Making Our Way Through Oregon
One of the curves on US-395 Southbound in central Oregon
We’ve been several days off-grid with no cell service so there is a lot to share here. After a great breakfast in Madras, OR at the Black Bear Diner, we headed east on US-26 and wound up in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument to stretch our legs and see some natural wonders.
First up: The Painted Hills. This is one of three sections of the monument and consists of layers of different colored stratifications of rock and sediment deposited and eroded over millions of years. One photo won’t do it justice so here are a few more. Apparently it’s best for photography in late afternoon, but it was still pretty impressive for us in the morning.
Next: we checked out the fossil visitor center but due to the government shutdown the only fossils we saw (other than each other) were a few including this one outside the visitor center entrance.
Note to self: This might be a place to check out as a destination rather than just for a quick stretch. (and probably best when it’s actually open).
After some more driving we wound up about 30 minutes south of John Day at a campground just off US-395 for the night, but we first took a forest service road 4 miles past it to check out the Fall Mountain Lookout Tower.
Friday morning we headed toward Leslie Gulch in S.E. Oregon, saying goodbye to US-395 and the gorgeous rocks and trees…
and hello to the beautiful eastern Oregon range lands…
And with a long day of driving, we ended up at one of Eric’s long-time bucket list locations, Leslie Gulch. After driving nearly 21 miles of gravel road to get to the place, we caught up to and followed a truck pulling a camper trailer for the last mile or so. And they pulled into the campground and nabbed the last available camp site.
But Lady Luck was smiling upon us as we continued past and down to the boat launch to find that the lake was low, and there was beach area available for free dispersed camping. So we, along with several other adventurers, had the most beautiful lakeside sites for the night.
I was hoping for a clear sky with a million stars but Lady Luck had taken off by then and was nowhere to be found. Instead, we got heavy rain showers followed by gusty winds alternating through the night until around midnight. Some of the rain was so loud on the tent, I thought it might have been hail. And some of those wind gusts were so strong I thought I might get blown away, but luckily both were in very short spurts followed by relative calm until the next ones.
When it finally cleared up in the middle of the night, a big bright moon rose from the east and drowned out the stars. So hopefully we’ll see those stars in the coming weeks.