Pandemic Diary — September 7 to 13, 2021

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

We are packing up for our trip to the Wallowas. It’ll be a long drive tomorrow: 418 miles, mostly freeway, much of it along the south bank of the Columbia. We plan to trade off drivers every hour and a half. The Wallowas are in the extreme northeast corner of Oregon, with Washington to the north and Idaho to the east. On the map below, the red pin shows where we are in Corvallis near the coast. Wallowa Lake is at the other end of the blue line. That straight horizontal line just above it–the one near Walla Walla–is the border between OR and WA. The wiggly line just east of our destination is the Snake River, which forms part of the border between OR and ID.

Wednesday, September 8, 2021

After breakfast, E did some last minute watering while M packed us a lunch. We set out on our journey at around 8:30. By 11:30 we were past the Dalles and starting to think about a place to stop for lunch. We wondered if there might be a little park in the town of Rufus. The Internet said there was, but in fact there was not. We did find a place where a park might once have been. We’re not criticizing or anything, but if you ever plan to visit Rufus, do not do so with high expectations. We ended up having our lunch a little farther on at Lepage Park, near the John Day Dam. Nice spot. Did we mention the smoke in the air? There was some. 

Arrived at the campground around 5:00, just in time to set up the tent and make dinner. Not impressed with the tent camping area of Wallowa Lake State Park. The showers and restrooms were nice, but the sites were narrow and jammed together with very few shrubs or trees in between. The setting was incredible, however, with steep forested peaks jutting up on three sides and a big lake on the other. Only the smoke marred the scene.

Thursday, September 9, 2021

M wanted to explore the road to Hat Point, and so–following a leisurely breakfast–off we went. Navigating to Hat Point is simple. First you drive to the town of Joseph, which is named for Old Chief Joseph. (More about him later.) You turn east there and drive 31 miles to a village called Imnaha. From there it’s just 24 miles to Hat Point. That doesn’t sound very far, but the road is a really slow one: very narrow, very steep and very rough. To go up and back would involve hours of bumps and jolts along the edge of precipices and other assorted discomforts. We didn’t want to do that. Instead, we went just to the four-mile mark, where there is a nice view and–very importantly–a space wide enough to turn around. The blue line below shows the full 24 miles of the Hat Point Road. Those who go all the way are rewarded with stunning views, or so the guide book says. The red line on this map is the Snake River, which is 5,600 feet below Hat Point. 

Our four-mile jaunt provided this more modest view of a side canyon that leads down the Snake.

After our Hat Point turnaround, we went back to the town of Joseph and visited the grave of Tiwi-teqis, who is known as Old Chief Joseph. Born c. 1785, Tiwiteqis was the leader of the Wallowa Band of the Nez Perce. He was an early convert to Christianity and worked to maintain peace with the arriving whites. He supported an 1855 agreement in which the Nez Perce gave up a portion of their tribal lands in return for an assurance that they would retain their most sacred land in the Wallowa Valley. Eventually the whites realized that these”most sacred lands” were also “really, really nice lands.” So in 1863, the federal government tore up the 1855 treaty and imposed a new treaty that required the Wallowa Band to leave the Wallowa Valley and relocate to a small and much less nice area on the other side of Snake River. Tiwi-teqis refused to sign the new treaty and is said to have destroyed both his American flag and his bible. He also refused to move his band from the Wallowa Valley. He died, still on his ancestral lands, in 1871. 

Tiwi-teqis was succeeded by his son Hinmatoowyalahtqit, known to the whites as Chief Joseph. The young Chief Joseph became much more famous than his father because it was he who had to deal with the federal government’s attempt to forcibly move the band to Idaho in 1877. The Nez Perce responded with a campaign of armed resistance and eventually the band attempted to flee the U.S. in hopes of finding asylum in Canada. The wikipedia entry for this Chief Joseph is here. It’s fascinating, not least because it reveals who really wrote the words that Chief Joseph is supposed to have uttered on the occasion of the Nez Perse’s final surrender–which occurred just 40 miles from the Canadian border. But enough of these rather sad events.

We had dinner at the Terminal Gravity Brew House in Enterprise. E had a Caesar salad–pretty good, but not nearly at the level of the Full Sail Brewery–and M had a jalapeño pepper bison burger–the best (and only) one he’s ever had. We ate outside in warm but blustery conditions. One wind gust blew one of M’s tortilla chips off his plate and onto the ground. Another blew a small yellow leaf from off its tree and onto E’s salad. A few brief rain showers came along as well. We appreciated their brevity, but not everyone felt that way. In the parking lot we passed a fellow just getting into his truck. He was muttering to himself about the weather, something along the lines of “Come on and rain, dammit. Rain!” 

Friday, September 10 2021

Back at Wallowa Lake we heard raindrops hitting our tent in the night, but there couldn’t have been very many of them because when we came out in the morning everything seemed just as dry as before. A few more drops fell during breakfast and as we were packing up to leave.

We drove east and then south, climbing first up to Salt Summit and then dropping down into the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area on a highway called Road 15. This is a slow and narrow route but very lovely. Eventually we turned east again, this time on Oregon 82, which took us to the Snake River at the site of the Oxbow Dam. From there we drove south along the Oregon bank of Oxbow Reservoir until we reached the bridge just below Brownlee Dam. (There are three dams on this part of the Snake, three dams in one thirty mile stretch of river. Seems a little excessive.) We crossed over the bridge and continued south down the Idaho side of Brownlee Reservoir. 

At around noon, our route turned east and started climbing up out of the Snake River Canyon. We stopped for lunch at a NFS campground. The camp sites were lovely and private, a world away from the tent sites at Wallowa Lake. (The restroom facilities were also quite different, but not a a good way.) 

Brownlee Campground is located on the route of the Oregon Trail at the site of an old mining town called Heath. Only a few traces remain of either the town or the old trail. One remnant are these decidedly unnatural clumps of mineral, slag from the Heath smelter.

Also remaining is the burnt stump of what was once one of the largest trees in the area. It is preserved as a memorial to a 7 year-old girl who died of fever while her family was traveling on the Trail in the 1870’s. The story goes that someone from Heath made a coffin for the child and that she was buried beneath this tree.

Saturday, September 11, 2021
We spent last night at a motel in Ontario, and left early today on the long road home. We stopped for lunch at the waterfront park in Arlington, Oregon. Lunch consisted of leftovers from the previous night’s take-out food. If you’re ever in Ontario, OR, one the best food options in town–unlikely as it may seem–is Japanese food from Ogawa’s. E’s rice bowl with eel was delicious and lasted for three meals.

During the last hour of the trip, we discussed the nuances of “feeling tired” vs. “feeling just a little dopey.” We think we got it cleared up. Anyway, we made it home.

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Cleaned out the truck and finished putting stuff away. A bit of watering. Also sleeping. E went over to her friend H’s house and they went out for a walk. Daughter-in-law S and grandson R were there when they got back. They’d been crabbing at the coast and S shared some of their bounty.  

Monday, September 13, 2021

E had a nice phone talk with brother J, but mostly this was chore day: grocery shopping, yoga class, putting old chairs on Craig’s List, scheduling service for the truck, dealing with a failing garage door opener.  

For dinner E made her gorgonzola and spinach pasta , serving up the crab along with it. Wonderful. M caught up on his pandemic record keeping. The COVID surge continues in Oregon, but the numbers of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are all down slightly, suggesting that the peak may be passing.