Take me to the Boonies by Paty Jager

My best vacation/get-a-way was on an anniversary. My husband has been pretty good most years at making sure we go somewhere for our anniversary because of the total bust our honeymoon became.

Our honeymoon was a trip to the Oregon Coast. The downside, we were married in the far NE corner of Oregon and had an 9-10 hour drive to the coast. Not so bad, my new hubby was a truck driver. Long drives were nothing to him. The problem came when we were half way to the coast and our car started acting up. Newlyweds, we didn't have a lot of extra money to spend having someone else fix the car, so we drove to our home in Central Oregon which was closer than going on to the beach with a problem car.

Hubby stepped in the house to change his clothes to work on the car and the phone rang. Someone needed him to haul a load. He looked at me and said, "We're going to need money to pay for the parts for the car." And that was the end of our honeymoon and why he now tries to take me somewhere on our anniversary, usually the coast.

One year he asked me where on the coast I wanted to go and I said, "I don't want to go to the coast, I want to go to Granite, Galena, and Greenhorn."  This was an area I wanted to set a book. We called ahead for a reservation in the Granite Hotel. Then left when hubby got off work at three on a Saturday and drove five hours arriving at the small community of Granite after dark. It was easy to find the hotel among the six buildings in the little town.

There was a dim light on in the Hotel office. We walked in and no one appeared. We walked up to the registration desk and there was a note: Mr.and Mrs. Jager, you are in the Beaver Room. It's down the hall and to your left. Please leave a check on your way out in the morning." The management.

The Hotel in the heyday of Granite.

We found our room. The door was unlocked. It was small but clean. We slept well. In the morning, we put a check in the ledger on the desk when we left and headed to the only place in town that served food. We had breakfast then set out on the dirt backroads to find the long deserted communities I wanted to put in my book.

We walked through the remains of towns and gold mines, stopped at an old cemetery to read names and dates, and arrived home after dark. But it was one of the most relaxing and fact finding trips we've ever taken.

Now he asks, "Are we going to the coast or somewhere else?" ;)

 www.patyjager.net
Writing into the Sunset