I started the day with a nice run along the river trail at Boardaman. From the park where we were staying there is a very nice paved trail along the river for about 2 miles or so. I enjoyed seeing Boardman again. While I served as the base commander at NAS Whidbey I got to know some Boardman business people and elected officials. One of the outlying properties of NAS Whidbey is the Boardman bombing range. Whidbey had a number of people assigned permanently at the range so I would fly down occasionally to meet with them, as well as to meet with local folks to discuss issues of mutual interest.
Ranges like Boardman are some of the better nature preserves in the country. Bombing ranges as nature preserves may seem like an oxymoron, but whether intended or not they have become such. Boardman, for example, includes over 47,000 acres. The huge acreage is needed for the airspace, not the land itself. The targets take up a handful of acres, and are impacted only by 25 pound solid steel practice bombs. The rest is simply open land with access strictly restricted. The result is 47,000 acres minus a handful left as it was a hundred or more years ago, populated with a sample every of northeast Oregon wildlife. I particularly enjoyed seeing one of the best remaining sections of the Oregon Trail, which went through the area now included in the bombing range. To stand in waist high ruts created by thousands of wagon wheels and boot steps daily facing west after leaving families and home in search of bette life is truly humbling.
After breakfast we manned up and made our way along I-84 from Boardman to Boise, Idaho. It's a pretty drive up a couple of quite long steep grades into the hill country of eastern Oregon and western Idaho. Pretty drive but not much else to report. Got to Boise about 4 PM local (one hour time change), checked in Mountain View RV park, and just hung out for the evening.
March 27, 2010, Boardman, Oregon, to Boise, Idaho