The winding roads that led us here passed through thick-forest mountains and naked pink cresting hills.

The car stereo iPod pumped out Cyndi Lauper and Chanticleer in equal measure as we rounded another low mountain highway corner, the choke of green disappearing in that quick instant of a ninety degree turn to reveal another jaw-dropping expanse of Oregon rural flat-land. “God, I love America,” said my travel companion, and hey, I think he really meant it.

It’s easy to fall in love with this country through the explosive crags and snaking rivers along the northern Oregon and southeast Washington state border, and so it seems I am in this, my first trip to eastern Oregon.

My companion and I arrived at our destination – Umatilla, Oregon’s Tillicum Inn (no jokes, please) – just after 7 pm tonight, and hustled out of the car to unload our bags, stretch our legs and… oh wait. Stop right there… what the hell is that smell? We got with our first wave of country cow stench, and it nearly knocked us on the ground.

I’m here to cover a major first for the bustling rural city of Hermiston, Oregon: its first ever “Equality Event” being held tomorrow, August 2nd - a sort of blending of gay pride, Latino pride and Iraq War awareness and activism in one meta-progressive day of speakers, exhibtion, community fair and more, in the city’s downtown Victory Square Park. For working-class Hermiston – chockablock with farm parts stores and pick-ups, and home of the country’s very first Shari’s restaurant – this could be a major event.

Meeting with 31-year-old openly gay event organizer Frank Roa (pictured below, facing the camera) – director of the region’s progressive human dignity group, Umatilla Morrow Alternatives (UMA) – in the lobby of the Oxford Suites hotel in downtown Hermiston, the stocky soft-spoken activist tries to downplay any sense of occasion about the looming event, even as he rattles off the myriad ways in which he’s been spreading the word about it: through community flyering, Craigslist postings, e-mail messages and even PSA’s on local conservative radio stations. He’s even gut up the gumption to place a UMA float in the annual Umatilla County Fair Parade, which kicks off right after his “Equality Event:” he says the float will feature rainbow flags (three, to be exact).

Roa was joined by Quaker social justice group American Friends Service Committee regional director Jeff Hunter (facing away from the camera, above), a somewhat more outspoken older gentleman who tours Oregon with an exhibition called “Eyes Wide Open,” a traveling interactive art piece about “the human cost of the Iraq war.” Hunter and Roa have been in touch via e-mail and phone for over a year and a half, but had only met in person for the first time hours earlier that afternoon. “You’re very brave,” Hunter says to Roa about his ambitious “Equality Event” plans unfolding the next day, to which Roa smiles and just shrugs his shoulders.

After an hour-long interview wraps, my travel mate and I head to that historic Shari’s and down onion rings, salad and chicken fried steak, washed down with Diet Pepsi. On our way back to the hotel, we reflect on a quick first few hours in this very foreign part of the state – to us, at least – and decide we’re too tired to check out the United Farm Workers’ dance at the Velasco’s behind Burger King. Oh yeah – Roa says the UFW will be part of tomorrow’s “Equality Event,” and that a local Hispanic radio station will be broadcasting live from it, too.

My travel mate, another gay man from Portland, breaks in and offers this about the Umatilla/Hermiston we’ve seen so far:

“It might have nice neighborhoods. We might be in the hole… uh. Maybe it’s a little rundown. It seems kind of depressed. But I’m just basing that on the ladies of the front desk at the hotel. That’s an interesting patch job they’ve done on the ceiling. Looks like something leaked or caved in, and… it reminds me of my apartment in New York.” Then he doozes off to sleep.

Me? I’m still on my city weekend clock: totally wired. I ring the front desk, and ask the woman about the bar next door – Riverside Sports Bar, it’s called. I say thank you, hang up, and decide to head over. But not before my friend pokes his head out of the covers and says this: “Don’t order a Grey Goose martini if you want to come home in one piece.”