The “Oregon Leg” went off without a hitch. I left Portland in the late afternoon, heading up past Hood and down to Bend. Visited with Matt, Pam-Pam and assorted younglings for 20 minutes in Redmond, then down through Bend for a quick lap around the downtown and kept on going out into the high desert. Highway 20. Pretty much a straightaway for 130 miles. You see a couple little aging oasis stops and stuff, but for the most part, it was just the moon, the road, miles and me. Oh, and millions and millions of acres of desert scrub in my peripherals.

It’s always gonna be a amazing to me to go from an urban center right into the most remote of areas. Such a contrast. So much, to so little, so fast. One quick left turn and everything changes.

I made it out to the Idaho border around midnight and had just enough juice to get myself over to Caldwell to crash. I found a little motel and called it a night.

CHECK OUT “DAY 01” HERE: “DDCFT08-001 “Taking off, I-84 eastbound.”

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Got up real early and headed over into Boise.

The Record Exchange opens up real early, every day. 9am. It was a sunday, so I had these visions of the joint opening at noon and closing at five or whatever. Not this place. So good. I flipped through their entire section and picked out a choice pile of goodies and got the hell out of there.

Here’s what I thought about leaving Boise: Bart and family, Lanningham, Doug Martsch, that big, glowing cross on the hill, the architecture of downtown and this one time I got hit on by a little cowboy critter half my size who looked up at me and said, “I like ‘em big.” I offered up a smile and a spit of tabacco and said, “Thanks pard, but I like cowgirls.” There you go.

30 miles out of Boise on I-84, I turned off on Highway 20 and man, the west opened up again. I zipped past the Hailey/Sundance turn-off and into the Craters of the Moon National Monument. A fresh snow had fallen, which sadly, kind of turned the volume down on the stark quality of the dark lava rock against the sky. I zipped across that western expanse, with the window down most of the time. 31 degrees. Felt good. Portland’s lukewarm temperatures are nice and all, but man, a brisk wind in the face is such a treat out here in The Big West.

Arco claimed, “The first city to be lit by Atomic Power.” Interesting title. Wonder how the water is around there? Hmmm.

I hightailed it all the way to Idaho Falls, then headed north to Rexburg to bed down for the night, and catch up on a little work and shut-eye.

“DAY 02” STARTS HERE: “DDCFT08-012 “Idaho morning.”

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IMAGERY, AND HOW WE’RE GONNA HANDLE IT OUT HERE: Now, in the past I’ve hard-coded up links of pop-up windows to show the stuff I see out here. This time, I’m gonna “roll the dice on Flickr” and make one big-ass set. The stuff goes up quick, I can make a comment, push a couple things around, and it seems to work pretty well. I don’t know. I like the idea oof offering up “day by day” blasts of shots, but don’t want to burden my Flickr account with 25 sets from this tour. Hmmm.

Alright, so what I’ll do is send a shot from the Flickr shot that constitutes the start of a new day or cool moment and then, if you are interested, you just gotta scroll through my Flickr set to see the rest. Yeah, let’s try that.

THIS ONE IS GONNA GROW, SO, BELIEVE IN IT: “The 2008 DDC Fall Tour Flickr Set.”