Blue Mountains of Oregon and the Snake River of Idaho

Thursday June 16, 2011

I-84 near Pendleton

Our day began with the Sun, which makes us happy and departing Hermiston for Idaho today. Surrounded by farmland, meadows and the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon, we are just giggling about our escape from the cold of Portland. We traveled through this area last fall, but Spring is stunningly beautiful. Roadside fields of lovely wildflowers, two deer and the sighting of several hawks made the drive rather enjoyable. Snow meadows up in the hills reminded us of the 4000' elevation we climbed today.

Snow meadow in the distance

We were aced out of a visit to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center outside of Baker City. We took the exit and only discovered after a 3/4 mi drive that the clearance was a mere 2" (maybe) higher than our rig. ODOT needs to put that sign at the exit, we were lucky there was no traffic so we could back up into the road to make a U-turn.We have decided that this Fall when we head out for the winter we will take a few days to camp at one of the State Parks in the area and visit the center at that time.


climbing up the Blue Mt pass



you can see for miles

Trees of the Blue Mountains

 The small town of Lime established with the mining of lime near Ontario. The mill is now being dismantled...yea for the environment.


Lime "crushing mill" remains



overflowing Snake River

We are spending the night in Marsing, ID...about 15 SW of Nampa...a very short walk from this view....glorious!
Ciao~