We are on the beaten path

This may be the only state park I’ve ever been to where the highway traffic is so loud that you can hardly hear each other speak. Well, Kerry can hardly hear me speak anyway so I try to not even attempt it here. Emigrant Springs State Park was named for the spring where the emigrants on the Oregon Trail found water after so much desert. It took me the whole day after we camped to find any evidence of it. It is a boardwalk that covers more of a muddy place than a spring, but there is definitely a puddle or two there caused, I presume, by an underground spring.

It is hot here. 103 today. With no humidity. Still HOT. I worried about the dogs as we took the “river walk” in Pendleton, Oregon, home of the Pendleton Mills that makes the great blankets. The River Walk had no access to the river that we could find. It was a asphalt path separated from the river by distance and large rocks. We were deceived by the couple with two labs and some children frolicking in the river. How they got there we never found out. We went maybe a quarter of a mile before deciding that we needed to return to the car, even after giving the dogs water several times and me soaking their bandanas and their feet with water. Fortunately though, we had parked near the public library and were able to post our blogs. Actually, Kerry tried and then I went back and did it. It’s not hard, it’s just that I have been doing it because of limited time on WiFi. I sat with the dogs and continually gave them water in our somewhat shady parking lot. Kerry turned on the AC.

Driving into Oregon was another lesson in how wonderfully diverse our land is. The high desert was something we had not yet seen and we climbed all day. Our mpg that day was the worst ever… still never as bad as the Durango in Canada. Rest areas are few and far between and a must visit. At one there was only a small, dry side of the road for the dogs to poop, and there was so much poop there that the dogs could not drink for smelling, even though they were so thirsty. I finally took them back to the camper and they drank there.

We decided to leave Idaho with the bed down since my back was not at it’s best and we thought it was going to be a 400+ driving day anyway. It wasn’t. I got my mileage from Google but I must have put something wrong in. It seems that our drive across Oregon will be our long day. Anyway, we got here earlier than expected, and there was much less than we hoped here. After a short hike in the extreme heat, Kerry declared this was ridiculous. So we returned to the camper and napped in the AC.

On our trip out to find firewood (which later we discovered the camp host sold for five bucks for two cubic feet) we ran into this tiny store that was more of a  restaurant. They “opened” for us, but when we told them we were only looking for firewood, she pointed us down a forest road a couple of miles away where we could pick up all we needed. On the way out, we ran into a man who wanted to converse with us, probably because of our accents. Once we discussed a range of topics, I gently let him know when he suggested that we move on to politics (his were already made abundantly clear) that we probably didn’t want to do that as we were probably some of those flaming liberals he was complaining about. He was taken aback. I guess because of our accent, people assume. I think a lot of people assume you agree with them if you are polite. It was interesting though and we eventually got to that forest road for firewood. That was definitely off the beaten path.

The next morning we went to the cultural center museum of the Tuh Must slick - can’t actually spell it but that was the pronunciation guide cultural museum telling the tribal viewpoint of the “taming” of the wild west. It was interesting that they began with Darwin and the evolution of plants and animals to their conditions in order to survive. There was a definite message there as the displays took you through their evolving ways of life before the white man and after the white man. They were not the same. But they were still there, showing their strength in adapting to what had always been their land. I found their legends and myths interesting. Coyote said many of the same things as Jesus and Buddha and Muhammad about treating others with kindness. I think there are just some things that are true in whatever culture. Things that were meant to be by the Creator of life.

We were also able to get fresh produce there, sweet onions, fresh asparagus and cherries. With those kind of ingredients Kerry was able to make a fine rendition of his flatbread pizza. It felt like home. And any time we can get fresh fruit is good.

We returned to another nap in the AC, something we probably need to set as a precedence when living in hot conditions. It really cools down here at night. By the time we were planning supper it was cool enough for me to walk the dogs. We went to the horse camp and I think this may be a great horse place when it’s not so hot. No chill water to explore today, but we will be in much cooler weather when we hit the Oregon Coast anyway.

Luna is telling me that she is still hungry so I need to get my priorities straight. She has told me this twice already tonight. :-)