Oregon - and trees instead of rocks

We set out a bit over 6 weeks ago to head to the Pacific Northwest. I believe we have actually made it. 

Neither of us having ever spent any real time in Oregon, we had a shared vision of tall pines with a backdrop of snow capped mountains. As we drove out of Idaho and into Oregon, around the Ontario area on I-84, it looked more like Utah than our vision.  But fortunately that soon changed.

So here we are at Emigrant Springs SP which is almost directly on the Oregon Trail. The trees are tall, the mountains in the backdrop are snow capped and the weather has been incredible.  The only issue we have had is that we are on Pacific time and it gets dark about 10p and is light again by 5a.  But the sky is blue, daytime temps in the 70s and around 40 at night. Fantastic!

Today we went to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center and actually hiked along a good part of the trail. The volunteer host came out and gave us a ton of stories and insights about life in the 1800s. Things like the incredible numbers who died along the trail and how they got up and down hills. Seems that oxen were the pulling teams of choice. They were relatively docile and could be eaten when things got tough. They had a very limited time to get out of the mountains before the snows came which mandated they travel more than 20 miles per day. 

Interestingly the trail was used well after the pioneers.  During the gold rush it became a major cargo path and helped to develop the west.  Even as late as the the 1900s the trail was used for automobiles, Model A's we're mentioned, because there were no roads yet built in the area. So they drove their jitneys along the same trails the pioneers blazed. 

We hiked a good part of the area including heavily forrested, meadows and even along a stream for a while. Of course my "city boy" came out and I had to ask the host if we would be in any danger hiking.  Apparently there actually are bears, an established wolf pack and some pesky badgers. We actually have bear spray but we conveniently left it in the RV. Great planning and lousy execution. In the end we saw nothing but some large hoof tracks we sumized we're elk, so all was well.

On Friday we continue west to The Dalles for a couple of days and then to our first PNW 2 week stay in Chehalis Washington. I am certainly looking forward to that. 

A few pictures here -  https://photos.app.goo.gl/WwxqrzA1UWDeq69ZA

Thanks for reading and following our journey along... The Next Hundred Miles.