September 3, 2026 | Roseburg to Boardman, Oregon 5.5 hours 336 mile
There is a moment at the beginning of every long journey when preparation finally becomes adventure.
For us, that moment came a little before 10:00 this morning.
Janice was up around 6:00 a.m., and I was up before 7 after staying awake into the wee hours getting ready for our eight-week, roughly 6,000-mile Fall Dusty Roads Wagon Train.
For the past several days, our lives have been governed by lists. More than 30 things had to be loaded into the motorhome. There were lists of things to finish at home, lists for Umpqua Watersheds, and all of those last-minute details that somehow multiply before a long trip.
One by one, we checked them off.
And then something nearly unprecedented happened:
We left home by 10:00 a.m.
We actually made our self-imposed departure time!
We drove down to the county road, loaded the bikes onto the motorhome, and pointed our little wagon train east.
At 10:30, we met our friend Diana Pace in Wilbur, and the adventure was officially underway.
The drive to Boardman took about five and a half hours and was surprisingly easy. Traffic wasn't bad, we encountered a little rain, and before long we were approaching Portland and turning east into the Columbia River Gorge.
That was when the landscape—and my imagination—really began to open up.
Driving alongside the Columbia, we began seeing signs marking the Lewis and Clark Trail. I found myself thinking about their extraordinary journey through this same country more than 220 years ago. Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery traveled down the Columbia toward the Pacific in 1805 and back up the river in 1806.
Our circumstances could hardly be more different. We have a motorhome, highways, GPS, music, audiobooks, comfortable beds and cold beer waiting at the end of the day.
But there is still something about following a river through an enormous landscape that awakens that old human desire to discover what lies beyond the next bend.
We stopped briefly at Multnomah Falls, hoping to get a closer look. The falls were only a trickle, and we discovered that access now requires advance arrangements that we hadn't made. So we took a photograph from a distance, climbed back aboard our wagon, and continued east on Interstate 84.
Eventually, we arrived in Boardman and one of our traditional stops: Burnt Field Brewing.
We have stopped here on previous trips and always enjoy it. It's a wonderful little place near the Columbia River, with good beer, excellent pizza and the nearby Al James barge display.
Before settling completely into vacation mode, however, there was one last bit of Umpqua Watersheds business. We held a KQUA radio meeting with Shane, Joseph and Julie and talked about the work ahead for our community radio station.
Then Diana joined us for dinner.
We spent a wonderful evening eating pizza, drinking beer and talking with Michelle, the owner of Burnt Field Brewing. We have stopped here enough times that Michelle actually remembered my name, which amazed me. There is something special about discovering these little touchstones along the road—places hundreds of miles from home that somehow begin to feel familiar.
After dinner, we took Tad for a good walk and settled into the motorhome for the night.
And now we're tired.
It has been several intense days of finishing projects, packing, checking lists and preparing to disappear down the road for two months. Tomorrow will be considerably more demanding: roughly eight hours of driving as we make our way to Swan Lake, Montana. Julie will meet us there, and we'll spend three days at the cabin of her mother, Jean.
After that, Minnesota awaits. We'll spend about three weeks there with family before pointing the motorhome east again—eventually traveling all the way to New York, with Canada, Michigan, friends, relatives and unexpected discoveries somewhere along the way. We hope to see Jonathan Foster in New York, reconnect with our former AmeriCorps member Ryan Kincaid, and discover whatever else the road decides to put in front of us.
And that's really the point.
We don't want to script this adventure too carefully.
One of my favorite parts of traveling is passing through little towns and wondering about the people who live there. What are their lives like? What do they love about this place? What worries them? What makes this particular bend in the river or collection of buildings home?
And meanwhile, inside our rolling little world, Janice and I talk. We listen to music and audiobooks. We laugh. Tad watches the world go by. Sometimes we talk about important things, and sometimes about absolutely nothing.
There is always a little sadness—and a little anxiety, in leaving home for such a long time.
But there is something wonderful about it, too.
For the next eight weeks, Janice and I get to simply be us.
Us, Tad, the motorhome, friends and family waiting somewhere ahead, and approximately 6,000 miles of dusty roads stretching toward the horizon.
Tonight, we're boondocking beside Burnt Field Brewing in Boardman, Oregon.
The lists are finished.
The bikes are loaded.
The first 250-or-so miles are behind us.
And somewhere beyond the Columbia River, tomorrow's road is already waiting.
Day One: a great success.
Together we are. Together we shine.
—Kasey
