Anson Wright Memorial Park, Oregon

Knowing we need a few days of rest and relaxation to prepare for Tailgate Training Camp, we met friends from Portland at the Anson Wright Memorial Park campground for a few days. It's a calm, quiet, out of the way campground, and good for visiting with no interruptions.

This little campground  (Morrow County, on SR 205) has a little fishing pond on one end, and a creek running along the road near the tent sites, but the RV spots are all uphill, away from the creek, which is probably why we didn’t have much in the way of mosquito problems. The utilities are rather strangely arranged in some of the spaces, so check it out before deciding which site to select.

As the park is only a few  miles from the Sheep Rock Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds we thought we’d take a drive down that way.  We stopped at the visitor’s center, then had our picnic lunch at the James Cant ranch house, which was unfortunately not open for tours on this particular day – just our luck. It’s a really pretty ranch, with several original buildings, well maintained lawns and orchards, all backed by dramatic cliffs. It's a beautiful setting, and the ranch house itself is nicely restored. We were able to tour it the last time we visited this area and really enjoyed the displays inside.

It’s a scenic drive through the park, past multicolored layers of volcanic ash and basalt, fantastic eroded cliffs, and some very prosperous looking ranches.

After leaving the park complex we stopped at the Dayville Mercantile for ice – what a great little store! A little of everything, friendly folks, and they really know how to grow the petunias!

Our last night in camp featured a dramatic two hour lightening show, with just a bit of rain. We sat under the awning and watched as the campground was repeatedly lit up like a football stadium, and contemplated how many fires might be started by the strikes.

On the road the next morning I was able to grab an Internet connection and located a news article that stated::
Strong thunderstorms raked Oregon and western Idaho with more than 8,000 lightning strikes Wednesday, igniting more than 100 new fires on the High Desert that for the most part were stopped small.

We saw the evidence of the fires as we drove west under smoke filled skies, to the Ochoco Forest campground, for Tailgate Training Camp. We will, again, be out of Internet access for several days, so updates will be a bit delayed.