Baker City, Oregon

Sunday - May 19 - Another overcast day.  I didn't feel like sitting and reading, so I started reorganizing.  Now that we have been on the road for five weeks and have eaten some of the food that I brought with us, I am able to see what we have left.  Previously food items were stuffed everywhere.  Now know what we have and where it is.  Don worked on cleaning up Pelli.  In the afternoon, we decided to take another drive trying to get a view of the Snake River from Hell's Canyon.  We did it!

This has been a great campground and we would definitely be pleased to come here again.

Monday - May 20 - We traveled to Mountain View RV Park in Baker City, Oregon for the Lazy Daze Northwest Get Together (LD NW GTG).  This is our third time in Baker City.  They have a Smithsonian quality rock collection that two sisters collected over many years.  The weather was just about perfect and we sat outside meeting old friends and making new ones.  There are some people that we went with on the LD Baja trip several years ago, along with David & Mary Gardner from San Francisco that we met last year.  A Lazy Daze GTG is like a family reunion.  We had a potluck dinners and lots of good food.  (Ann, I always make the Presbyterian Casserole and it is always a hit!)  We sat outside and had dinner - everything perfect.

Tuesday - May 21 - We awoke to another beautiful day and pleasant weather.  Pete Reed, the Wagon master, needed volunteers for help with this gathering and Don volunteered us to help with breakfast.  They have bacon, pancakes and eggs one morning and sausage, pancakes and eggs the next morning.  Len brings his large propane grill and we become short order cooks.  Yaeko Johnston is indispensable to this project as she is a bundle of happy pleasant energy.  We enjoyed ourselves. Later in the afternoon, the clouds and wind came in and the temperature dropped.  We had another good potluck, but we ate inside this time.

Wednesday - May 22 - Our photographers did not make an early appearance this morning for breakfast, so just take my word for it because it's the truth - we cooked breakfast in the snow - big snow flakes sometimes.  It wasn't cold and we enjoyed it although we did eat inside.  We went with the Gardner's to the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center.  This is a very well done center.  It explains what the emigrants faced traveling to Oregon.  In the movies, the covered wagons are roomy.  The truth is that are about the size of a van and certainly do not have any amenities.  Can you imagine leaving your family and friends, to never see them again and pack only essentials to keep you alive.  They traveled 1,950 miles.  We travel in such comfort now.  It stayed cold and damp all day so we had the last potluck inside again.

                         Intrepid Pioneers                                                         Baker City

Thursday - May 23 - We said goodbyes and headed, along with David & Mary, to Union Creek CG about 16 miles from Baker City to wait out the Memorial Day weekend.  We got there early and found campsites.  A lot of the sites were reserved.  We had potluck leftovers with the Gardner’s.  It's too cold to sit outside.  That's a shame because this is a good campground.  The spaces are not close together and have tables, grills and fire pits.  Maybe another day.

Friday - May 24 - A cool and dreary day.  We stayed inside except that we each took a short walk, mine was shorter.  But on the positive side, Don cooked his delicious spaghetti and Dave & Mary came over for dinner.

Saturday - May 25 - We all headed to Sumpter, OR for their annual flea market sale.  This is a big deal in this area.  I was hoping for something like the one in south Texas, but this was more like a very large garage sale.  We did not buy anything but grilled brats from the Sumpter Fire Department.  One thing that we noticed was the number of well behaved dogs and it was fun to watch them.

Sunday - May 26 – Periods of sun mixed with rain.

For a delightful account, with pictures, of our days in and around Baker City, see Mary’s and David’s blogs.

On to the Palouse area of Washington Monday.

Weather – We have had weather. Two weeks back it was Spring, even hot some days. The last 10 days and the next 10 days will be cloudy with a little rain. The satellites show clouds all the way across the northern Pacific to China. I think that Kim guy in N. Korea is screwing with the weather.