Earlier this week my husband and I made the 2-day trek from our former home in Las Vegas, Nevada to our new home in Hillsboro, Oregon. When planning our journey, we decided to take the road less traveled between these two cities — a route neither of us had been on before — to symbolize the new road that this move will lead us down in life.

Day one we drove the US-93 from Las Vegas to Twin Falls, Idaho. Most of the day was spent driving through the Nevada desert. Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge — about 90 minutes north of Las Vegas and just south of the town of Alamo, Nevada — was one of the most scenic sites of the day.

Much of the scenery in Nevada looks like this:

We stopped for a quick lunch at the Hotel Nevada coffee shop in Ely, Nevada. We’d previously stayed at this hotel during our road trip to Great Basin National Park a few years ago.

This vegetarian mediterranean wrap with sweet potato fries satisfied my taste buds while the husband dined on prime rib.

We got delayed a bit by an afternoon thunderstorm and road work about an hour north of Ely.

While driving through the state of Nevada, there’s typically about 2 hours in between towns. Many of these towns only have a few thousand residents. Most have at least one casino, like this casino in Wells, Nevada. While we didn’t gamble, the adjacent convenience store made for an excellent rest stop.

We spent the night just north of Twin Falls, Idaho. The Snake River Canyon was about 2 miles from our hotel. I’d love to go back and explore it someday. I’d only been to Idaho once before, and that was in transit back from Yellowstone National Park when I was 9 years old.

On Day 2, we hopped on the I-84 just north of Twin Falls and took it all the way in to Portland. About hour into our journey, we stopped at AJ’s Restaurant in Mountain Home, Idaho for a quick breakfast.

I ate most of this enormous veggie omelet with hash browns and sourdough toast. No wonder I gained about 5 pounds during our week on the road. Thankfully, I am doing a detox diet this weekend.

The I-84 nearly parallels the old Oregon Trail. As a child of the 80s, I geeked out along the way, reminiscing about my favorite childhood computer game. They had Oregon Trail info kiosks at most rest areas. I was thankful I got to make the journey in a car, rather than travel over Deadman’s Pass via covered wagon and cross The Dalles with a raft.

Just after crossing The Dalles, we made our final rest stop just east of the town of Hood River. This stretch of the I-84 parallels the Columbia River on the north and Mount Hood on the south and is a National Scenic Byway. This was our scenery for much of the way.

We love our new apartment and neighborhood in Hillsboro, but are still unpacking and getting settled, so we haven’t had much time to explore the area yet. I’m looking forward to many new adventures to come.