Meet John Day and Clyde Holiday

"We're heading over to John Day", is something you might hear in these parts. The question then would be, do you mean the town? or the National Monument? Or the river?

The John Day River originates in the mountains of Grant and Harney counties. The various branches join to form the third longest free-flowing (no dams) river in the United States. It eventually flows into the Columbia.

The river was named for John Day, a trapper who was a member of the Pacific Fur Company's overland expedition to the mouth of the Columbia River in 1810.

John Day hailed from the same part of Kentucky as Daniel Boone, and he was an equally hearty soul. So much so that historic reports note his death at least four times. It's fairly agreed upon that he actually died in 1819 or 1820. His story is a fascinating one, and here are a couple of versions.... Wikipedia and  the City of John Day website.

That leaves only the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument to explain. The John Day River flows right down the middle of the canyon where the visitor center and the majority of the fossil finds are located, so it's an obvious choice for the name of the monument. The visitor center is great, and a super place to take kids as the displays are very kid friendly and thoroughly explain about the fossils and the animals that lived eons ago. The scenery is fascinating, and makes for great photographs, but go early or late in the day for the best shadows and cooler temperatures.

This is a sparsely populated area of the state, though there are a few campgrounds, small hotels and private RV parks. We definately recommend Clyde Holiday State Recreation Site.

It's a great place to settle while you are investigating some of the John Day related areas. The park doesn't take reservations, so arriving early in the day is recommended. Just a few miles west of the town of John Day, the park is probably the most spacious and beautiful of any we have visited.  Our site, #13, was on a curve, so we had an exceptionally large area to call our own, but all the sites are far more spacious than usual.

So who was Clyde Holiday? and why is the park named after him?
Clyde Holliday was a hard working logger of the old style. He and his wife married when they were 17 and 16, and soon moved from Arizona to Oregon. After a time they shifted from logging to cattle ranching., The Hollidays ranched for many years, and in their later years gifted and sold various parcels of their land to the state.  The final combined area totals 20 acres and is now the Clyde Holliday State Recreation Site.

There's a fascinating biography of  of Clyde Holliday here.  There's another version here. He passed away in 2008. Clyde's wife, Earlene Holliday, died in 2016, at the age of 90, and her story reads like a historic novel. I suspect many young people today would never believe someone would work so hard, and love any minute of it.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Clyde Holliday State Park. It's like an oasis in the middle of the autumn gold of golden hills. Hedges of spring flowering shrubs mark the sides of the sites, and as they have access to river water there are sprinklers going somewhere all the time.

In the heat of summer all the lush green is especially welcome, but do be prepared for a few mosquitoes.

The John Day River runs along side the park, offering not only the relaxing sound of gentle riffles, but beautiful reflections of the riverbanks and the beautiful clouds that build up most afternoons.

We had a brief thunderstorm one afternoon, brought on, I'm quite sure, by the fact that I had just gotten my sewing machine set up on the picnic table and had settled down to  work on my current project.

The park is so thoroughly groomed you'd think you were in a city park. The trail along the river is packed, flat gravel. It's pretty accessible for most anyone, and there are benches and picnic tables placed strategically along the trail so anyone who needs to rest often has the opportunity.

There's also an ADA fishing platform at the little fishing pond, which is a nice walk away from the campground.

We took the trail often to get the dogs their exercise, and took the opportunity each time to check on the osprey mother and baby that reside near the fishing pond.

Osprey are funny birds, nesting so high up, fully exposed to the elements, and keeping their young in the nest until they are nearly as large as their parents. This young one did flap his wings a few times, but he seemed a long way from taking flight.

The park has several unexpected amenities, among them are the  two teepees available for rent.
These can be reserved online at the park's Reserve America site. They are side by side, with each lot separated by a pole fence. The realistically constructed teepees are positioned right on the bank of the river, where you can hear the water flow by and the bullfrogs sing. What fun this would be for a family with kids!

More photos of Clyde Holliday are here

The town of John Day is just a few miles east. One of the highlights of the town is the Kam Wah Chung State Historic Site.  The visitor center and historic building are a short distance apart in the  park, which is right in the middle of the city of John Day. This site provides visitors with the very human side of a brief era in western history that few are aware of. The large numbers of Chinese who emigrated to America for work in the mines, on the railroad and in the logging camps helped to build the west. Most returned home after a time, but a few stayed and became permanent members of the community. Such was the case with Ing Hay and Lung On, who built a thriving business that became an integral part of the community. Their shop has been preserved and free tickets for the tour can be picked up at the interpretive center. Kam Wah Chung is such a fascinating story that OPB created a   program about it. 

A bit further east is the town of Prairie City. The folks there are doing a great job of spicing up main street with western style shops and restaurants. They have a quilt shop too - I stopped in but came away empty handed this time!

There are several places around Grant County that are worth a day trip, and this park makes a great home base. Follow the link to the Grant County Chamber of Commerce for more ideas.

Now, we're on to La Grande!

Tailgate Training Camp 2017

From Goose Lake it's about three hours north to LaPine State Park. LaPine is a good staging ground before departing for the woods. We stayed two nights in the north loop, where the spaces are slightly larger than in the other two loops.  Access to the trail along the river is easy, and there's a large fenced dog park not too far away, so it's easy to take the pups for an outing. The dogs are constantly on high alert in this park, as the chipmunks are numerous, and they love to taunt the dogs. One ran directly at Watch, and then froze for a moment before he ran up a tree. Watch and Shiner spent the next hour staring at him on his very safe branch high above them. We caught up on internet work, picked up a few groceries, then moved over to North Davis Creek Campground.

North Davis Creek Campground is one of our favorite out of the way places. We've been trying out each of the sites along the creek on the north side, this time we stayed in site #10.   The campground turned out not to be so "out of the way" this time, as almost every site was occupied by the weekend.

We chatted with many of the other campers as we walked the dogs and the most popular topic of conversation was, "I've never seen so many mosquitoes here!" They were bad, which really was no surprise considering the wet spring. It gave us a good chance to try out our new screen room - Coleman "instant" screen room. It's not exactly instant! but much easier than any other we've used, and we really enjoyed the bug free lounging (so did the dogs!)

They also very much enjoyed the higher water level in the lake, as it's a great place to swim and fetch logs. They never get enough of that activity, but since the water is very cold we have to make sure they don't spend too long swimming.

North Davis Creek flows into the northwest arm of  Wikiup Reservoir, which provides a great opportunity for small boats and fishing, when there's enough water in it. After the wet spring this year the levels were way up and we saw several boats where none could go for the past several years.

A reservation system is coming soon to North Davis Creek, which is managed  by the Hoodoo recreation company. The link is to the Hoodoo site where there's more information. The map on their site is inaccurate, but does show which sites will be available for reservation. Most of the  sites on the outside of the loop either back up to a creek or have a view of the lake, the map doesn't reflect that.

The North Davis Creek album is here.

We spent four relaxing days here, then hopped back to LaPine State Park to do the final prep before we headed for the Ochocos. This time we were situated in a nice pull-through in the south loop. The spaces are a bit tighter in this loop, but the pull-through made setting up easy.

We caught up on last minute shopping and other chores (like scrubbing all the bugs off the front of the trailer!!), met some friends from California for dinner, then headed out to Ochoco Forest Camp for the annual gathering we call Tailgate Training Camp. (It's either the 14th or 15th, it's hard to keep track.)

The Team

We do manage to keep ourselves entertained while at camp. In addition to managing the 9 dogs (and one cat) in residence there are several things to do in the area.

Dave and John had a successful day fishing up at Walton Lake, several folks went hiking on the Steins Pillar Trail, and a few of us sewed on projects we'd brought along.

Some of us also took a short day trip over to the Visitor Center in the Sheep Rock unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. It's only about an hour and a half drive and is worth a trip over if you've never been there before. The monument is situated in a rather isolated part of the state and many people don't even know it exists, but it's fascinating, and so different from most of the Oregon scenery you wouldn't know you are in the same state!

We all love to cook almost as much as we love to eat, so we had plenty of great food. Trading recipes and sharing in the meal prep is part of the fun.

We had beautiful weather, and the little creek had plenty of water for the puppies to splash in, and lots of good conversation.

You can't beat a campfire and colorful sunset to finish off the day, and a perfect camp experience.

Follow the link to the Tailgate Training Camp album

At the end of camp we departed for a one night stop at the Crook County RV Park in Prineville to regroup. We made a quick stop at  The Quilt Shack, picked up a few groceries, and then had dinner at El Ranchero. Their food never disappoints and the service is always quick. The location is really convenient as the fairgrounds next door and the park across the road provide plenty of opportunity for the dogs to romp.

The RV park is in the process of adding laundry facilities. It's still under construction but the facility so far is a nice looking building that should hold several machines. We look forward to that the next time we pass this way.

Goose Lake, Oregon

Saturday, July 7
We're working our way north, and decided to stop at a campground we haven't visited for many years.

Goose Lake State Recreation Area has a very nice campground, with large spaces and a lot of open area. On our first trip around the campground, browsing the sites, he host recommended we find a shady one, as the day time temperatures are in the high 80's-90's. We settled on site #27, under a huge willow tree. I think we did alright in the shade department!

The site is deep, so we set up our new screen room at the back. There are a few mosquitoes here, so we thought it a good chance to practice, as we'd never assembled it before. Piece of cake! Storing it was just as easy.

Behind our site, and off to one side, is a huge plot of lupine, surrounding a bat house! We only saw a few bats, but almost every evening a mule deer came to feed on the grasses that are mixed in with the flowers. The flowers give of a lovely soft fragrance, and attracted butterflies and dragon flies all day long.

The pups enjoyed the shade - bat house and lupine in the background.

On the map, and in some of the campground literature, Goose Lake is described as a "dry lake", and we have been here in the past when there was little but mud. Not so this year! It's clearly a real lake now. The campground hostess said it had been four years without any water in it, and this spring turned the drought around.

The grasses and wildflowers around the lake are lush, and the birds are thriving on the seeds. Every morning and evening the air is filled with birds zig zagging across the water, or soaring through the air catching bugs.

Cow parsnip, squirrel tail grass, a purple flowering grass
I've never seen before, and lupine at the base of the bat house

In the evening we take the dogs down by the lake to play, and watch the flocks of double crested cormorants soar over the water. They are such funny looking birds - like someone modeled them of playdough, then stretched their necks and beaks out. During the day the quail families dart across the roads, all their little puffy children scurrying along behind them.

The campground is only a few miles south of Lakeview, so we  went to town on Monday for a few groceries. Lakeview is a small town, and very western in flavor. A huge cowboy adorns the Safeway sign, and there is ranching and farming equipment everywhere you look. While shopping for groceries we got the feeling that everyone it the store knew each other. And when I said out loud to Steve, "I need to find the relish", two people instantly pointed me in the right direction. Such friendly folks!

Before heading home we took a short side trip to see the Old Perpetual Geyser. It seems it's only sort of perpetual.

Due to the drought that dried up the lake and nearby geothermal development it had quit spouting, but it started up again in 2016 and with all the water this spring it seems to be back in business. It's not a natural geyser. It's the result of a well drilled into a geothermal layer, but it's fun to watch anyway! It's right next to a hot springs resort, but can be seen from Geyser View Road. Here's the Wikipedia article on the springs and the geyser.

The dogs had a great time here, and it's a very dog-friendly park. There's a large mowed area set aside as an off-leash dog park, so every evening after dinner they had a good run chasing the ball and then playing in the watery reeds at the edge of the lake.

The trails around the edge of camp are badly overgrown, but they are working to clear them out. We did find a few sections that made good short walks during the day. One very inviting section section, close to camp, runs alongside a creek, and you can step down to the creek, right by the railroad overpass.

All in all this was a very nice three days.

We'll head further north, to La Pine State Park for a couple of days, then move to North Davis Creek campground, one of our all time favorite spots.