Thursday - Today's agenda started with a drive over to Maupin for a sightseeing trip on the Deschutes River Access Road. We decided to find breakfast along the way and lucked out at The Oasis Cafe right at the turn-off to the river road. Just before that, we saw our first deer of the day, right in town. (We did see one deer yesterday, it jumped out onto the road in front of us.) Outside the cafe I spotted an inflatible I thought I should have for our lake back at the campground.
We had about a 12-mile drive right along this beautiful, rushing river. We stopped at one pull-off and walked down to the water, right past a bunch of blackberry briars.
At another pull-off, we could see another river joined this one, and there was a railroad bridge over the new river. The current got a little faster from here on.
Our next stop was at the raft landing area, and we saw a couple of trucks pulling empty trailers sitting there, waiting on rafters. We had not seen any rafters, so we decided to turn around and drive back a ways to see if they were coming. We had passed a lady set up to take photos of the rafters as they passed by, so we stopped back by her chair and I talked to her, while Joe talked to a bus driver on his way to pick up the rafters. He told us they should be coming along any minute, and sure enough, here they came, only one boat with the captain and 4 passengers.
Joe had just about decided we were going to do this tomorrow, and I had just about talked myself into it, when he ultimately decided to save our first white-water rafting trip for later on this trip. I think he thought this was too tame a river, while I knew I wouldn't get in a boat on one any wilder, so we will see how this develops as we continue our travels.
The bus driver told us just past the get-out was some falls that prevented the rafters from going any further, so we drove on down to them. I think he said these falls made this a Class 6, but I'm not sure about that.
Continuing on across the bridge and up the other side of the river, we stopped at the fish ladder, always of interest to us. I don't think this is the season yet, but it appears they track the steelhead, chinook, sockeye and coho coming upstream to spawn.
This part of the river is on tribal land, and we saw platforms across the river that we didn't know the purpose. Evenually, Joe saw nets hanging from them and decided they probably were for dip-netting like they do in Alaska.
We left the river behind, saw our second deer of the day. It crossed the road in front of us and went into a ravine. We looked and looked but could not find it in the brush, even though we knew it had not climbed the hill. They can really hide! Our next stop was the White River Falls State Park. The falls here were just a short walk from the parking lot, but the mosquitos ate us alive as we came back to the car.
There is an old, abandoned power plant down on the river that Joe thought we might walk down to, but after looking at it from above, he decided it was not worth the effort. There were people swimming down below in the calm water, which looked mighty refreshing.
Shortly after leaving this park, we saw our next deer. We spotted one fairly close to the road, but I didn't have a good shot so Joe backed up a little. Then a second deer ran up the hill, then a third. I don't know if they were bedded down right by the road, or where they came from, but it was fun seeing them.
We finally got to Hwy 197 and continued north to The Dalles. We got our first glimpse of the mighty Columbia River as we drove through town. We had lunch here, fueled, and headed west on Hwy 30 along this river. Between our road and the river are a railroad track and Interstate 84, so we were not exactly right beside the river, but we did get some good views. Our road was crooked, and had some steep climbs, which provided us with a good viewpoint. That little "seam"up the hill in this picture below is our road as it winds to the top.
We did see a train below too.
At this next viewpoint, there was an island where, a long time ago, Indians were "buried."
We saw several wind-surfers out on the river, and sail-boarders. No boats though, except a barge just as we turned south back to Hood River.
We came back down 35 to finish our Fruit Loop drive, stopping off at a few more shops. The first, in addition to fruit, was a winery and had a beautiful flower garden in the back. This was #2, the Gorge White House Fruit Stand & Winery. You could pick your own flowers, as well as blueberries, which were ripe.
They had their tomatoes tied up to pig wire, which we thought was interesting. It left a row down the middle to walk through.
I loved these red flowers, but I forgot to ask their name.
I thought this sign was pretty appropriate, and I think I saw Joe eat two blueberries from the bush in the above picture that he didn't pay for!
We moved on down the road to the next stop, #9, Packer Orchards and Bakery. We did buy some cookies here, and blueberries, and a little jar of strawberry peach jam. We backtracked to one we had stopped at yesterday, then finished up with the Fruit Loop. Heading back to the RV, we found a house for Dixie, already decorated with frogs for her.
Our last stop was the Tamanawas Falls Trailhead, which Joe had noticed yesterday because of all the cars parked here. He thought everyone was fishing, but no, there was the river, and the falls. But the hike to the falls is about 2 miles each way, so we decided it was too late in the day to attempt that. He thinks we might come back to to do that tomorrow, but the more I think about those 4 miles, the less inclined I am to take that on.
My phone battery died here, so we just got a couple pictures on my cell phone, then called it a day. We still had about 40 miles to go to the campground. I just copied and pasted this one but it didn't come out that well, so I'll stop there.
Tomorrow is our last full day here, moving on into Washington on Saturday. Joy called checking in on us and informed us they were picking melons about 100 miles east of us, over by Hermiston. That is about 20 miles from Pendleton, so that could be a drive. Or there is the white-water rafting. Or Joe's 4-mile hike to the waterfalls and back. Also, he's interested in driving up to the Ski Lodge at Mt. Hood. So we need to narrow down those choices and have a good final day here.
Collins and Marilyn took it easy today so I think they are planning some kind of trip tomorrow -- but probably not with us, since we don't seem to know when to quit. The weather was wonderful again today, mostly in the 70s here, but a little warmer over by Columbia River. We are going to go see Joy and Rich on Sunday so we should be able to make some plans for Washington.
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