Up early, packed a lunch, and was on the road by 7:30 AM. John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, here we come. It was a two-hour drive to the park. It is on the eastern side of Oregon—Tucker decided to go with us.
The road was through the mountains. This is a volcanic area that was once underwater. Volcanic rock is everywhere and looks desolate.
Our first stop was the Painted Hills. The hills have a different color for each period after the dinosaurs went extinct. The colors were gold, yellows, browns, and reds. We hiked three trails around the hills. Each hike was short, but we had better views of the painted hills.
We ate lunch in a nice picnic area with plenty of shade trees. I'm glad we got here early this morning. Today's temperature was around 97º and would have been too hot to hike. After lunch, we drove an hour to the Thomas Condon Visitor Center.
The visitor center has a great display of the fossils found in the area. This area is post dinosaurs. It was a swamp area, so most fossils are fauna and marine life. We enjoyed the exhibits. Tucker's favorite was the bear wolf mural. I found the place to get my passport stamps and buy stickers.
After the visitor center, Ryan, Amanda, and Addison headed home because they had to feed the horses. Barry, Tucker, and I drove to the Cant Ranch House. We toured the house and displays, then walked to the grounds and the barn. The Cants were born in Scotland and bought the ranch in 1910. The original homestead was established in 1890. I do not remember the names of the original owners. The history includes the cattle and sheep wars over the grazing lands.
As we walked to the barn, we saw a coyote with an apple in his mouth about seventy-five feet in front of us. He did not seem too concerned with us and slowly wandered away. The property has apple, pear, and apricot trees.
The barn was used to house sheep having newborns and for shearing the sheep. The barn is huge with small corrals. Outside was the area where they would do the shearing. It was an interesting setup, and Barry and Tucker had a great time playing with what was hanging around and used for sheep shearing.
After the boys were done playing, we headed back to the Jeep. As we got into the Jeep, a tour bus pulled in behind us. We put the Jeep in reverse, and at about that time, the bus started pulling into the parking spot next to us. Wholly sh**, the bus will hit us on the driver's side back corner. Tucker was on that side, and I told him to move to my side. I quickly got out, ran over to the bus, and was pounding on it to stop. In addition, Barry was honking the horn and yelling at them. The tour bus was so close to us that Barry could not open his door.
The tour director is calling someone to tell her what to do...just turn away from us and back up, Idiot! Tucker heard words out of me he had not before. The tour director was a total idiot. They finally figured out how to get the bus away from our Jeep. Luckily, there was minimal damage to the license plate and license place cover. The damage could have been much worse had we not reacted so quickly. I was more worried about Tucker, but he seemed to be OK. He told us he was sending a text to his mom, "We were hit by a bus," but it did not go through since there was a lack of cell phone coverage. Barry and I said, "No, don't send that!" We then had to explain how his mom would have reacted to a text like that. It was a funny conversation explaining why that was not a good idea. We decided to wait until we were all at dinner and he could tell his version of what happened. He liked that idea.
The ride home was a little stressful. Barry said we needed gas but would not hit Prineville for a while. We were driving on fumes! We had two miles left on the tank as we pulled into the gas station, 400 miles on a tank, and 398.7 miles showing—more for Tucker to share at dinner. We told him his mom would not let him go with us after today.
After getting gas, we noticed smoke was coming in and covering the Powell Butte Valley. It was thick and from one of the fires. The valley was clear, and suddenly, it was filled with smoke.
We made it home and then off to Diego's Spirited Kitchen for Mexican dinner. Tucker road with his family in their truck, and when we got to the restaurant, everyone said he kept dropping hints, but he did not spill it.
We had to wait for a table, and Ryan bought Amanda and me the "special margarita." Wholly cow was it strong, but after today, I needed it. Once we sat down, we told Tucker he could tell everyone what happened. He could not wait to spill the beans, even the part about us not wanting him to text his mom. We all had a great laugh listening to Tucker.
Great food, drinks, and, of course, company. It was a great day, and we all had fun.
Hope your dreams are filled with painted hills colors.
A few days later, Amanda sent me this short story Tucker wrote about our day. He permitted me to post it on my blog....thank you, Tucker.
