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Joyce Kiefer |
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FINDING OUR PERSONAL 'OREGON TRAIL'
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Exploring a remote corner
of northeast Oregon
of TheColumnists.com
I should know this by now. How often have I traveled to Oregon and had my hopes of enjoying its green, gorgeous scenery rained out? I should know that clear weather in the Northwest is a treat, not an expectation. The best way to describe any travel experience there: “Now you see it, now you don’t.”
Yet the sunny times of actually seeing its sparkling rivers, rugged coastline and mountains etched sharply against the sky have always kept hope alive.
This spring my husband Bill and I decided to drive kitty-corner across the state from the California border to explore the geography that lies between Silicon Valley where we live and the remote corner of northeast Oregon where our daughter Jane and her husband Andy decided to move. What could possibly attract these urban-raised offspring to such isolation, we wanted to know. And what would an overland journey involve to get from our world to theirs? Finding their town of Joseph (pop. 1,100) would be our personal Oregon Trail.
I looked forward to seeing the jagged, snow-covered Cascades along the horizon for a good part of the trip, starting with Mt. Shasta in the north end of California. We would eat lunch at the base of this dormant volcano and gaze at its peak, which rises about 10,000 feet from the surrounding area.
However, the Oregon rains crossed the border and masked any trace of this 14,000 foot mountain.
They also managed to hide the entire Cascade Range as we drove northeast along scenic byways called “Volcanic Legacy” and “Journey through Time,” How can these spectacular mountains simply disappear in the mist? Only in Oregon where we once drove up the coast without seeing the ocean!
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Like Lewis and Clark we followed the barren Columbia River Gorge, then veered off to cross the Blue Mountains in the tracks of the pioneers. Snow flurries blurred our view along Deadman’s Pass. We said farewell to shopping malls and freeways at La Grande and plunged into the country walled by the Wallowa Mountains. This was our second full day of driving and we looked forward to a home-cooked dinner at Jane’s home with Andy and their two daughters.
Lively streams gushed next to the road. The name “Lostine” on one town enhanced our feeling of isolation. Finally we reached the broad main street of Joseph. The welcome sign read: “This little town is heaven to us. Don’t drive like hell thru it.”
We drove slowly past some amazingly good metal sculptures of cowboys, placed on each street corner. We settled at the Indian Lodge, built by actor Walter Brennan in the ‘60’s. Perhaps the sheets have been changed since then. The snow-covered Wallowa Mountains rose up behind the town.
Clouds masked their tops.
We drove along the roughly paved streets to the cute but tiny house where Jane’s family have lived for the past year. They have never lived as a typical Bay Area suburban family even when they lived in the house where I grew up in San Mateo. Instead of dinner parties they had Dungeon and Dragon nights. Not long after they purchased the family home, they moved to Vashon Island in Washington, a counter-culture refuge 15-minutes by ferry from Seattle. I came to appreciate the peace of the place and to discover the good in the way Jane home-schooled their two girls. Turnabout was fun: It was exciting to learn from my daughter.
But Vashon became too crowded, according to Andy, so they followed some friends to Joseph, Oregon, near the Idaho border. The nearest airport is three hours away. They considered building an “earth ship” – a house made of recycled materials. Because Andy is a software developer, the family is portable.
This town, named for Nez Perce Chief Joseph (“I will fight no more forever.”), is a tidy settlement with an artist colony drawn to the scenery and to the foundry at the edge of town. Jane tells me that the great divide lies between the conservative ranchers and the liberal artists. However, the place is small enough so that everyone comes together.
After driving over 800 miles, I wanted to see those mountains that give Jane’s family their current sense of place. I got a poster of nearby Wallowa Lake backed by mountain peaks, the scene highlighted by a bright blue sky. I wanted to enjoy this exact scene first hand but the weather looked doubtful. Every time the sun glimmered through the overcast, rain moved in. One morning it snowed.
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The last morning of our stay I awoke to see the slats of our window blinds casting sharp shadows on the motel wall. I ran to the bathroom and opened the window. Bright blue sky with the snowy mountain peaks in sharp relief! I got dressed, grabbed my camera, and went walking, taking pictures at every turn. Then Bill and I joined Jane’s family to stroll downtown for breakfast. I would take pictures of Lake Wallowa afterwards that would look like the poster.
There was only one wispy cloud in the sky.
As we ate I faced the picture window, then watched with the disbelief of a Californian as the clouds piled over the mountain tops. By the time we were done, the blue sky and the peaks had disappeared once again.
In Oregon you strike fast at sunshine.
Once we crossed the mountains to start home we found the sun again. It turned the fields of the Grande Ronde Valley into a shimmering emerald as we drove the freeway that ran parallel to the Oregon Trail from La Grande to Baker City. I thought of “Jump-off Creek,” a novel about a woman homesteader in the area, and of the stories and poems that appear in the High Desert Literary Journal.
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the area once the frequent snow flurries come chilling their way down the mountains, even in springtime. |
Back on the “Journey Through Time” byway, we visited the incredible museum and visitor’s center at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument where the oreodonts roamed when the place was a jungle. An artist portrayed them as plump, chocolate colored beasts with big white smiles. We hiked up a canyon where their bones were found. Later that day we picked our way over the lava beds at Newberry National Volcanic Monument. And yes, we finally saw the Cascades, those volcanic sentinels to Oregon’s geologic past and possible future.
The terrain was rugged and the drive was long, but we came to appreciate our daughter’s adventures in living. Our granddaughters' lives are enriched and so are we.
©2009 by Joyce Kiefer. The illustrations are the property of the author. All rights reserved. This column first posted June 15, 2009.
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