Day 13 (How is this possible?)

Greetings from Burns Oregon, a medium-sized town situated on US Hwy 395 about 220 miles south of Pendleton. Now, in California, 220 miles would take about 3-4 hours, but Ivan and I took a 60+ mile detour to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (making our total mileage for the day 284). We went to the Visitor Center, watched an 18-minute movie, noodled around the displays, talked with the ranger, had lunch, stared at the stark but incredibly productive - in terms of fossils - landscape. One thing we did not do was we didn't take any photos! This place is really something. If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend a visit. The road, 395, is very pretty, but is up and down, crossing numerous mountain passes, the highest of which was 5101 feet! It's also only 2 lanes for most of the drive (that's if you're coming south on it!), but I really enjoyed it. And I really liked visiting this fossil center.

In the next post, I'm going to describe yesterday - Day 12 - which I haven't done yet and on which a wonderful bird was seen!