Westward Ho to Oregon!

I always try to have my piano recital the Monday before Memorial Day weekend, so this year it was on Monday, May 21. It is nice to have the recital over before the end of school and all the other busy activities of Spring. The recital was great. All my students performed very well and I was so proud!

It is interesting to me that I have more boy students, than girls. Tom and I decided to head west for Memorial weekend this year. We have explored lots of southern Idaho but Oregon is only 50 minutes away, so Friday night we drove west into Oregon and to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon. For those of you who don't know, I-84 follows the Oregon Trail across Idaho and into Oregon. Boise was right along the way and in fact, one of the biggest Indian massacres during the westward pioneer migration occurred right outside Caldwell. Needless to say, I've always been a history nerd and I love learning about our pioneer ancestors. The Interpretive center in Baker City is great. We took our kids there on our way to the Oregon Coast many years ago and I loved it then and still do. The museum brings history alive with all the displays.

You can hike out to the wagon ruts made by the wagons that crossed the dessert, but it was cold and getting dark, so we didn't walk out to see them. The dessert was beautiful!

After the museum, we drove into Baker and ate at the Geiser Grand Hotel. This hotel was built during the gold rush in the 1870's and they have restored it to it's original grandeur. We had heard good reports of the food at the restaurant so we thought we'd give it a try. I had a delicious blue cheese covered steak. Tom wasn't quite as crazy about his Monte Cristo Sandwich, but I think he just ordered the wrong thing.

Saturday morning we headed out on our road trip. We drove along the Wallawa mountain scenic loop from La Grande, and over to Joseph, Oregon. Joseph is a cute little town, with mountains all around. It kind of looks like the Alps.

There are many beautiful bronze sculptures in Joseph. It has quite an artist community. Joseph, OR got it's name from Chief Joseph who is actually buried there.

We got there just in time to go to the Farmer's Market. They were selling lots of plants and veggies and had a "kickin'" Blue Grass Band performing. We went into an amazing "sister shopping" store filled with all sorts of treasures. I can't wait to go back.

Wallowa Lake was beautiful. It wasn't as big as I thought it would be, Payette Lake is much bigger. But it is in a beautiful setting. We then drove onto the overlook to Hells Canyon, the deepest gorge in North America. It is quite amazing to stand on top and look down and see the gorge below and think that the Snake River is down there somewhere.

We picnicked at the Oxbox dam on the banks of the Snake River. Because of the cold wind, we gave the picnic a 7.

There's the dam. I guess the environmentalists want to take out all of the dams on the Snake River. That would be interesting.

We drove back into Idaho as we crossed the Snake River and then headed back to Boise, via Cambridge, Payette, Weiser and Fruitland, etc. We had a marvelous weekend. It was so fun to see some new territory.