27 mi West of Burns, Oregon

A journey of 11,000 miles began today. I left Eugene with a tear in my eye and headed eastward, up through the Cascades where a forest fire impeded my march, made my eyes burn, and the air hazy and smelling of campfires. On through Sisters, Oregon and Brothers, Oregon and into the high desert, scrubland, wide open spaces and Highway 20 unfurling before me, the longest road in America.

This is the way to China. Tonight I am holed up in my car in a rest stop outside Burns, Oregon and the Burns Indian Reservation.

There's a wagon train of long haul semis around me, one carrying bales of hay whose fragrance add character to the starry night. A lonely streetlamp provides what little light I have to scribble this on a notepad. Not much to report on this lonely night, a deep swaying feeling in my soul to suddenly be so far awway from Yuka (and getting farther). Two hundred fifty miles down, 1750 to go.