Headed to Wyoming

We made it to Twin Falls today on our way to Lander.  We stopped at our usual deisel stop "exit 29" I-84 Caldwell.  This year was special in that a friend from Burns and one of her sons met us for a little "catchup".  Weleft pomising to "stay in touch".  Facebook may be worthwhile after all (that is if I can EVER get MY computer back.  :)  )  We stopped at Twin Falls to get my meds and they didn't have any so we have to stay until about 11 tomorrow.  :)  Oh well.  Into every life and all that....................

The Teague Cabin and our old (1980) place on Old Harney Road

Now KEN takes potty pictures.  

A fire in the Prairie City Wilderness area.

Watching the fire.

An owl....... (it's MY imagination)

"The Cabin"

Another good day hanging with Paula.  She is the manager at a discount store in Burns and works too darn much and way too hard.  She needed some time to regain some perspective about life.  (ok done preaching)  She took us up north to their cabin and to a lookout overlooking where we used to do brush disposal contracting. It was neat to see the lookout manned as so many of them have been dismantled.  We ended up the day going up to our old place.  30 years makes a big difference. :)  Ya'think?? It's nice to know the trees we planted survived/thrived.  It is no longer a dust bowl.

The Round Barn and other tidbits

We spent a day with Paula bumming around.  She took us out to Diamondville,  Frenchglen and to the Riddle Brothers old ranch.  This is WAY south and east in Oregon. When we left Burns Harney Lake  was encroaching its way toward Burns. It is an alkali lake so it leaves “stuff” in its path. like destroying farms and ranches.  Since we left it raised several more feet then has nearly dried up now.

We toured all around there.  One of the places we stopped was the Petye French Round Barn. Pete French was a cattle baron in the late  1880's in SE Oregon.  Pete built the barn to train large teams of horses that pulled freight wagons over a nearby wagon route. 

The structure, which is 100 feet in diameter, has a circular 60-foot inner corral surrounded by a 20-foot track used for the horse training during the winter. Juniper posts and an umbrella-shaped center truss-like structure rise from inside the corral to support the roof.  What a cool place.

 We then stopped at the visitor Center,  The center pole is a huge juniper.  I didn't realize juniper came that big.  :)  Paula's ex created it as well as a couple of other novel items: a township sign and a mailbox.

Paul and the manager of the Visitor Center

Ken and I setting in the "hands".

A juniper mail box! Look at that swirl!!

I would be SOOOO upset if I'd driven out there and it was CLOSED!!

What a wonderful day we had seeing new places and thinking about HOW isolated these were.  White Lightening?   hmmmmm?

Is there a monster being created???

OK so Ken learned about Facebook on the 16th and began farming on the 17th..............
Back up 3 years:  Me:  "Are you SURE you don't want us to be a two computer family?"
Him: "Yes, I'm SURE!!  I want some peace and quiet.  One computer is enough."
THE PRESENT:  I have a job and a convention to put on when we get to Wyoming.  I NEED to have a computer I can use.  All of a sudden Ken is out of bed just before 7 a.m. and on the computer.  AND all of a sudden he is staying up LATE: working on the computer.  He LOVES FB and farming.  So I called Whit and told her to take the spare tower to the Best Buy Geeks; dump EVERYTHING off it: nuke up the RAM and meet us in Lander.  Oh and bring a router - we're going to have us a NETWORK.  I'm afraid I may have to go to jail for manslaughter if he doesn't get off my computer.  :)  Oh well, into every life...............and all that.

Visiting Burns

What a beautiful drive we had from Sumpter up through Seneca and on to Burns.  We stopped at Peg and Cliff Asmussen's.  It it really hot so we found a spot that has 30 amp  in Hines to stay.  About 2 seconds after we got here Peg kidnapped me to go to Boise and take gson Christian home.  Sister Paula came with us.  The visit was good and bad.  The good was spending time with Kelly and Deanna families. I haven't seen Kelly's children in a long time.  They have grown.  When we lived in Burns we spent so much time at the Asmussen's it is cool to be able to not be in a rush this time. The bad was Paula got a REALLY bad migraine. She spent about 24 hours down then gritted her teeth and we came home.  As I have migraines I felt so sorry for her.

Barbara - The master quilter

Oh my, I knew Barbara did a lot of quilting but this was incredible. She has certainly found her artistic side. I found a few of my favorites in among the huge kaleidoscope of color and fabric.

In addition I got to visit with a few friends I hadn't seen in years. Wanda (DeMastus) Arriola popped in as well as Patti (Trimble-Duby) and hwe mother Elaine. I am SO glad we decided to make this detour.

Yesterday Whitney got me onto Facebook (whatever that is) to "farm" for her and her friends. I'm not sure I'm going to like this any better than I like My Space (which I detest). We'll see. While I was in Baker today Ken "harvested" for me and was still at the computer when I got back.

Sumpter Valley with The Morgan's

We headed out to Sumpter and the Morgan's this morning. We like to remind Wes and Cindy what a gorgeous view they have in this dream location. It is beautiful in every season. A snowmobiling utopia. Here it is with and without elk. They came out every evening and SOMETIMES we got good pictures. In between that we tried to get 1 good hummingbird. We're still working on that one. We were fortunate enough to be able to eat out on the deck then play "kill the mosquito" with these neat (weird)


Tomorrow I will meet Nancy (from Joseph) and go to the Quilt Show. My former classmate Barbara is the featured quilter this year.


I'm not sure if Wes or Ken is really seeing mosquitos. :) It sure was interesting to watch.

It's time to move on.....

Our time in Wallowa drew to a close. But before we left another classmate from WallowHi '64 came to visit - Meridee. It was fun to listen to them reliving the "do you remembers". Ken always knows how to contact Meridee and Sandy if he wants to know anything. Goodby to Wallowa for a couple of years. We'll be back for the 2014 50th Reunion.

It's an elk -NO it's a TURKEY!

Friday afternoon we headed to Troy. Troy Oregon is 60 miles from everywhere. You get there one of several gravel roads. We took the road out of Wallowa.

There are two rivers in these mountains: The Wanaha and the Grande Ronde. The area has changed so much that it took Ken awhile to get oriented. Me? I just look at the area and shake my head. MY parents were ranchers over in the Oregon lands that were fairly flat. Ken's folks farmed the FLAT land of their 1300 AC ranch because the land is on the breaks of the river.














We made it down to Troy then went up "Barlette" Grade so we could look back over to the place where the cow and bull fell OUT of the pasture. When we got up on top we found 4 Big Horn Sheep. That was cool.



The sixth and seventh pictures are of the "actual spot" the cow and bull fell out of the pasture. I think I get it now. :) Bottom line: cow lived; bull died. Think about that awhile.

We decided to go out over Lookout Mtn and look over the crushing areas we contracted 30+ years ago. We were putting along when Ken yelled STOP! I stopped and he jumped out. Yup! He can spot huckleberries at 30 mph. While the mosquitos ate me he grazed on huckleberries. Just after we left there we saw 4 turkeys marching down the road............No picture. Those things are fast! On down the road we spot more. They were faster. We finally got a picture of one but missed her chicks. The evening was topped off when we saw 5 elk in a small old clear cut. I'm taking pictures when they just kept multipling. We watched long enough that they got antsie and headed out. So we headed out with them. How cool it was. I cut the herd at the end where all the calves were. The mommas squealed until the calves went around behind us. The last little one pranced like he was king of the hill - which he was. We ended the 175 mile jaunt at 10:30 but it sure was worth it. Ahhhh! Life is Good!