Sunday, August 2, 2015

The Oregon Diaries - Day 6

Today was going to be a long day also. Got up early again. Why can’t I sleep till 8? Got ready and realized I left my hair spray at the Itty Bitty Inn. That’s what happens when I go back and forth from the car. Oh well – will just have to get another one. Went for breakfast. It was an English muffin and coffee.  Good enough.

Left at 8:45ish to first buy some hair spray. Walgreen is just next door – perfect. Picked up a travel size spray and promptly went out the wrong road! Ended up going to downtown. Turned around and came back on 97. Then things were in order. Went on 97, then 126 to 26 for the John Day Park. It was about a 2 hour drive. A lot of it was pretty but I knew I would be coming back the same way (then it would get boring). Stopped at McDonald’s in Prineville to go and have a hash brown. Consistency of the McDonald’s!! The drive was quite different than what I had been doing before. It was quite bare, hills were not that high and they all seemed different than hills I am used to seeing. also the foliage was quite different.
 
Reached the entrance of the park around 11am. It is a huge park, I started with the west side, the Painted Hills Unit. The actual trails start after 6 miles. The scenery got really beautiful and I started seeing the red hills. Amazing!! The visitor’s center on this side of the park was dismal. I needed to go but not in those toilets!! So I held it. Picked up the maps from there and started driving. It is hard to write how beautiful the scenery was. The small and large hills – colored red and yellowish and some blackish…just breathtaking. One has to be there to be able to admire it all. I wanted to do all the trails but one as that was 3 miles. The first overlook was the best. It gave me a feeling of as if I was in a different planet. Just different.


Went to three more trails, only one was just mheh.it had a hill of broken rocks that have fossils. You cannot get close to it or pick any stones, so what’s the point? All the other trails were great. The plant life here is quite different too. I have never seen such plants before.

The next section – the Sheep Rock Unit is about 20 miles using Hwy 26, but since I had time, I took the scenic route from inside the park. It took me more than an hour to get to the other side, which I did not realize I was there until the trail came. Anyway…I am getting ahead. The drive itself was very picturesque – there were green mountains in the middle also. So many horse ranches here. After I got on Hwy 19, the John Day River joined me too…such a pretty drive. Driving along the river is always very romantic for me. Very long though! But definitely good one time around. I did something that I never do in USA!! I had to stop at a rest stop and go in the nature! Hehe! One thing to mention – all inside the park, the traffic was almost zero. Part of me was worried about me driving in such a lonely area, but then the horse ranches started appearing and life was good again.

And then I started seeing these beautiful green rocks and stopped to take pictures, without realizing I was already on the other side. Well – not such a big deal, as there is only one place to walk the trails. I saw all that there was to see before I reached the trails. There were two – a 3 mile and a 1 mile. By this time it was about 3:30pm. The sun was burning down at 100oF. I tried walking a little but gave up. The headache from the heat was too much, despite drinking water.  At least I have good pictures.

Soon after, the visitor’s center came. Yes – I never miss any visitor’s center as they have good information. Saw the 20 mins video on the park. Amazing! So the formations show the life over 60 million years! Layer by layer one can go from 60 to 50 to 45 to 30 all the way to 5 million years. John Day park is a heaven for paleontologists and geologists (who knew?!). Ever since the 1880s they have been discovering fossils here and they are still finding new ones. Apparently this area used to be a tropical area before, so all the animal fossils (bones etc.) are of strange species never to be found in USA. There are a lot of plant fossils also. Using all this the scientists can create what this area must have looked over 60 million years; and also determine what caused the changes in the ecosystem based on the soil study and volcanic activity.

I am really glad I went to this park. It was a little out of the way, but worth it for me. There were not many tourists here (like there were in the Crater Lake Park), so it was quite peaceful and enjoyable. I also learned that the green rock does not have copper!! It is made of a complex of aluminum, silicon etc…it is a complex – and that complex is green in color.

There was one more stop before leaving, sort of outside the park, called the Mascal Overlook. I am glad I took 20 mins to visit this one. The high elevation of this overlook shows a nice scenic view of the Sheep Rock area. It is just beautiful. And now that I know all this has fossils of 60 million years, I respect it a lot more. A lot of other parks don’t have such history or preservation or science. They are just scenic and some do promote the preservation of a particular ecosystem.

Anyway…the drive back was not that boring, RD Burman songs gave me good company. The scenery was still good, but now I was focused more on driving and getting back. The sun had given me a headache. I wanted to eat before crashing in the motel, so starting looking for Izzy’s on the list of restaurants I had, but could not find it. So decided to go for Mexican. Found a fast food type place, Baha Fresh was right on 3rd St. near the hotel. Had a quesadilla and some chips. Filled me up!! One of their salsa was very good – it was just chilles I think – but it was not hot.

All in all another good day!

Got an email back from the rafting guys that they did not have any openings. Called him to thank him for letting me know, and he told me about another company in 7th Mountain Resort that offers short rafting tours. So called them – they picked up – even at 8 pm! So now I am reserved to go in the morning at 10 am! Yay! I really wanted to do it. So tomorrow is also all set – rafting then scenic drive. Oh lord I am driving too much in this trip!! Please keep me safe.

No comments:

Post a Comment