Road Trip No. 1 is off and running – with Eugene the destination for the first of two jaunts to “Tracktown USA”.  The home of the University of Oregon joins Des Moines, Iowa, as the top two running towns in the U.S. and everywhere you turn, there are runners/joggers/bicycles everywhere.

The team left Boise Thursday at 8:50 a.m. (10 minutes early – that never happens) and cruised on our new travel partner, a big purple Caldwell Transportation Company coach (same carrier that I’ve worked with at College of Idaho for over a decade).  After a quick pit stop at Biggs Junction in the Columbia Gorge – where the entire staff got free Subway sandwiches (except Gary Van Tol), we stopped for the second-straight year at Multnomah Falls, where the players got to see one of the tallest waterfalls in the Northwest.

We hit rush hour traffic in Portland and hit some nasty thunderstorms (in fact, it was the one that spawned a tornado in McMinnville, Ore., about 30 minutes before we came through), before we got to Eugene just after 6 p.m.

Movie Report – it was a three movie trip, as new trainer Jonathan Fierro opened the season with Anchorman, followed up by another bus classic, Super Troopers, and closed it out with Forgetting Sarah Marshall…a movie I had not seen.

New Hotel – the team is staying at a Holiday Inn in Springfield, across the street from one of our former hotels, a Shilo Inn.  Nice property with big rooms, and the staff welcomed the team with popcorn and granola bars on arrival.