Palouse Falls and the Painted Hills

I've officially left Joint Base Lewis-McChord on my way to San Antonio. It is shaping up to be one amazing road trip. My first day I drove the scenic route to Palouse Falls State Park where I spent the night in my hammock tent. It was sunny and warm when I got there, and nicely enough a rainbow was present in the mist kicked up by the waterfall.

Sunset kind of fizzled, only because there were no clouds in the sky. The photo below is from a similar vantage point as the one above, only looking downstream through the scablands where the Palouse River will eventually join the Snake River.

Sunrise was beautiful. Water levels were up so there was a lot more mist being kicked up by the falls, but the light on the clouds was phenomenal. There were several other folks camping, but I think I was only one that got up early and enjoyed the sunrise.

From there I made way through the Palouse hills, where I frustrated my GPS to no end ("turn around when possible"... ha ha, no way!). I'd see a road that "looked interesting" and would drive down it. These were small country roads that often turned into gravel farmers' roads, which was a ton of fun to explore and see.

It turned out to add an hour or two to my total drive, but was fun nonetheless. I then headed south into Oregon. For fun I punched the "alternate route" on my GPS to get to the Painted Hills unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. That took me on the twistiest road I think I've been on that lasted for three hours! There was one stretch of about 45 minutes where I saw no houses, no villages/towns, and only one other vehicle (though I did see a cowboy riding a horse after a couple of cattle). It was a great drive through open country.

I eventually made it to the Painted Hills for a short stop before I headed another couple of hours to Bend, Oregon.

The Painted Hills are this pretty stretch of land where the topsoil has eroded away leaving behind this popcorn-textured clay formations. I'm glad I took the time to go see it, as it wasn't too far off my path and made for a nice stretch break.

I'm spending two nights here in Bend, checking out the Bend Ale Trail. I'm taking advantage of the break to rearrange how I've packed the car to make getting to food and camping stuff much easier, which will be important in the next couple of weeks!

Take care everybody. Cheers,

Marc