Nau speak: Oregon: Driving North into Eugene

After the initial hiccups and mechanical mischief that delayed our morning a bit, we made good time heading north. As I'd mentioned already, there was a fair bit of forest to make our way through before we fully escaped the clutches of the Deschutes National Forest, but the drive was beautiful so we weren't exactly upset at this predicament. It was a bit difficult to make time to pull over for every stop, so we weren't able to make that happen, but we did try to stop and make time to enjoy the scenery every few hundred miles or so. You might think that over time, the forest would simply become more forest, stretching off into the distant horizon, but in reality, it's more nuanced than that. Shades of green and blue blend together, offset by puffs of white or sharp interjections of yellow or brown.

The timing for our road trip worked out extremely well, too. Initially, I had wanted to leave earlier and get out of Vegas before the fall settled in, but timing simply didn't pan out with various vehicular issues popping up, work arrangements and gigs that cropped up. We only had to delay by a month or so, though, so it wasn't the worst of situations despite my melodramatically losing faith sporadically along the way. There's a lot of talking and planning involved before actually taking the leap, and with each new hurdle, there were more possibilities for cold feet to settle in and squander our chances. Leaving when we did, at the very beginning of October, however, meant we caught verdant green expanses of forest with some bright shocks of color thrown in as the leaves just began to take on their changing for the season. Pops of yellow and little flashes of orange cut through the foliage to make the drive all the more exciting. I'm glad that we were able to make the majority of the drive under the sunlight, as the days grow shorter going into the cooler months.