A vacation from retirement

All this touring and visiting exciting places is great, according to the Wagon Master, but sometimes you need to take a vacation from retirement. So, he found us the perfect place.


Catherine Creek State Park is along hwy. 203, near Union, Oregon. The campsites are laid out along Catherine Creek, and there's a nice day-use area just a half mile up the road. There are no services, but there is water available. It's a beautiful area, with camp sites that vary from small, suitable for tents, to several that will accommodate larger rigs. Only a few are right on the creek, and we were lucky enough to arrive early in the day, early in the week, and snag one of the very best.

Catherine Creek isn't very deep - great for kids to wade in as there are several little sandy beach areas. Though we did see people fishing in it, I can't say I saw anyone catching a fish!

There are also a couple of nice trails, one to the day use area - it's a one mile round trip, and another up to the top of the hill where there are a few nice viewpoints. It's a two mile round trip, and does have a few steep areas. Molly and I took that one on our third day there - not too bad for an old lady and an old dog!

We took one afternoon to go into the nearby town of Union where we visited the Union County Museum and picked up a few items at the little grocery store.

MC Ranch branding iron

The museum is really nice, and the loving attention lavished on the collections by all the volunteers really shows. The displays are really well done, and include an unusually wide range of topical material. One whole room is devoted to a "Cowboys Then and Now" collection.

Small "rooms" display items as they would have been used in days gone by. The whole town is a well-preserved turn-of the century treat. The grocery store, situated right on the creek, is well stocked with a bit of everything. The proprietor is a friendly fellow who will happily visit and fill you in on local events.

Four days is long enough to really get settled in to an area, and by the time we left we'd become well acquainted with our host and hostess and two of the other couples camping there. We spent the afternoons trading travel tips, favorite campsites, and learning about the surrounding area from the couples who were familiar with it.

There's no cell service in the park, but you can catch a signal a couple of miles back toward town. We never bothered to set up the TV, opting to take a vacation from everything! All things considered, while the rest of the world was focused on the stock market melting down, world politics, and all the talking heads on TV, this was an excellent place to get away from it all! A few more photos here.

Our next stop will be far more "civilized". We've an appointment with the Arctic Fox factory in LaGrande for a repair, so we'll be staying at a private park nearby. 

Oregon or Bust!

Did you ever play that Oregon Trail computer game when you were in school? Or maybe you worked through it with your children, making those critical choices about what to bring in the wagon and what to leave behind. Take a ferry or tow the wagon across? So many decisions!

If you did play the game, or if you've studied the Oregon Trail, then you'll remember that the river crossings were one of the biggest challenges along the way.

It was no game for the pioneers. They lost wagons, stock, and sometimes people in the turbulent waters. Our next two stops, as we work our way toward Oregon, are at two of the most famous of these Oregon Trail crossings.

From the City of Rocks area we traveled northwest, sticking primarily to the back roads. It's a pleasant drive, through rolling plains and small farming communities. We took a break around lunch time, stopping at Hagerman to visit the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument.

This monument is a good place to learn about Idaho's "state fossil", the Hagerman Horse. The creature, which first appeared about 3.4 million years ago, was a member of the genus Equus, but not really a horse by modern standards. It was much more like today's zebra, and became extinct about 10,000 years ago, along with several other large species. The park holds the largest concentration of Hagerman Horse (Equus simplicidens) fossils in North America. They have a nice visitor's center right in the town of Hagerman, and then a driving tour where you can experience overlooks of the scene where the fossils were discovered. The visitor's center also houses a temporary display on the history of  the Minidoka Internment Camp.

We elected to skip the driving tour and continued on west toward our camping destination. Looking out the window I was startled to suddenly see waterfalls gushing from the steep cliffs along the river. Soon we passed a sign explaining this was the Thousand Springs Scenic Byway.

Truly, I've never seen anything like this. The springs gush forward with such force that in some cases the water shoots out like a fire hydrant, in others, the effect is a graceful waterfall. The water source is the Snake River Plains Aquifer, one of the largest groundwater systems in the world. It creeps through an area of several thousand square miles under southern Idaho's porous volcanic rock before emerging from the springs in the cliffs. The water is a fairly consistent 58 degrees or so, and so very favorable for trout. Fishermen, take note!

Our stopping point the first evening was scheduled for Three Island Crossing State Park, located at Glenns Ferry, Idaho. There is an Oregon Trail historic center here, but as our luck usually has it, the center is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and we only planned to be in the park on Monday. There are several signs around with information about the area, so we did a bit of a self-guided tour and called it good.

The park is beautiful! There are two camping loops, and though the sites don't have a view of the river, there are trees and lush grass everywhere. Sprinklers are running somewhere in the park pretty much all the time, thanks to the availability of river water. So lush and green, it was hard to pack up and leave.

Three Island Crossing

But, we are headed for appointments in Oregon, so leave we did. Next scheduled stop, Farewell Bend State Park, in Oregon.

We arrived early in the afternoon hoping to beat the crowds as we didn't have reservations. As it turns out there wasn't much competition. We set up camp at the end of the lower loop, under a nice tree. Our view also includes rolling golden hills covered with sunflowers as well as the river, another famous Oregon Trail crossing.

Farewell Bend was the last stop on the Oregon Trail along the Snake River where travelers could rest and water and graze their animals before they said "farewell" to the Snake River. From this point the trail turned north through more rugged country to follow the Burnt River.

We aren't facing such an arduous journey, and we've no animals to graze (Molly's not too fond of grass) so we recharged our selves by relaxing with a cold one under the tree and watching the nighthawks dip and soar. I've never seen them out quite so early in the evening, or quite so active.
There were dozens of them in the air, and they were sailing across the lawn only a few inches above the ground. I'm more accustomed to see them higher up, above the tops of trees. Wherever they fly, I'm happy, as they're eating bugs!

Farewell Bend

We've decided to stay at Farewell Bend a second night, then push on, down the trail, location TBD.

(Click on any photo for a larger image)

City of Rocks National Preserve, Idaho

Dolphins and whales leaping from a blue-green sage colored ocean. Huge, gray elephants lumbering across velvety green slopes. A tiny cirque, high up on the distant hills, is all that remains of the winter's snow, and a few wildflowers dot the plain. That's the scene here in City of the Rocks National Preserve. 

Well, the critters may be imaginary, but the forms are real. These giant gray granite outcrops certainly inspire those images. 

Saturday we drove west, through the park, admiring the formations and checking out the named boulders.

There's Camp Rock, where travelers found protection from the winds, Treasure Rock, that supposedly marks a huge buried treasure, and Elephant Rock, inspired I'm sure by the effect of the gray boulders on the plain.

After all the red sandstone we've seen, these gray granite outcrops seem such a contrast. And they come as a surprise after the drive through the rolling wheat fields of southern Idaho. Although all the formations appear at first to be made of the same type of stone there are actually three different materials involved in creating this amazing landscape.

One, the Green Creek Complex consists of granite formed around 2.5 billion years ago.  This type has a high mica content and glitters in the sun like diamonds. The second, the Elba Quartzite originated during the Proterozoic Eon a mere 15,000 to 600 million years ago. This stone is much lighter than the Green Creek granite, and also has mineral stains causing red and green streaks and layers. The third type is the Almo Pluton, granite, formed by the slow cooling of magma, makes up most of the spires in the City of Rocks. (More about the geology of the area here.)

The Twin Sisters formation is interesting because the left peak, of the Twin Sisters, is made up of rock from the Green Creek Complex (2.5 billion years old), and the right peak is made up of rock from the Almo Pluton (28 million years old). Some birthing process!

This preserve is notable not only for the geology, but for the pioneer history, as the California Trail (companion to the famous Oregon Trail) passed right through the center of the park.

Register Rock records some of the names and dates. Many more were written there, but have long since faded due to weathering. Only those protected by the overhang of the boulder remain legible.

Turning east there's a view of the smooth plain the wagons crossed to get to this point. Its grassy, and looks like easy going. Turning west, the view is only broken rocks and steep slopes. One can only imagine what thoughts the pioneers had at this point about the challenges lay ahead. The ground is solid with small boulders, and the granite spires crowd each other, often leaving little space to get a wagon and team through.

 The stone ruins still standing beside the road mark one of the locations where the California Trail crossed the current road. Originally settled in 1882 under the 1862 Homestead Act, the land was sold in 1901and patented under the Desert Land Act. The combined acreage formed the nucleus of the Circle Creek Ranch. The Tracy's spent years constructing a substantial stone house to replace their log dwelling. The stone used in the construction of the home is from a quarry located about one mile southwest of the home site. The home burned in 1957. (A nice driving tour brochure that includes many of the historic and scenic points is available here.)

Today's adventuresome types come to this area not as pioneers, but as rock climbers. Though the state park campground we are in, Smoky Mountain, is very sparsely populated, the boondocking camps out in the bushes, near the climbing rocks, are swarming with people. Each of the cracks and crevices seems to have a name, relevant to the climbers, and there clear signs directing people to the base of the formation where the way up begins. Many of the parking areas around picnic areas and climbing sites were full today, when we drove through the park. I can't imagine what it must be like here during the spring, which is the peak season. 

At the edge of the park we went north to the little town of Oakley. The town has less than 600 residents, and their main claim to fame is a historic section with a few really nice Victorian homes.

One of the major industries in the area is stone quarry products, and there are several stone dealers around to prove it. I wish I could get some of this back to Texas! They have some really attractive types in the display areas.

Once back in camp we noticed the storm clouds gathering. This seems to be a regular afternoon thing. Big, billowy white clouds suddenly turn dark, then the thunder starts, and then a few sprinkles. This was a bit more lively than the day before, though. With a little hail and a lot of wind thrown in. We battened down the hatches, so to speak, so we wouldn't have to worry about things and took off for the nearby town of Almo to have dinner. We don't eat out much, so having someone else do the cooking is quite a treat. We went to the Outpost Inn, a nice little steakhouse type restaurant. Good food, and some interesting Native American items decorating the place.

Our big outing on Sunday was a drive to the state park right next to City of Rocks. Castle Rocks State Park is much smaller than the national park, but much the same in appearance. It's also popular with climbers, and it's probably to them that we owe the great cell service in this area, as well as the fact that our campground has wireless.

Smokey Mountain campground, where we are staying, is actually part of the state park, though it's separated by a couple of miles. It's a really well designed campground. The spaces are wide, level, and very private, and there are a couple of yurts available for those without an RV. There's also an equestrian section that includes holding pens for horses and plenty of room for stock trailers. Showers, recycling centers, full hook-ups, and a thunderstorm every afternoon at 3:00. The spaces are surrounded with sage, yarrow, juniper and pine that send out heavenly aromas when the afternoon showers hit. What more could anybody want?

Well, actually, I could want better signage. When we arrived at the park we noticed a sign at the edge of the parking lot with a list of things we might see there, but no arrows or directions, and the world's dinkiest map was posted for reference, so after a lot of hiking around in circles we finally found what we were looking for - some very faint pictographs! See the notes in the photo album if you are interested in tracking them down.

The ranch house that is part of the park is now an inn of sorts, and so not open to anyone who is not a guest of the inn. It's a cute little building, but we don't know anything about it, as there was no information available at the park.

A single visitor's center, in Almo, serves both parks. You can get brochures and shop for gift items there. There's also a mercantile and another food and misc. items store in Almo, so if you forget something you can probably pick it up there.

Another storm came up late in the day, and this time brought a double rainbow over the valley. The perfect finish to a perfect day!