September 28-30 2018 Farewell Bend State Park to Baker City, Oregon

85 and sunny. I floated 5 miles on the Snake River today into camp. John did not want to go because it was flat water. He was delighted to have some time to himself at home.

The river is pretty flat here with a margin of green in the dried grass hills here. It is really low now. But it had some rocks I had to avoid and a few ripples. It was nice to be on the water on a hot day. 

I scared up some Canada Geese and some coots. 

Since we are in the Pacific Time zone I am up earlier. Sunrise this am. We drove to Baker City, Oregon and today we went to the National Oregon trail museum. It was very interesting. Those guys who traveled 6 months across the prairie, desert, mountains etc were tough.  

We hiked two miles round trip to see the wagon ruts on the trail. There was a wagon and some historical markers where the trail is, but we did not see wagon ruts.  The upper part is where the wagon ruts are supposed to be and below was a huge dry basin they had to travel across, 18 miles to the next water. Another wagon by the museum with blooming rabbit brush.  

We are on the Hell's Canyon  scenic byway. Hell's canyon is still 68 miles from here. We are going to try and visit it next trip though this area.  Purple asters, gone by rabbit bush against dark sky, thistle seed heads with no seeds, and rabbit bush by a covered wagon. Beautiful historic downtown Baker City, Oregon. We went into the Historic Geiser Hotel with the turret at the end of the street, but they would not let us walk around and look at the historic hotel, you had to take a tour.  

I took John out to dinner at the Barley Brown's brewery for his birthday. John with a double IPA. The beer was good and the food was OK. Sunset over Baker City. 

The bus at our site at Mountain View RV resort. Lots of trees and grass. I worked on the masterpiece this am. Finished up the pine needle part, now tying up loose ends. The last row is needles that I dyed. 

John is still trying to blend into the foliage with his camo jacket. It was in the 60's and mostly cloudy. We went on a walk in the afternoon along the trail by the Powder river into town.  Nice fall colors starting. 

Another view of the Powder river. Weirdest spider we have ever seen. It was big about the size of a quarter and about a dimes worth on it's back. Fall colors and this poor garter snake was on the bike trail. John was trying to shoo it back onto the bike path so I could get a photo but is scared to death and raced off.  

Baker City is know for it's large historic district. It was at one time a very rich gold mining town and has beautiful buildings like this nice house.  Once we got to town we stopped by the wine tasting room and the Baker Brown's brewery tap room. We had dinner last night at the brewery restaurant. The tap room is across the street and has different beer to taste. The bartender was the same guy who was our waiter last night-Shane. Great waiter and bartender.  

Sunset in camp tonight.