John Day Painted Fossil Beds

Left Tumalo Falls heading east towards the Clyde Holiday campground. Hit the John Day Fossil Beds on the way. Really enjoyed the painted hills, but since it was 100 degrees, we waited to go to Sheep Rock for an early morning hike.

The Austin girls will be happy to note that we did make it inside to see the visitor center video, but we had to do it in shifts since we had Ringo. This shows our dedication to both Ringo and the movie. And as George observed probably because one of us can’t have more facts than the other person…

Heres the inside of the T@g. It’s much bigger than it looks on the video. The bed appears to be a king.

Newberry National Volcanic Monument

When we got to the first information sign at the Big obsidian flow there were three boys (age ~ 5-6) pointing at the volcano and making explosion noises. I totally agree, Volcanos are cool!

Newberry is a shield volcano that basically did the same thing as crater lake, exploded then fell in on itself. It had two lakes instead of one with a huge obsidian lava field.

We also took the 4×4 to the rim edge. The view from the top was even cooler. The Ridge can be seen, as well as a cinder cone (2 actually). 2 lakes (East and Paulina), and the lava flow. We had lunch right there on the truck bed.

We stopped at Pauline falls on the way to the Lava Cast Forest. These are hard to see in the pictures. Think slow lava building a wall around a tree and leaving a Hollow trunk mold. I jumped in one for size.

Then we stopped by 2 other breweries for samples. 10 Barrel and Sunriver.

Back at the campground we saw this weird camping dump truck. Where do you need that sort of equipment? My t@g was embarrassed for him.

Detroit Lake, Cascades

We had false start in the Willamette wine country. We made an effort but at 25 bucks a tasting,I wasn’t up for the effort and moved on…

Lovely evening. We took several walks about the lake. Played several songs at the campground and Ringo was a dog.

Ringo jumping waves. This was pretty funny. I missed the initial spasm which was funnier.

Mt. Hood!

What a glorious day. We started at trillium lake where we had to pay a day use fee to have a picnic, but we got to see how Portlanders beach. It’s funny. Their coasts are cloudy so they beach at the lakes at the base of Mt. Hood. I think there were 200 floatation devices out there.

After the nature walks, we headed up to the Timberland Lodge to take in the historic building. So funny story: Helen Abbott (one of Sadira’s friends) was describing a family vacay. We asked were she went? What she remembers: apparently the Abbott family visits museums on vacay. So we asked the Austin girls, what do we do on Vacation? That isn’t their experience; they both agreed that the old farts drag them in to old historic buildings alot… Especially old breweries. Here’s one

On the way home we passed Panama point and got a few shots of the Columbia Valley with Mt. Hood.

Ecola State Park

Drove by a Mcmenamins on the way to Ft. Stephens. Since it served bfast we decided to grab a breakfast the next morning on our way to Ecola Beach. Yummy!

Breakfast at the sand trap.

After breakfast, we rolled on down the road to Ecola State Park which was amazing. They’ve filmed 4 movies there (point break, goonies, twilight, kindergarten cop)

Then, yeah we did… We drove the  truck on the beach at Del Ray. First, we had an appetizer (Chips and Salsa) watched a Ford get stuck and then worked up the courage to follow the rest of the four wheel trucks on the beach.

All in all it was another fantastic day on the OR coast. Glad we didn’t go to Utah and hike the narrows…

Relax day to Fort Stephens

Very little to report. Started the day reading and relaxing and even some laundry while George worked. No pictures of that but it was a lovely part of my day.

We broke camp and traveled from Nehalem Bay up the coast to Ft. Stephens state park.

We went for a walk at Ft Stephens and literally ran away from a sworm of mosquitoes. Bikes are recommended so you can outrun them.

Yet another sweet camp spot.

The fort is pretty cool. When we pulled up, all we could hear was screaming and laughing. Joy is such a lovely sound. Turns out there were about 30 to 40 kids at a camp playing capture the flag in the fort. How fun would that be? They wouldn’t let us play… I think they were afraid of our skills. #iAintScared