Two Years

For our second anniversary, we decided to go camping.  Of course I took her down to the Wallowas, where I worked twice last year.  Yeah it rained on us a couple of nights, and yeah there was quite the lightning storm that ran over us on the last night and gave me a series of minor heart attacks, but it was so nice to have time alone with just her.  Plus, we had a fantastic time.  

 The first day was rainy, so we decided it was to be a driving day.  Since I had worked up by the Buckhorn Lookout and knew it had an amazing view, we headed out there and ended up wandering all around my work area.  We did exciting things like climbing up a Lookout tower, exploring an abandoned farm house, and looking at decommissioned roads.  

 A rainy day at the Buckhorn Lookout

The second day was the nicest of them all, so we rode 6 miles into Enterprise and explored town on our bikes.  It was mildly disappointing how many things were closed at 4.  But we ended up at 

Terminal Gravity drinking beers with some trail crew leaders.  The girl, Heidi, looked like a total hippie (well, they all did) and- for you jen- said that she really liked Minneapolis.  She had lived there and Portland, and she actually did not like Portland because it was too trendy and words like 'sustainability' are just catch words. But Minneapolis was great, she said.  You have to be a little more 

hard core to live there.   After two Imperials ('9.6%'.. but I've been informed by a semi-insider that that's a lie and it's higher) we rode the 6 miles back to our campground.  Which, by the way, was slightly uphill the whole way and more difficult than riding slightly downhill the whole way. 

We headed towards another Hells Canyon lookout on the the next day.  Supposedly, this road is part of a scenic byway, but as soon as you hit this small town it turns into a one-lane, steep, windy, road loaded with blind corners.  So, instead of following it the full 20ish miles up, we stopped at the first overlook... aptly named 5 mile.  Coming off of the overlook was a smallish ridge that ran in towards the canyon.  Since I had been denied (reasonably so) my hike on day one (it was really wet and we had no supplies....), we hiked out along the ridge, sat out on a basalt face, watched the birds and the slow-motion river below, and got minorly sunburnt.  Then we turned around and went 'oh shit' as we looked at the hill that we would have to hike back up.  It was a close call, but all parties involved survived the hike back to the car.  And both agreed that it was absolutely worth the profuse sweating involved.  

Walking out along the ridge at 5 mile

 Oh, yeah... we have to walk back up

On the way back we stopped off at Joseph and did the more touristy thing (I could see the longing look in D's eyes as we drove through it the first time).  There is an enormous amount of local art in the area, and so many very talented artists.  Both of us were the most taken by the bronze sculpture gallery.  Let's just throw on one more thing onto the list of things I will never be able to do. 

All in all- let's cut this a little shorter- it was an amazing trip with an amazing girl that I am so glad to be with.  I highly recommend the Wallowas for a getaway.

Also, D was in charge of taking the photos, but I couldn't resist pulling mine out a couple of times:

 Everywhere you look is something beautiful