few days!  Our bodies were starting to notice the lack of sleep and abundance of driving on curvy roads.  We did a little school, played some putt-putt golf, laundered our clothes, napped, and played card games.  Oh, and watched the BCS National Championship game at Buffalo Wild Wings.  Taite and Lincoln cheered for Auburn University while the rest of us cheered for Florida State University

Taite takes a swing

The girls golf from the mountain tops

Lincoln and Taite cheer for Auburn

Tuesday morning we left the RV, got in the rented Dodge Caravan, and started driving north.  We were headed to the home of our friends, the Ferre’s.  (I can’t wait to tell you about that in our next post.)  Our plan for Tuesday was to make it to Boise, Idaho. 

Travis mentioned our route to Boise would take us perpendicular to the “Loneliest Highway In America” – Nevada Highway 50.  If Highway 50 is the loneliest, then I’m sure Highway 93 is the second loneliest!  Highway 93 took us north across Nevada.  The first 100 miles were comprised of 5 things – sand, yucca plants, mountains to the east, mountains to the west, and giant rusted power line poles.  I could not figure out why we were seeing power lines until finally we saw one house a couple hours into the drive, then one community of about 20 homes a couple more hours later.  We didn't even see birds.  This was the perfect road on which to have a quiet, mindless drive.

Hours of this scenery

It’s times like these where I most notice Lincoln’s uniqueness.  Lincoln asked to listen to music so we turned on the van radio and pressed “Seek.”  Both AM and FM dials continued to search for a station, never finding one.  He was done coloring, done reading, done with games, done with everything – even done with ‘I’m Thinking of an Animal.’  “Beedo, beedo, beedo,” is all he could say.  Apparently Lincoln’s brain is never quiet unless he’s sleeping.  He needed to say something.  This was not the first time he chanted ‘beedo.

“What is ‘beedo’?” I asked. 

“Oh, it’s what the Minions say on the Dispicable Me 2 commercial,” the big kids answered.  Maybe this was a good time to let the kids use their devices.  I mentioned in a previous blog entry that Taite now has my old phone to use as an iTouch and Calla has an iPod.  Lincoln found another old phone with Adventures in Odyssey and some music on it.  They all got an hour on their devices.  Lincoln shared his with Parker.

“Mom!  This is English!” he exclaimed, fired up about his encounter.

“Well, good.  It should be English,” I responded, unsure of his point.

“This is English!  Here Parker, listen!"  Then Lincoln began to sing some made-up unfamiliar words.  I asked him for the phone so I could see the artist.  It was Josh Groban singing the Italian song, "Canto Alla Vita."

We made it to Boise for dinner.  The exit we chose offered us only fast food options for our meal.  Chick-fil-a was the winner…even over Subway.  We just got our first Chick-fil-a in Minnesota a few months ago so we hadn’t had any experience with the food chain.  What I’ve read about the place is all good, though.  Of course I love that they aren’t open on Sundays and take stands that back their Christian views.  In my mind, however, it was still junky fast food.  Recently one of my favorite health bloggers, Food Babe, shared how executives at Chick-fil-a invited the her to come in and consult them on how to renovate their menu.  They found 100 sub-par ingredients in their foods that they are committed to improving.  I have no idea if they’ve started changing them, but I appreciate their effort.  All that, of course, made me feel much better about eating dinner there.  

http://foodbabe.com/tag/chick-fil-a/

Our time in Boise was completed with a stop at Best Buy to get a Rocket Fish auxiliary cable so we could have some music along the way.  We stayed in a hotel in Nampa, Idaho where it snowed 2 inches overnight.  It was crazy to think that we were intentionally driving into snow and cold.  As I write this we have been in Wallowa, Oregon, for three days and it has been well worth it!  Can’t wait to tell you more!