Wednesday - July 29

Sunny, calm morning - exercised, had breakfast and then around 10ish we were off.    Ready for a nice long hike but not much in this area as we are in the desert.    Checked some state parks in the area but the closest was 15 miles away.    So, we headed to the Malheur National Forest and Idlewild Campground which was supposed to have a trail.....hmmm,... no one here and looked pretty desolate.   Where oh where is everybody?    The trail was really overgrown and forlorn.    We saw one lonely tent camper.     So here we are in the desert and just after we got on highway 395 (short jaunt off 20,) we were in the rugged rocky hills for several miles followed by the Malheur Forest.   

Some of the terrain today

Flo's home here in Burns

Came back to Burns, stopped at Bella Java for our Wednesday fix and then Mark went into Big R (similar to Farm 'n Fleet, Rural King, etc.)   He enjoyed this "guy" store as he's hasn't been shopping in a long time.  Drove to the Paiute Indian Reservation and saw some marijuana fields.

Opened all of Flo's windows - wonderful cross breeze, got out our lawn chairs and enjoyed this lovely day despite the temp reaching 93.    Definitely not what we know of 93 back in the Midwest.     Central and Eastern OR all have an elevation - even though Burns is in the desert, we are at 4200'.

Mark's knee is much better - he just can't kneel all the way down - brace is helping and will just be taking it easy with no serious bending!

Most campers come to this campground for a 1-night stay as it's just off Highway 20 and not a lot of choices in this rural part of the state.    So each night it fills up and the next morning, they roll on outta here till afternoon when more folks come in.     We talked to our neighbors last night from Boise.    It's been so hot there so they are escaping to cooler temps along the OR coast.    They will love it.

I cleaned all the outside window sills and Mark worked on some projects.    Then we enjoyed reading outdoors.

Brady has a change in his back-to-school plan.    Instead of alternating 2 days classroom/2 days virtual, he will be going 5 days a week virtually - board met Monday night and because of high virus #'s, they are reverting to this plan thru 9/11 and then will reevaluate.   

We picked up pizza from Glory Daze and it was sooo good - hadn't had pizza since June 24th at Eugene's in Glasgow, Montana.   It was time...

EXCELLENT and we have leftovers!!!

Our last day in Oregon and the pacific time zone......will never forget all we've seen and done in this spectacular state!  Tomorrow, onto Idaho.