Rough road

this is a road somewhere in oregon. i would need to get the map to see where exactly it was... :) anyways, we had driven in a beautiful forest, didnt see any other cars and just enjoyed our morning on the empty road. too bad the ranger station was closed to ask for advice regarding the route we wanted to take, but hey, we knew where we were headed and we knew which roads to take... no highways as those are boring and everything but scenic (although in some cases they actually are!). we didnt, however, know that some roads were closed off due to snow, and that other roads were unpaved..... i was actually driving and it all went fine (had some practice doing curves, driving up a somewhat steep grade, etc etc), until... the pavement suddenly stopped... ah well, we thought, perhaps somewhere it starts again? there was a car behind us and we let him pass, hoping to signal that we had a question, but he didnt stop. a little later on he did, and he asked whether we actually knew where we were headed....? well yes, but... would this road ever become paved again?! nope, not for a while and there would be snow. he advised us to turn around and directed us to another road. the first part would be a little detour as the actual road was completely destroyed during a recent storm (!!), but after that we should be fine. we thus turned around and took the detour. which turned out to be unpaved as well, and much, much worse than the road we had been on. there were quite big rocks on the road, and downed trees (as you see here) and soon we hit some snow. that was the point for us where we decided this was crazy. our only option was to go back entirely, from where we had started in the morning!! but it was more than enough adventure for us and we preferred that over this road, without cell phone reception, other cars, etc etc.... besides, driving the same road the other way gives you still another view!

and guess what. today also marks 3 years me doing this blog, and thus also that we have spent 3 years in the us of a!! according to IRS we still have to file our taxes as "aliens", but i do feel less an alien than i did 3 years ago.... ah look at us, here in my very first blogpost (which was actually april 6, so 2 more days for the blog anniversary). the road was bumpy sometimes, but there were at least as many highs as there were lows... :)