Saturday May 6, 2017 Minam Oregon
Working my way north
The plan for the day was to head north at a leisurely pace towards the town of Troy. I will look for place to camp on the way.
I got on highway 84 and headed towards my destination.
I went by quite a bit of agricultural land. Here I’m going by a hop area. No hops right now, but these are the things they grow them on.
Invasive species inspection
When I entered Oregon I had to stop at a boat inspection station. The guy wrote me up a paper which I didn’t know at the time put me in their computer as I still needed to get an invasive species permit for my boat.
So I stopped at Walmart at La Grande and got a few things and my boat permit for seven dollars and I was set to go after gassing up.
Time to find a camp for the night
It was getting late in the day so I looked at my map for any place I could camp. I didn’t see anything that looked promising, but I did see a couple roads going off from a little place called Minam which was on highway 82 just up ahead.
When I got to Minam, I first went to check out the state campground down by the river. I looked and left as camp grounds aren’t my thing.
Ending the day with an adventurous road
I took the other road that goes up into some forest area. Right away a sign said the road was closed up ahead, but not how far. I almost turned around, but a road with a camp spot is all I needed so I thought I’d give it a try after all this is all just exploring.
The road was rocky and went up the hill with no turn arounds and no place to pull over to camp.
Most of the road wasn’t too bad, with some rocks and small wash outs.
Second and third thoughts
But when I came to this spot I had second thoughts and started to back up and had third thoughts and put it in low gear and started up it grabbing my camera at the same time bouncing all the way. I’m about half into this rocky part at this point and wondering if I made the right decision as one has no idea what’s up ahead. The new V8 engine makes four wheeling more of a pleasure than my old six cylinder did. Much nicer. Here I come hill, right after I tossed the camera on the passengers seat and hung on for the ride. :O)
Too late to change the decision as it’s one way now,………… up, but the old van was making it.
Most of the road was just narrow with rocks here and there, but mostly not too bad.
Yes the gate was locked, dead end road
I got to the top where it turned to green grass and sure enough there was the road closure, a locked gate, see it to the left.
Good a place as any for a nights camp
This looked like as good a place to spent the night as any place, but the only trouble was there was no flat spot in sight. I walked around and studied the road and what I had to work with and settled into a spot that if I parked just right the van would be close enough to being level.
This is the spot I’m spending the night. Likely not to have any neighbors with that road coming up the hill. It’s called deer creek road.
Camped
A peaceful spot to spend the night.
I’ll try to post this blog at Enterprise tomorrow and then I’ll continue on to Troy Oregon where I’ll be for a couple weeks or so. I should be able to use the internet at the Library in Troy, I hope.
Some ancient thing out in the field
After writing that I was looking out my van’s side doors at this thing that sorta looked round out in the field so I got curious about it and went out to see what it might be.
I could tell ya it was some kind of ancient sacrificing platform of a lost and gone tribe of some sort, but I think it was either something to hold water or maybe a grain storage thing from something a bit more modern, like after 1850. It looks like there may have been a homestead here at one time.
On the way back this Killdeer cut me off and was trying to get me to follow it to lead me away from the nest.
That’s it for this day
Arriving back at the van I turned and took this last photo of the days end.
Nice day that ends with a little adventure.
Posted at Troy school.
