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.