Baker City, OR to Mountain Home, ID

We spent the day on I84.  It was another short day, which was good because we lost an hour.  Parts of this drive are fascinating.  Look at this cement plant.  It just goes on forever.

See the horizontal pipe on the left?  It travels up the hill and over the other side.  They have their own rail siding.

It's a beautiful part of the country.  Spare and austere, but with its own appeal.

This is an oil train.  They're huge, like the hills, they go on forever.

It was really windy today.  The wind turbines were turned off.  Recently I read a book called The Grid.  It's about the US electrical infrastructure and how it got the way it is.  The book is pretty good, except she takes too long to make her points.  Anyway, I learned that electricity must be used as it is produced.  We have no ability to store excess power.  When usage is down, production must go down as well.   Too much power in the grid is damaging.  So, the turbines are taken off line because their power is not needed.  Balancing production and demand becomes an issue when power is needed and the wind is not blowing, or it's dark.  Unlike in RVs, there are no banks of batteries.  This is why the coal fired plants are important, they can be turned on quickly.  Tesla has been in talks with California to provide battery storage for their green energy sources.   Until we have storage, we can't be totally renewable.

More scenery.

Some parts of Idaho really do look like the dark side of the moon.

We are in Mountain Home, Idaho for two nights as we make our way toward Yosemite. We're here to look at, BUT NOT BUY, a Super C.

Mountain View RV Park

While in Baker City we stayed at the Mountain View RV Park.  The office and other out buildings have a western kitsch going on.

It's an ok park.  Interior roads are paved, sites are paved.  We are on site 115, which has a clear shot at the southern sky through the trees.  Sites are fairly level.  Verizon 4G has 4 bars and is fairly fast.  Water pressure is good, and the water is good.  Power is clean.  The laundry is large for a park this size.  No data on the restrooms.  RVs on the perimeter of the park are permanent residents.  The entry road has single wide trailers on either side.  The RVs are in the back of the park.  It's a well maintained park despite all of the deciduous trees.

The biggest problem with the RV park is THE TRAINS.  It's very near a Union Pacific line and they run all damn night.  Also, the park is within a neighborhood and there many barking dogs.

If we returned to this area, we would stay here again.

The Oregon Trail Interpretive Center

We went to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center.  It's worth visiting.  The exhibits are really well done.  The oxen look very real, I felt like their eyes were following me.
A few fun facts from the exhibit.  Three hundred thousand people made the trip across the country between the mid 1830s and late 1860s.  It was 2,000 miles, and people walked most of the distance. One in ten died on the trip and were buried along the way.  It was the largest unforced migration ever.
The trail started on the banks of the Missouri River, and ended in Oregon City, OR.  The settlers were headed for the Willamette Valley.  They were on the move for arable land and space.

Life was hard for the little people.

The wagons were uncomfortable, there were no springs.  The wheel hubs had to be lubricated with a mixture of animal fat and pine tar.

The view from the center.

Here are the wagon tracks.  In places, they were seven feet deep.  The wagon trains made lasting impressions on the country.  Unfortunately, fewer and fewer sections of the trail still exist.  Roads and development have taken them away.

If you're interested, there is a book out on the subject.  There is also this web site.

Joseph to Baker City, OR

We had a leisurely start this morning, since we only had 120 miles to Baker City.  Parts of the drive were very smokey due to controlled burns.

As we neared Baker City it got flatter and browner.

We went down to the "historic" city center to walk around.  It's a sad part of town.  More store fronts are empty than not.  If you get two blocks off of Main street, it gets gritty. However, look at the width of that street.  They're incredibly wide, so you have to hustle to get across on a walk sign.

There is a pretty Catholic church, built in 1906.

This is the Geiser Grand Hotel.  They've positioned themselves as a high zoot bastion of Victorian wonderfulness with vintage decor and utter magnificence everywhere; except maybe for the people working behind the desk.

All we wanted to do was walk up 3 stairs and look at the ceiling.  No.  If you're not a registered guest or having dinner, you are forbidden to look at the ceiling.  They weren't nice about it, either.  Three older ladies started heading up the stairs and one of the desk people raised his voice and yelled at them that they weren't allowed.  On our way out I asked him if the owners cared about ratings on Yelp or Trip Advisor and he told me just go ahead and review away.  I do not understand why they want to insult and infuriate people who might have been thinking about returning for dinner. So, here is the ceiling in a photo I swiped from the web.

Here is another vintage structure in Baker City. 

Tomorrow we're off to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, which hopefully will be better than today's time in Baker City.

Leaving Joseph in the Morning

Tomorrow we are up and out for Baker City, Oregon.  When we were in the Peterson Caterpillar waiting room we talked with a lady who had been to the Oregon Trail Museum.  She said it was really good and if we were near it, we should go.  So we are.  I will leave you with two closing photos of Joseph.
This was taken on Hurricane Creek road on the way to Enterprise. 

There are deer everywhere.  They're in the fields, in peoples' yards and in this old building.

Hiking at Wallowa Lake Again

This morning we went back out to Wallowa Lake.  It's so beautiful out there.

We went out on trail number 1820, we think.  It's hard to tell, the kiosk uses four digit numbers to identify the trails.  Once on the trail, the signs use names.  Anyway, we think we were on 1820, than we headed up the trail marked the East Fork of the Wallowa River.  It's a nice trail.

The sun was out and the high winds had moved out the smoke that had been in the air.

We could hear, but not see the river on much of the trail.  This is where we stopped for lunch.  Notice all of the downed logs over the water.

This is why there's horse poop all over the trails.  Horses!