A date with John Day!

I have my trip route roughly planned out In a sort of loose way.  I was camped in a COE park near Rufus Oregon...right alongside the Columbia River 

Flickr ate my photos

and started checking my map...I saw how close I was to John Day Fossil beds I jumped on it! Natural History is fascinating to me...after a little research I found out the National Monument is in 3 locations.  I headed south down hwy 97 then 218 then 19, then 26 West! 

It goes through some small and interesting towns...like Shaniko

..all small towns no chain stores and very few stores of any kind...

This guy was in the city limits of a town called Kent...only one block long..

And I stopped to meet this horse...

SO  first I went to the John Day Clarno Unit...

There's a neat self  guided trail with some interesting formations this area is called the Palisades...formed by volcanic action 44 million years ago!!

And there is the Clarno Arch! Really cool..

Leaf Fossils are in the rocks along the hiking trail...

Casey and I had lunch here then we headed for the second unit Called Sheep Rock... South on Hwy 19 to the Cant Ranch.  A lot of the land now in the National Mon. was owned by the weatlhy Cant family...this is the HQ of the Monument...

The rock formations in this area are so colorful!  

There is a museum across the road from the ranch house full of exhibits of the fossils taken from the 3 units...IT was very well done...and worth a visit.

The road follows the John Day River here it is with the Cathedral Rock 

Flickr Ate my Photos 

And here is the John Day River again, its meanders through some beautiful country!

Casey and I found a Forest Service CG for the night called Boardhouse on Baker Mt...boy it got cold!! Some turkeys came through before we left but my photos were so blurry I had my camera set wrong--

There is one more unit and I'll save that for my next post!!

My Morning Mirror!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.