Sunday, July 17, 2016

We finally met up with our daughter, Katie, and son-in-law, Mike.  They drove east from their campground near Crooked River Ranch, OR, and we drove west from our campground, in Dayville, OR, to meet in the Painted Hills, a unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Talk about timing - they followed us into the park!  Joani could hardly contain herself until we parked at the picnic area and jumped out to begin the hugging.

We started our exploration with one of the longer hikes to the top of an overlook, the Carroll Rim Trail, where we could view the best of the painted hills.

The hike was very enjoyable given the moderate temperature and strong breezes.  Nobody complained, but I know that I, for one, needed to work on getting back into better hiking shape.

As is all too often typical, I don't believe these pictures really did this incredible natural wonder justice.

Next, we walked the Painted Hills Overlook Trail.  We were treated to closer views of the colors leaching from the ground.  Each color indicated the presence of a particular mineral or compound but I can't say I remember anything other than the red iron oxide.

The Painted Cove Trail was about half boardwalk and half gravel that wound its way through the reds, greens and blues of the very strange textured mud hills.

Way too soon our visit was over - we needed to get back to Sam and Katie and Mike needed to get back to their cat, Gray Man.  It was hard to say goodbye, but we'll be in the same park in two days!

On the way back to the coach, we stopped at this tree we had seen earlier.  We were not able to find any explanation posted for the hundreds of pairs of shoes caught on the limbs.  So Joani went straight to the computer.  An entry on the internet said many of the branches have broken under the weight of the shoes and now there are more shoes on the ground than on the tree.  Yes, there was a webpage that listed all of the shoe trees across the country.  Just toss a pair of shoes in a tree and see if more follow.

This was our neighbor Juliet's dog, Mick Waggers.  He discovered crawfish in the river and became fascinated with them, stalking them for hours.