Western USA 2003
Umatilla National Forest to Blue Mountains
Wake early at 8am and walk around lake looking at animal footprints trying to decipher bear paw prints but my expertise is such they are probably all cow prints. Cows roam freely in the National Forest as part of a land use program they seem to have a good life living wild in this beautiful place. Breakfast is 2 raw eggs, orange and milk.
Continue on back roads through the Umatilla National Forest in the western foothills of the Blue Mountains and pass a large area of forest fire devastation as far as the eye can see it brings home all the news stories about the giant western forest fires. This one is probably a year or two old everything is still black and smells like fire.
Stop at 3 more John Day Fossil Beds sites and make 2 hikes. Met a nature photographer on an assignment then went to the JD visitor center which is an old house and watched a short film on the fossils, a new modern visitor center is almost completed nearby but the old house has much more character. Pass on through many small towns of populations 100 or less, land is 1000 acres for $470,000, the land is amazing forests and rivers and farmland this is a real opportunity. Central Oregon also has some of the cleanest air quality in the country.
Late lunch at a Café, greasy burger and bad service made me tired but kept going. Stopped for fresh veggies at a small home garden roadside stand and she let me pick my own right from the garden some peas in the pod and mini tomato's all for $2.50. Nice chat about life in rural central Oregon sounds like the winters are rough.
Back north into the heart of the Blue Mountains into progressively smaller and more difficult roads trying to find the top of a ridge and finally stopped around dusk just under the top of "Cougar Mountain". 41 degrees at sunset at over 5000 feet it promises to be a cold night. The higher altitude has an effect on me here and I feel ache and grumpy and walk around but getting a lot of false positives in my senses with eyes and ears from lack of oxygen (hallucinations). Salad for dinner with todays purchases and it's very cold to be eating a salad but need it after that burger today. Oddly enough as remote a spot this is a truck from Montana passes soon after dark then turns around and heads back down the mountain perhaps looking for a campsite.
Posted by stbalbach at September 12, 2003 01:44 AM