Final day at John Day

Our last day dawns bright and early and Robert is the first one up. I hear him run off to the restroom. It's 5:30.

We make scrambled eggs and sausage and coffee and then we pack. We pull the tent down. We re-ice everything. We plan our trip for the day. The whole thing takes an hour and a half.

We gas up near John Day city and head farther east along 26 towards highway 7. Our goal is to find Vinegar Creek. In our Rockhounding Oregon book, Vinegar creek has some amazing rocks. It's about 103 miles from Clyde Holladay, the campground we just left.

We drive through some more crazy canyons and then break out into a huge valley. We drive uphill for a long time.

Finally we hit hwy 7 going north, but it's only for a mile and then we turn left onto some small paved highway. It's gorgeous up here. There are huge trees and the sky is super blue and the air is clear. We've left the desert-y areas behind for now and I breathe a sigh of relief. I love being in the woods. I totally feel safer in the woods than anywhere else. 

We go a couple miles in, just past a campground, and decide to turn right because that's where Google is telling us to turn to find Vinegar Creek. I drive 6 miles into the wilderness and we finally decide to turn around. On the way down we see a doe and fawn, and what I assume is the claim owner of the posted Federal mining claim. He drives past us in a hummer. He's wearing a Trump hat.

We get back to the highway and go a mile down the road to the right, to what we think is site C in the rockhounding book. We turn right on another dirt road that goes up, but more gently than the first road. We drive less than a mile when I suddenly see mine tailings on the left. I pull into a wide spot and we both jump out.

The first thing I see is a jasper that easily weighs 20 pounds. Pictures make it look tiny.

We collect lots of incredible rocks, including a druzy quartz nodule that has me hollering up the dry wash to Robert.

We collect for about an hour and then drive out of that area and back onto the paved road going to the right. We drive about 18 miles in, passing an actual herd of cattle. We get to the mine tailings at site D, from the book. 

We collect here for about an hour, then take our bag of rocks back to the car and drive home. It's about 7 hours from where we are, so we're home by 6. I did all the driving. 

We did stop on the way home and buy two bags of fresh wild huckleberries from a guy selling them from his truck. 

Best. Weekend. Ever.

Maryhill and Stonehenge

The morning starts early for me. I'm awake at 4:30 am and can't go back to sleep. So I get up and blog until I can take pictures of the sun turning the sky red in the East. No one is stirring.

Robert is still asleep, so as soon as it's light out, i jump on the bed and stare at him until he giggles and rolls over and looks at me.

"Are you ready ta go?" He asks.

"Yes! I'm ready." I say it with a great big grin and he giggles some more. "Get up get up get up, sleepyhead."

Robert rolls out of the sleeping bag and dresses and puts shoes on. It only got down to 65 degrees overnight so we were sleeping on top of everything until about 2am. We love the new camping pads, though, and we didn't feel the ground at all during the night.

We make coffee and eggs & sausage, then pack up and head to Maryhill. Turns out, it's closed until ten and it's only 9am. We take photos and I explain to Robert that the building was created by Sam Hill for his wife. Ever heard "What in the Sam Hill are you doing?" Well, Sam Hill built a huge mansion out here in the middle of nowhere on a hill above the Columbia River, and she hated it. It was too far away from everything and everyone she knew. Now it's a museum and, bookended by the stunning entrance and exit once used only by carriages, it houses fabulous art including a Rodin and whatever roving exhibits are being shown currently.

Next, we head to Stonehenge which is a World War I Memorial. Legend has it Sam Hill (who was very well traveled) visited the actual Stonehenge in England and, upon hearing it was used for ritual sacrifice, remarked what a travesty it is that with all humanity's knowledge, we still sacrifice our youth to the God of War. Current thinking discounts the idea that ancient Celts sacrificed humans at Stonehenge. Still, the Memorial is an interesting one. It depicts Stonehenge before it was degraded by time.

We move on to the pit stop at Biggs, across the water. We get gas and ice and head south for the John Day Fossil units. There are three units, and we've been told we cant see all three in the short span of time we have, so I've chosen to head for the Painted Hills.

The drive is long. The drive is really long. We drive into what looks like Iowa, but with slight hills. Yet everywhere we look there's wheat fields and windmills. The windmills are actually huge, white wind turbines with three blades each. Robert says he looked at a job a few years ago that was working on these windmills. It paid good money, but required a lot of travel and apparently a lot of climbing into windmills when the temperature outside is in the 90's, like today. Robert is glad he didn't take that job.

We finally turn east for a while and then we turn south again. We start seeing trees but still not very many. After what feels like years, we get to the turn for the Painted Hills. We drive only a couple miles when suddenly out of the landscape rises these low, rolling hills decorated in sand colors of red, yellow, and black. The hills are layered like a child's sand bottle toy. It's...otherwordly.

We drive to the lookout and park and walk to the kiosk. There are people standing at the edge taking pictures and they're speaking German, Japanese, and English. I even hear an Australian accent in the mix.

Robert and I read about the hills. The kiosk plaques say these hills illustrate millions of years of climate change. The red layers show eras of moist climate and wet soils. The tan layers show dryer climates. The black is manganese, and scholars have no idea how or why it accumulates here.

We spend an hour here, at the overlook and at the park service center. We plan our next stop. We decide the best thing to do is to head for the Sheep Rock Unit. I'm bummed we passed the true Fossil Unit at Clarno on the way here, but the Sheep Rock Unit could be amazing and Robert is willing, so on we go.

We drive to highway 26 and turn East again. We are in an imposing rocky canyon and the highway changes speed constantly, from 55 to 45 and 35. It's a winding road that has big elevation changes until finally it lets out into a landscape that's hot and dry. The temp is 90. When we finally reach the John Day Sheep Rock Unit and turn North, it's 92.

We don't know where we're going, but Robert looks at the map we got at the Painted Hills and says we should stop at Dick Creek Road. We get to Blue Basin and decide to stop there.

There are extremely high buttes all around us but some green outcroppings show through the regular reds and browns. The spot we've stopped at has some sort of green limestone stalagmites but I only caught a glimpse of them as we drove in. We opt for a 1.3 mile trail amongst the green mountains and are utterly floored when we come to the featured hillside.

The mountain is not only a deep green, it looks like an inside-out cavern. What look like stalactites have formed on the mountainside, pointing downwards but flush with the cliff wall. The interpretive plaques say the green clay is millions of years old and shows the area was once a wet marine setting. It was home to a fantastic panoply of animals including eohippus and sea turtles. Eohippus was the small prehistoric horse I read about as a child.

We snapped pictures and walked up the trail in 92 degree heat with huge grins, like happy idiots.

No photographs can do justice to this incredible place and the myriad of green hues the clay displays in the day's sun. We left in total awe.

Here's  a fantastic written account of the area:

https://www.oregonlive.com/life_and_culture/erry-2018/07/32c7d189946376/blue_basin_is_a_beautiful_over.html

From Blue Basin, we drove back to highway 26 and turned left. Our goal was to try to reach Kim Wah Chang campground but we only made it to a campground close to John Day. It was a heavenly oasis in the heat. We had showers and restrooms and the grassy haven we camped on was empty except for us. We played Scrabble (I lost AGAIN) and made hamburgers and by the time we went to bed, I was asleep in literally 2 minutes. I think I was talking when I fell asleep.

Labor Day Weekend

Today we're headed for Lapage park to camp and to run around Maryhill. Robert is still sleeping, but he must have been up early because coffee has been made.

Mmmmmm. Coffee.

Robert doesn't know where we're going yet.  I'll tell him on the drive. I plan to go south from I->4 to John Day, on Sunday. Hopefully, he will like the trip I have planned.

Once I wake up Robert, we start getting our things packed for camping: food, utensils, clothes. I pack boots and water shoes. Robert packs spices and pans.

We load up Gijjie and head for coffee, then drive to the storage unit to get tents and sleeping bags. Next, we stop at Freddie's for supplies. Robert thinks M&M cookies are supplies. I convince him we need tiny Yukon gold potatoes, fruit, a pallet of water, and snacks. We already have chicken and hamburger.

We start the drive up I-5, which isn't bad at all really. We turn on 205 and head for the Dalles. The drive is pretty and pleasant. We opt for NOT stopping at Multnomah Falls, since it's utterly packed, but when we hit the Bridge of the Gods, Robert tells me what it was like to cross that bridge when he walked the PCT.

Robert spent a year planning that trip. He did it the same year I went to Eastern Europe. 2012. He was so prepped, he cut off all his clothing tags for *weight*. He started in southern California and walked 2200 miles, roughly. We talk about the friends he made on the walk, and I make him retell lots of stories about the trip. I find it hysterical that was his first camping experience in his whole life.

We get to the part of the Columbia River Gorge where it turns dry and dusty and we feel the temperature rise. It's about 90 outside, so I'm thankful for my air conditioning.

We spot Maryhill at the Goldendale/Biggs exit, and I make Robert locate Stonehenge on the cliffs on the Washington side of the river. I explain to him it's a lifesize replica of the original Stonehenge before it collapsed.

We get to LePage campground and check in at the kiosk hut and the attendant gives us a site pass and a car pass to hang on our rearview mirror. They give us a site map so we can find our site.

We get to what should be our tent site, spot #12, and someone is camped there. They e plain that if we're willing to trade, their site is back one, up against the hillside. It's all gorgeous green grass anyway and their spot is actually further away from everyone, so we cheerfully agree to swap.

The campground is a grassy affair with restrooms and showers. There's only about a dozen tent sites, with a bit of space between each spot. There's also trees among the sites. We see there's a swimming lagoon, roped off from the actual river, and a few small structures for chillin and grillin. The RV section is farther back, past the lagoon. It looks packed tight. No thanks.

We hike all our gear into camp and set up the tent and the grill. Families are happily playing in the swimming area on the John Day river, that meets the Columbia about a quarter mile north of where we sit. It's hot but all the campers are drinking already and being a tad noisy, but we don't mind. It's 3pm.

We play scrabble and I lose. Badly. Robert and I have saying that German beats dolphin, meaning his full rack of consonants beat my awful and consistent rack of 7 vowels. It's rare either of us beats the other by more than ten points, so I curse at him and then I eat a quart of blueberries to make up for losing.

We ask the neighbors if they need anything and tell them we're going to Biggs for Ice. They ask us to get 4 bags for them. I can tell they are already 3 sheets to the wind, so I'm glad we are going and they're not. I feel like a goofball, though, when we realize on the way back that there's ice at the campground kiosk hut. Whoops.

We cook our potatoes and chicken for dinner and nothing ever tasted so good. We decide we're too full to make s'mores so we quench the grill charcoal. We check out the water at the lagoon but it's already getting dark, so we don't  swim.

We sit and talk for an hour and watch the stars appear in the night sky. We plan our route to the fossil beds and decide to hit Maryhill and Stonehenge in the morning. I'm excited to try our new super slim sleeping pads.