We’ve spent a lot of time in Oregon, but mainly on the coast and the Willamette Valley along I-5. We were amazed at the beauty of South-central Oregon when we visited Steen’s Mountain, and decided that another trip to the interior was in order. And so, after our time in Salem reacquainting ourselves with big stores and chain restaurants, we headed over the cascades for a week’s stay in Prineville.
We’d always been interested in visiting Prineville, the home of the Prineville “hotshots”, a trained crew of nine fire fighters who lost their lives in the Storm King or South Canyon fire in Colorado during the summer of 1994. We first became interested in the history of fire fighting in the west after visiting Montana’s Mann Gulch, the site of a fire that killed 13 “smokejumpers” in 1949. If you’ve never read the book “Young Men and Fire” by Norman Maclean, do yourself a favor and do so – it’s a riveting and enlightening read. His son, John N. Maclean wrote a book about the Prineville Hotshots and the South Canyon Fire called “Fire on the Mountain”, another great book that describes the mistakes made in weather forecasting that led to the loss of the 14 fire fighters.
Prineville is an amazingly pristine little town with a population of around 10,000. It was central to the areas we wanted to visit and the County RV Park was perfect for our stay. We visited the firefighter’s memorial in the city park, with its nice monument and path that has a plaque with a picture and biography of each of the young men and women who lost their lives. The local museum also has an exhibit on the tragedy, and there we talked to the volunteer who described the tremendous impact that the loss of the nine young people had on the small town. 
The John Day Fossil Beds were on our list, and so we took a day trip through beautiful mountains to the visitor center. On our way we stopped at Mitchell, a struggling little town of 132 that provides the only gas and groceries in the area. It was worth a drive through the canyon that the town sits in just to see some of the ah….unusual buildings.
The John Day Fossil Beds National Monument covers a huge area of North-central Oregon and has three separate “units”, one of which is a 2 hour drive from the visitor center. It’s not a place where you can wander around picking up fossils, but an area where millions of years of floods/volcanoes/earthquakes have created layers of rock from different periods that contain an amazing amount of plant and animal fossils. The visitor center was very nice, and had an area where you could watch as fossils were being cleaned and examined. There was also a theater where we watched a very good film that described how the landscape had changed over millions of years and how the diversity of fossils from so many periods make this area special.
A short drive from the visitor center was the historic Cant Ranch, where the backdrop of Sheep Mountain provided this image:
We took the long way back to Mitchell and the Painted Hills and were stunned by the beauty of the mountains: 
We’ve seen lots of pictures of the Painted Hills, many of which were Photoshopped into deep reds and yellows. It’s a shame, because the magical beauty of these hills doesn’t need any help. We took the half-mile hike to the overlook for these views:
Another place we wanted to visit was Smith Rock State Park, just outside Redmond. We expected a nice park with some scenic rocks, but were blown away by the beauty of the rock and river canyon. The trails and people were visible from a distance, and that’s where we decided to stay. The danger of some of the trails was driven home by a hiker’s death just a week before our visit. Just another incredible Oregon State Park:
We had a great week in Prineville, but it was time to head for Northern Idaho and our summer as volunteer interpretive hosts at Farragut State Park. We’ll be posting a new adventure soon, so stay tuned!
The trees are starting to get leafy, the grass is getting greener, and the gorse blossoms are filling the air with pollen – it’s spring on the coast, and time for us to begin our travels.
We made our last visit to Simpson Reef to view the seals and sea lions. It was during high tide and the combination of a smaller area of beach and larger amount of California Sea Lions made for an interesting show of noisy, 
squirming animals. While the other seals and sea lions like to be spread out, the boys from California just love piling on top of one another. It’s a California thing. We’ll miss the magic of the reef with its seals, sea lions, Gray Whales, Bald Eagles, and occasional Peregrine Falcon – if you’re ever in the area; don’t pass up a trip to this viewpoint.
The nearby town of Charleston is a small but vibrant fishing community. It also hosts the University of Oregon’s Charleston Marine Life Center, where we visited with friends Rob and Syd. It’s sort of a miniature version of the Newport Aquarium, with touch pools, exhibits, and a bit of local history. 
The marine center is a small part of the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, a 100-acre campus that provides undergraduate training in Marine Biology, services for visiting scientists, and of course their annual “Aw Shucks” oyster feed. We visited on a beautiful sunny day which provided us a great view of the harbor from the center. Inside, we enjoyed viewing the skeletons, underwater videos, and even got a “hug” by an anemone in the touch pool. 
From Coos Bay we headed over the coast range to Junction City, where we had scheduled some motor home work at the new Winnebago service center. It turned out that the work would take longer than we had anticipated, so we decided to defer it until the fall and headed for our next stop, Salem – the state capital that no one can remember when reciting capitals of the United States. After five months of being shopping and restaurant deprived on the coast, we were anxious to visit a big city again, and found a great RV park convenient to the city center.
Salem isn’t a particularly picturesque town, but the capital grounds and downtown shopping center are interesting. Stores contained in buildings on four city blocks are all connected by covered walkways to form a large shopping mall, with another block serving as a multi-level parking garage. Macy’s, Penney’s, Nordstrom and a host of smaller typical mall stores are here, as is Brenda’s favorite – Kohl’s. But it was the capital grounds that we found truly special.
We strolled the North capital grounds, an area of cherry trees, azaleas, and a spectacular fountain. The capital building is the fourth-newest in the states, finished in 1938. Atop the dome is an interesting statue, the 22’ tall, gold-leaf covered “Oregon Pioneer”, also known as the “Gold Man”. 
We picked the perfect time to view the capital gardens – the cherry trees and azaleas were blooming, the sun was shining, and it was 70 degrees. 
The cherry blossoms were simply spectacular; each gust of wind made it look like we were in a small snowstorm.
We enjoyed our stay in Salem – we caught up on shopping, made two visits to Buffalo Wild Wings (whoo hoo!) and had a great day visiting the capital grounds. We’re traveling East over the Cascade Range to our next stop, Prineville. We’ll be posting again soon, so check back!