Two Days In Rattlesnake Country

This picture was taken from the Clarno Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds. See map here: Google Map.

6-18-08
We traveled from Prineville to Kimberly, Oregon to Spray, Oregon to Fossil, Oregon. We stayed at a camp near Fossil for the night...we had the entire camp area to ourselves! Bear Hollow was the name of the campsite yet we saw no bears. The next day we did find out that there is a bear "at large" in the area. No wonder the first camp site we drove through had a large bear trap on the grounds.

Fossil is an adorable town with a lot of character. It's a bit on the dry and dust side for us, but we could see how people live there for generations.

6-19-08
The following day we drove to Wildhorse Camp (aka Big Muddy Ranch (formally home to the Rajneesh (more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneeshpuram).) The Wildhorse camp is INCREDIBLE! Upon arrival we were taken on an air conditioned van tour of the entire camp (which ironically is what the Rajneesh did for my mother and I when I was 10 years old.) This tour was a lot less creepy to say the least. If you EVER have the opportunity to visit the camp (it is way out in the middle of no where) we highly recommend it. It's like paradise for kids! They have a 30 foot high ropes course, 3 zip lines ending in the lake, an Olympic-sized pool, and a 2-acre sized sports center (basketball, skate ramps, volleyball, ping pong tables, etc). That's not all. We toured the dining hall which was formally prepared for 1,000 diners, complete with linen napkins and salt-rimmed glasses! There are mountain bike trails, club houses, and a volunteer medical team that includes two nurses, a doctor, and a paramedic. These teams rotate every week and are entirely volunteer. The Rajneesh's old living quarters have become dorms and hotels for campers and visitors. There was a grass fire in the area right before Young Life opened its doors for camp--the fire only destroyed the BogWon's (sp?) home, which Young Life was wondering what to do with anyway!

After driving through Wildhorse we took the back roads to Ashwood, Oregon. The pavement literally ended just past town. Although we didn't stop here, we could tell that this town had a lot of history. Just as we left town we had to wait for two baby fawns (smaller than a medium sized dog) and their mother to let us go by. It's rare to see a fawn that small let alone two!

We spent the night in Madras at Sonny's Motel (nice place) and before going to bed grabbed some food from Subway (for me) and from a little taco stand (for my wife) in the parking lot of Dollar Tree. When we stopped at the taco stand I saw that we had a flat (I'm guessing from all the back-country driving) and "fix a flatted" it on the spot. This morning I got up and took it to Les Schwab's for a new tire and had the rest of them balanced. Madras was a good place for us to get a flat. It would have been a little tougher to get a new tire in a town like Spray.

6-20-08
Today we are off to the Cove Palisades and then maybe onto Florence. . .