2008 – Week 17

Tuesday, August 19, 2008:
When Daisy and I walked this morning, we discovered that the storm had done quite a bit of damage to the trees with numerous branches on the ground. However, it was much cooler, and we modified our plan to be at the door of the Oregon Trail Interpretative Center when it opened at 9:00am. We decided to complete our blogs for the last week and publish them. We arrived at the Interpretative Center at 11:15am and spent 3 hours inside reviewing all the exhibits. The detail of the exhibits was the best we have seen. No clean clothes on the emigrants, the oxen with flies on them, the vocal renditions of the stories that began as we approached the individual exhibits were the most realistic we have seen. The Center really focused on the hardships of the travelers. 10% of the travelers died while on the trip.

We learned about the value of oxen as compared to mules and horses as pullers of the wagons. For the record, oxen are castrated beef cattle and sold for $25 each while horses cost $200 each and mules $100 ea. Oxen walk at 2mph, the same as the emigrants as they walked across the prairie. The oxen can eat anything whereas the horses and mules are more sensitive and often required feed to be brought for them in times of unsuitable food sources. Oxen can be eaten, if necessary, but them the owner loses some of his pulling power. As I said, we spent 3 hours inside the building and then were going to see some of the actual Oregon Trail. We parked the RV, got out, read the signs and started to walk in when mosquitoes attacked me. I must have killed 25 of them as we beat a hasty retreat back into the RV. Enough of that, we headed into Baker City to the US Bank office where an exhibit of gold found in the area was displayed. The largest nugget was the Armstrong nugget found in 1919 and weighing 80.4 ounces. That is hardly a nugget as far as I am concerned. We went food shopping, filled up with gas, tried to buy peaches and washed the RV to remove the dirt from last night’s storm. Time to leave Baker City and head west on OR7, the Journey Through Time Scenic Byway. We drove about 20 miles and found the USFS Union Creek Campground in the Whitman National Forest on Phillips Lake on the Powder River. This is a great campground with Ponderosa Pine Trees all around and native grasses growing beneath them. The campsites have all the amenities we could ask for, but for some reason the Campground was almost empty. I’ll try to find out the reason tomorrow. According to my map, the west end of the lake is filled with dredge tailings so I am making the assumption that gold was in this area. I’ll probably never get Susie to leave. We walked around, and had steak cooked over an open fire, plus marshmallows for dessert. Everything was wonderful until Susie dropped a melted marshmallow and then stepped on it. We wondered what that sticky stuff was on the linoleum floor. The clouds were thick and no stars visible. There were some rumors of rain, but we’ll see.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008:
A few showers during the night, but not enough to dampen the ground beneath the trees. It is so quiet here. When Daisy and I took our walk, there was no one else moving around, but when we came back, the nearest neighbor (200 yards away) had packed up and moved on. We had a lazy morning, eventually moving on at 10:30am and heading west on OR7. As discussed before, the west end of Phillips Lake was dredged for gold, and the tailings are visible from the road. The dredge tailings area was 5 miles long and one mile wide. The operation recovered $4.5 Million dollars before the gold ran out in 1959. We climbed over the southern end of the Blue Mountains, topping out at 5,269 feet at Dixie Pass before heading down into the town of Prairie City (elev 3,800 feet). Most of the features of the land around Prairie City end with the name ‘Gulch’. It was hard to tell if the brown area was in agriculture, but the green area was mostly in hay and cattle. Off to the south was the Strawberry Range and Strawberry Mountain Wilderness. The town of Prairie City was interesting to look at as we drove through to get to the USFS Office (where they tried to be helpful, but didn’t have the info we needed) so we decided to drive back and walk the stores. There was an old hotel, an antique shop and an art gallery. The stuff was pretty pricy, but all claimed they had customers from across the US. The true test of a town were missing, a Dairy Queen, a Radio Shack, a self-storage complex and a NAPA Auto Parts. We had thought it would be fun to have lunch in a restaurant but decided it would be healthier to it in the RV. We drove on west to the town of John Day, which had 3 of the 4 requirements, missing only a self-storage facility. But what John Day had to make up for this deficiency was the Kan Wah Ching Heritage Site.
This building was the only remnant of the Chinatown section of John Day. At the height of the gold rush in the area, John Day had the largest Chinese population in Oregon, and it numbered 3,000 compared to the 1,000 whites. The owners of the building were 2 Chinese, Doc Hay, an herbal doctor, and Lung On, a businessman. The building walls were of stone construction and generally resistant to fire and attack. The doors and window shutters were made of iron to stop bullets attacks that often occurred at night. These two men had families back in China, but never returned or brought their families to the US. Lung Ho died in the early1940’s, and Doc Hay in 1952 at the age of 89. Lung Ho was the first car salesman in this part of Oregon. Doc Hay treated both Euro-Americans and Chinese in his clinic and was so highly respected that he was invited into the Masons. Both were wealthy and yet because of the non-existent relations with Communist China, the estate never reached the family and was eventually transferred to the State of Oregon. These two men are still buried in the local cemetery, very unusual because in those times the remains were generally sent back to China. Their wills plainly stated that the remains to remain in the US. We secured a campsite in nearby Oregon Clyde Holliday SP then returned to the Clark County Fair. At supper we sat with a family of four and exchanged tales. The parents live in Bellingham WA, one daughter taught school in the immediate area and the other daughter was a veterinarian in New Zealand. She had gone there after graduating from veterinary school. The entire family met for Christmas in New Zealand a few years ago and toured for 3 weeks. Sounds like a plan to us! There was an auction of fresh award winning pies to support the fair and a talent contest. The room was packed and most seemed to have a good time. We returned to the campground for the night around 9:00pm. It has rained off and on all day, and more of the same seems to be expected for tomorrow. There are rumors that the temperature will drop to 38 degrees tomorrow night.

Thursday, August 21, 2008:
The rumors were false. The temperature just managed to get below 60 degrees, but the wind was from the north and seemed colder. Susie drew like the devil in an attempt to get caught up. She caught up with the pencil work and is about 50% done on the pen work. Hopefully by tomorrow morning, she’ll be caught up. We left the SP at 11:40am and headed west on the Journey Through Time Scenic Byway US26 until we reached Dayville where the Byway turned north on OR19. Just at this point, there was the Mascall Formation Overlook from where we could see the Sheep Rock Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (JDNM). We proceeded into the JDNM and went to the Visitors Center where there was a wonderful set of exhibits explaining what we saw outdoors and why this area was important. Due to earthquakes, erosion, etc it is possible to see 9 distinct layers of earth, spanning 54 million years and having a thickness of about 3 miles (if they had not been pushed, pulled, tilted etc.). These layers from the earliest to the most recent are: Clarno Group, John Day Group, Picture Gorge Basalt Group, Mascall Formation and Rattlesnake Group. During the Picture Gorge Basalt Period, there was, on the average, a major lava flow every 8,000 years that completely cover the area at least 17 times. Due to the exposure of 54 million years of dirt, there are many fossils and the paleontologists have access to an almost continuous 40 million year fossil record of animal and plant life, and this must be one of the best places in the world for exploration. The search for fossils began in the mid-1860s, 6 years after Charles Darwin wrote his book “On the Origin of the Species. Reverend Thomas Condon was an early Oregon settler living on the Columbia River in The Dalles, and he was interested in fossils. He came into the valley in 1865 and discovered fossilized tortoise shells and bones. In 1870 Condon sent a box of fossils to Otheniel Marsh of Yale University, the first US Professor of Paleontology, including a small three-toed horse. Yale University launched an expedition in 1871, but Marsh stayed for only a week. However, during that week he convinced two of Condon’s best collectors to work for Yale. By the way, Marsh took credit for discovering the small three-toed horse head. Over the next years, numerous paleontologists came to the area, threatening to strip it bare. It is interesting that during this time, only the skulls were considered important and so that is all they collected. On December 1, 1916, the Blue Mountain Eagle (newspaper of Jay Day OR) suggested that perhaps it was time for the government to become involved and place protections on the area. They finally did in 1975. After viewing the exhibits, we moved to the outside and viewed the numerous bluffs and different colored layers of rock with a new appreciation. We drove to visit the James Cant Ranch House that was constructed in 1918. It is quite large, having 7 bedrooms and overlooks many of the rock formations in the area. James Cant was a very successful sheep rancher in the times where there was conflict between the cattle and sheep owners. We continued north, stopping at Cathedral Rock, a portion of the mountain that slid down into the John Day River, diverting it. We continued on to the Foree Area where we took two short hikes to the view the John Day Formation capped by the Picture Gorge basalt. We saw a paved airstrip and water ponds so we believe it is used by USFS for firefighting and other emergency uses. The John Day River and individual wells provide ample water for irrigation and much of the area grows alfalfa for the cattle during the winter months. We continued north to the spot on the map named Kimberly and found that it is a fruit growing area. We’ll try to buy some tomorrow. We pulled into Bureau of Land Management Lone Pine Campground for the night. This campground has 4 sites and is now 50% full. The sun went down behind the ridge at 6:45pm, and the temperatures dropped. We were planning to have a fire, but it was too cold. We have noticed that the cottonwood tree leaves seem to be a bit weak. The North Fork of the John Day River is nearby so they should have plenty of water so maybe it’s just a sign that cooler weather is coming. We went outside last night around 10:00pm to view the stars. There were no lights on the ground or clouds I the skies so the visibility was good. The moon had not yet come up, but we could tell that it was there as there was a dull glow in the east. Susie stayed up to color her book and a bit later the moon was visible and so bright that it overwhelmed many of the fainter stars.

Friday, August 22, 2008:
Happy Birthday Susie! The sky was clear and the temperature 55 degrees. Once again we were slow getting started, helped in that direction by our neighbor who visited and gave us a sales for a product that he was promoting as part of his business. Daisy swam in the North Fork of the John Day River before we left the Campground at 12:15pm.
We immediately stopped at a farm for some fruits and vegetables. We continued west on the “Journey Through Time Scenic Byway” using OR19 to the town of Fossil, then OR218 west. We stopped at the Clarno Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The material in the Clarno Group ranges in age from 54 to 37 Million Years Old.
We were looking at the Palisade Ridge and were able to climb to it. Susie sat on a rock that was 44 Million Years Old, and this made her feel very young.
We saw a petrified tree and log in the rock. It was hot and dry, and the three of us needed lots of water. We continued on OR218 to Antelope and then took an unnumbered road southwest to the City of Madras hoping to get into The Cove Palisades State Park. Unfortunately it was full so were went a bit further south on OR97 to a KOA. On our left were the Cascade Mountains and 2 large peaks. We thought one is Mt Jefferson (25 miles west) and determined later that the other was Mt Hood (about 70 miles north). We immediately showered and went to an ice cream party sponsored by the Owners. We met a older (even older than us) couple who spend the summer in Homer Alaska and the winters in Reno NV. She was from Newfoundland and married in 1947 at the age of 19 so we figured they must be in their eighties. They were fun and had a million stories to tell. He has survived heart surgery and she cancer so nothing seems to bother them. As the sun went down, it cooled off, and the conversation broke off.

Saturday, August 23, 2008:
This morning, when I looked out the window to check the weather, there was Mt Jefferson (elev 10,497 feet) in the distance. When I walked Daisy I could also see Mt Hood and took a few pictures. This is farm country and across the road is a cattle ranch with Black Angus in the pasture, but they didn’t seem interested in Daisy and me. We left the KOA at10:30am and headed south on US97 towards the town of Redmond OR. We had just started when we passed over the Crooked River that was spanned by three different bridges. One was a railroad bridge, the second the new US97 bridge and the last, and middle bridge, the old (but not oldest) highway bridge. There was the Peter Keene Ogden State Park plus a Rest Area on the south side, and we pulled in. We walked to the edge of the river and found that it was 300 feet straight down. The river had carved its way through volcanic rock and the walls on the south side were vertical, but the one on the north had sloughed away a bit. Peter Ogden was instrumental in rescuing the survivors of the Whitman Mission, and the City of Ogden was also named in his honor. In 2006, we visited the remains of the Whitman Mission and wondered why the US Government would waste money on the site. However, during this trip, there have been numerous references to the Whitman Mission, and we have become more sensitive to the importance of the site. There were also 2 information boards about a Rex Barker, a native of the area. He was an USAAF aviator stationed in the Pacific during WWII and was the person who killed Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, the planner of the Pearl Harbor attack by attacking his airplane as it flew north from the Philippine Islands. He stayed in the Air Force and while testing a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star jet fighter, flew under the old US97 and railroad bridge. Remember the highway bridge was less than 300 feet above the surface of the Crooked River. Susie saw a pinto colored pack mule, but I missed it. She said she had never seen one before. We went through the town of Terrebonne where they were holding a town fair and then to Redmond. We stopped for camping supplies and gas before heading west on OR126 towards the town of Sisters, named because of the three Sisters Mountains, North Sister, Middle Sister and South Sister (changed from Faith, Hope & Charity) that top out above 10,000 feet. Leaving Redmond we headed west and noticed that the town was growing quickly in that direction. The development stopped abruptly at a major electrical sub-station that was probably built 30 years ago in a location that the planners thought would be safe. Not anymore! The town of Sisters has been around for a long time, but all but a few of the buildings are new. It is a retail town with numerous stores and restaurants. We continued on US20/OR126 to the northwest for 10 miles and turned right to follow the Metolius River into the Deschutes NF in search of a campground. The first 3 or 4 were full, and we began to be concerned, but finally found a site in the USFS Pioneer Ford Campground. It is on the river. This campground was the last available and there was a sign just beyond the entrance stating “Road Closures Due to Fire Activity”. After we were settled in, we could hear the chainsaws and occasionally smelled some smoke (not sure it was the forest fire or the campfires). When we talked to the Camp Host, he said on Monday night he could see the glow of the fire at night behind the ridge to the east. We had a campfire and invited a family over after supper to gab. The parents, Paul and Risa, were visiting their daughter, Tara, who lived in Portland, and she brought them camping or the night. It was the first time for them. They visited for about 45 minutes and then we all went to bed.

Sunday, August 24, 2008:
The temperature went down last night, and it was the coldest in a long time. We had our coffee and went across the road to talk wwith Paul and Risa for a bit more. We knew they were from Massachusetts but nothing more specific than that. Sometime during the conversation, Paul mentioned that they lived in Marblehead MA, and I said that I knew a fellow there who was one of my sailing instructors when I was growing up. He asked the name, and I told him John Van Dusen. Paul said he lived just down the block. I gave my card to Paul who promised to pass it on. Unfortunately, last year for the JAYC (Jr. American YC) Reunion, Doogie didn’t respond to all attempts to get him to come, and we asked Paul to tell him that he missed a great party. We move campsites to one that overlooks the Metolius River, then took a 6-mile round trip walk along the river, with the turn around point being a fish hatchery. Every time Daisy found a place to swim, she jumped in. It took us 3 hours to make the hike, including a tour of the hatchery. We didn’t take lunch, a bad mistake, so by the time we returned to the Campground, we (all 3) were really hungry. Susie made a great lunch, and I gave Daisy a biscuit (about all I can do). After eating we dragged our chairs to the river, and I planned to cool my feet down to stop any swelling. I managed to cool my feet off, but the water was so cold that I couldn’t keep my feet in it for more than 30 seconds. It is very fast flowing, maybe 5 knots, and absolutely clear. The sides of the river near the fish hatchery are volcanic walls that the river has eroded over the years. In the deep parts is a clear blue. I decided to run the generator to recharge the house batteries and after about 20 minutes it stopped. There is sufficient gas, so maybe the fuel filter is clogged or an electrical problem. We sat by the river and several times people came walking down the path at the edge. Daisy has jumped up and barked furiously. Perhaps we shouldn’t have been so close to the path. At 5:00pm, we noticed that the sky began to darken, and we wondered if a storm is coming. We started a campfire and cooked dinner outside.

Monday, August 25, 2008:
It was a grey overcast morning when we got up. I took Daisy for a walk, and when we returned, Susie decided to check the water temperature in the Metolius River. When she returned, I guessed 45 degrees, but it was actually 40. We should have had a dry-suit on Daisy yesterday. She is sore today so it will be a day of rest for her. There was a VW Camper in the Campground, and it was dark last night. We thought the people had not returned by the time we went to bed at 9:30pm, but this morning there was activity around it so all is well. Another camper stopped after I asked about her dogs that were in a bit of a scrape with 2 much larger dogs last night. They were fine, and we began talking and found that they are headed to Boston generally following US20 the entire way and then returning on the southern portion of the country. Susie overheard the conversation and came out to talk about Ohio and her experiences as a child living during the summer on Lake Erie. She (Linda) went to get her husband (John), as it was apparent that they and we are doing generally the same things, and they would like our input. It turned out to be a two way street as they gave us many tips also. I think we had the better deal as John came back a bit later and told us of a better route than the one we planned for today. He told me to go back to the town of Sisters, which we had to do to get cell service to call Onan Generator and a campground in Lakeview OR for the rodeo, and take the OR242 section of the McKenzie Pass-Santiam Pass Scenic Byway west through the Deschutes NF, across the McKenzie Pass (elev 5,325 and Willamette NF. The signs along the road stated “Narrow road, no combinations more than 35 feet”. I naively thought the signs were directed towards logging trucks. As we continued along the road became narrower. As we were approaching McKenzie, we came across the edge of a 65 square mile lava flow that was the result of several eruptions of the peak now known as Belknap Crater. We parked the RV and jumped out only to find the temperature had dropped to 56 degrees with a strong wind from the NW. We were not dressed warmly enough, actually not even close, and stayed outside a very short time. We continued along and at McKenzie Pass stopped to visit the Dee Wright Observatory
that was constructed by the CCC in the 1930’s. Unfortunately, there was a weather front coming through with low clouds and some rain so we were not able to see most of the surrounding mountains. We did walk through the lava beds and learned about them. We have seen lava beds before, but this one was much rougher with large rocks on the surface. These rocks were formed when the top of the lava flow cooled and the surface hardened, only to be broken apart as the still liquid lava below continued to flow (similar to Hawaii). While we could not see it, the information boards indicated that below this rough and tumbled surface the lava was solid. There were very few trees in the lava area, and the ones that were there were stunted. Not a good growing area.
We continued west, finding and following the Blue River towards Eugene where the Onan shop is located. It was a long way down a narrow and curvy road to get into the valley where the roads were wider and more level with much better visibility. We arrived at the Onan shop, having been told that there was a RV park across the street. Well, that was true except that it was the manufacturing plant for Monaco RV’s (much bigger and expensive than ours) and when they heard we had a Winnebago they said we couldn’t stay there. We went to Outback for Susie’s late birthday dinner, returned to the Onan shop and parked on a gravel area so we can be there for our 8:00am appointment to fix the generator. I saw a large hay field that had been recently cut so we may try flying my model airplane again tomorrow.