"THE KNUCKLE" of Oregon
Trip Start
Nov 19, 2007
1
88
169
Trip End
Ongoing
Joseph,
Oregon,
United States
Monday, August 18, 2008
After 108 degree driving over the mountains into Oregon's valley deserts, we were enjoying the 92 degrees as we picked up route 82 into the most northeast bump of Oregon. Alec calls this "The Knuckle" and it does look much like its nick name. The valley is all farm lands with beautiful barns and homesteads. They grow apples, peaches and grapes here too. All irrigated from the rivers, streams and lakes. With the Blue Mountains on the West and the magnificent Wallowa Mountains on the East the valley is almost enough to make one "lose their mind!!" (to quote Alec).
This area of Oregon is quite remote and it seems it is mostly visited by Oregon born and bred. Everyone we are meeting here at Wallowa Lake State Park is charming and friendly and self assured. Farmers? I am not sure, but it is a pleasure to be here and experience this most amazing place. Thank you Alec for your excellent recommendation!
Tues. Aug. 19th.
We rode our bikes over to the Wallowa Mountain Tramway and bought a couple of 2 day passes to ride up to the top
desert farmlands in Oregon's knckle
. The enclosed tramway cars hold upto 4 passengers, but we got lucky and ended up riding with just the 2 of us. The views were filled with snow capped mountains, rivers and Wallowa Lake, which was formed by glaciers. The ride took 15 minutes and hard bumps and loud metalic sounds of going over some of the rollers kept it exciting.When we got to the top we decided to hike a few of the trails and check out the views. It was 50% visibility so we couldn't see Montana, but we did see far into Oregon and over to the 7 Devils Mountain range in Idaho to the east. Every trail we traveled had kids hand feeding chipmunks and ground squirrels. Neither of us had ever seen such fat little friendly fur balls before. One little girl was wearing gloves and stroking a squirrel while it was eating out of her other hand. She told us that "the last time I did this I got bitten". That's what the gloves were for. It's hard not to worry about all of the deer, birds and rodents that are being hand fed when they have to deal with the harsh winter and nobody giving them nuts and chips.
Wed. Aug. 20th.
We rented an outboard motor boat and cruised down to the end of the lake and back. The wind and the waves we encountered were more intense than any that we experienced in an around Puget Sound in WA, so the going was very slow on the way back. The water was very cold so we passed on swimming during our stay.
Thurs. Aug. 21st.
Jodie got her 3rd or 4th flat while riding on the trails and we are pretty stumped as to why
picture perfect farms and barns
. Our rides in Fl. and VA. were much more intense, going over lots of roots and stumps, but this area is pretty smooth and obstacle free. It's a mystery, but I'm getting really fast at fixing flats.We drove into Joseph to check out the bronze gallery and take a tour of the foundry. The gallery was filled with hundreds of pieces and the shop keeper told us about how the bronze age (the starting of the foundry in Joseph) filled a big gap when the logging industry fell off. The town has life sized bronze statues of people, horses, birds and abstracts on all of the street corners.
We took the tour of the foundry and met a man who saw our RV at the campground. After a while we mentioned all of our flats and he said "you've got Goatsheads". Goatsheads are little tiny burrs that lodge themselves in the tire treads and cannot be felt when you run your fingers inside of the tire. They puncture the tube everytime you hit a little bump and then cause a tiny hole that slowly leaks all of the air out. These little buggers are found in this part of Oregon and our new friend said "you need slime". Slime, is a green goop that is force fed into the tire tube and it acts like a sealer when tiny Goatsheads do their business. Goatsheads, Swimmer's itch, what other surprises are waiting for us in the northwest?
The tour was informative and surprising, but we were not allowed to take any pictures except of our guide Heidi and the bronze stars that she made for the World War 2 Memorial in D.C. This foundry made all of the bronze stars, rope, and wreaths that are a part of the memorial. They also made all of the life sized horses for the Freedom Fence in Germany to commemorate the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. We got some pictures of the duplicate horses that stand outside of the foundry.
Friday, Aug. 22nd.
Took our second ride up the tramway and hiked for a few hours before packing up and hitting the road for south eastern Oregon.
Comments
keeping in touch
We got to see your mom Sunday the 24th at Kimball Farms...Mike Vreeland was there as well...both looked well! Your mom loves her new computer...I'm not sure if she can figure out how to access you! Love,Olivia