On our way out of Glenn’s Ferry,
we stopped for breakfast at the Oregon Trail Cafe and Bar where we met up with Neil and Marly Matteson. Marly worked with Katrina at BeautiControl years ago. They live in Cedar City, Utah and were traveling with their trailer spending some time up north. Since we were only about 45 minutes from each other plans were drafted for the meal.
We left Idaho and headed further north into Oregon. We hit a little traffic, but no blow outs! Therefore, a pretty good travel day.
We went to Baker City and stayed at the Mountain View RV campground.
I’m not sure why they call it Mountain View as all we can see is an outline of the mountains because of the smoke from forest fires and cloudy weather.
We stopped for diesel beforehand as Katrina found a local station for $3.28. Not bad in 2021, but nothing compared to 2020 when we paid a low of $1.55. What a difference a year makes!
The Mountain View campground is really cute in the way that they have decorated their buildings:
The next day Katrina signed us up for a historic self-guided walking tour that included discounts at local establishments.
What a great way to learn about the city. We started at the Geiser Grand building:
The tour stated that the Geiser Grand was built in the 1880’s and that the clocks had to be constantly fixed as gold rushers would shoot at it after they left the bars at night.
From there we stopped at the US Bank where we got a chance to see the original gold nugget that started the rush into Baker City that grew it into the third largest community in Oregon early in the 20th century.
What a huge nugget!
From there we got a chance to taste some reds at Copper Belt Wines.
We enjoyed the Tempranillo the best and purchased a bottle. Within the same store was The Cheese Fairy where we ordered a small charcuterie board to go with the wine. I think it was the first time that I had goat salami! So good that we purchased some cheese, salami and crackers.
The we walked over to First Street where we learned that back in the day that it was the red light district.
The street was also the dividing point between the settlers and the Chinese. Apparently there were a lot of Chinese people in the area do to the railroad and mining efforts. Racial tensions even back in the day!
We walked back over to Main Street and our next stop on the tour was Glacier 45 Distillery.
Free samples – 11 different alcohols with mostly flavored vodkas. We enjoyed a number of them and purchased four bottles! I like this sign:
From there we headed to Peterson’s Chocolates for some liquid chocolate. Very rich! We didn’t buy anything.
Then we went to Barley Brown’s Brewery. I had their lightest brew and realized that I didn’t like it too much.
We loved their hours of operation! The brewery was not part of the official tour, but since the tour was self-guided we added in the stop.
The last tour stop was North Seven Brewing Company which had recently opened.
We enjoyed the free tastes and Katrina ordered a sour and I got the Kev’s Summerfest. We enjoyed both of them with some nuts and a homemade pretzel with an excellent mustard dip. We were their first tour-ists so they took our picture to add to their Instagram presence.
With the tour completed, we stopped at the Farmer’s Market and got some vegetables and beef.
Afterwards we headed back to the Busse Bus with our newly acquired treasures and had dinner. Katrina made an awesome zucchini and onion dish that we had with some chicken sausages. Excellent meal! Then we got to watch some more Olympics!
The following day we lounged around the Busse Bus catching up on laundry and other activities needed to be completed on a home on wheels. We did get out for dinner at the Haines Steakhouse located in Haines, Oregon about ten miles north of our campground.
An interesting place that had a salad bar (first one that we have seen since the pandemic broke out) and decent steaks. I got the rib-eye in the 8 Second sauce as was recommended by our server. To me, the sauce tasted like Heinz SteakSauce. It makes you wonder. It started raining while we were inside eating and Katrina ran outside to check the truck as it sounded like hail on the roof.
It was hailing, but the good news is that it didn’t cause any damage on the truck. Later, back at the coach we watched some more Olympics.
The next day we did some more stuff around the coach. Cleaned vents, regenerated the water softener, dishes, laundry, you know, chores. Katrina made bone broth and I made water. Bone broth is made from all sorts of vegetables and chicken and then cooked down with only the bones left in the pot. Really good for you! Now, making water is a lot more difficult, you start with tap water and then put it through the Kangen machine that converts it to 9.5 alkaline instead of acidity water. Really good for you! Katrina also made Pesto Sauce, Guacamole and Salsa to go with the marinated Fajitas! You guessed it, afterwards, we watched the Olympics.
The following day was jammed packed full of all sorts of exciting things. We started the day by going downtown to watch the Shriners parade. Baker City was host to the annual East vs. West football game – a Shriner fundraiser. As we sat on the curb waiting for the parade to start I noticed the signs in the windows in the building across the street:
Zoom in to read them. I think someone is playing a joke here! If you didn’t zoom in, here’s the businesses from left to right: ACME Private Investigators, ACME Couples Counseling, and ACME Divorce Attorneys. True dat! I think we should call the self guided tour company and have them add that stop in!
The parade sported four local chapters of the Shriners riding around in their funny little cars:
Some horses:
The Shriners Oriental Band (not terribly PC):
And, of course, the American Flag:
Well, now you have seen the entire parade as well!
Next, we are attended the Oregon Cattlewomen’s Association lunch at the park (glad we watched Yellowstone so that we knew what a Cattlewomen’s Association was). Cheeseburger, grilled onions, veggies snack, potato chips and a water for $7.00. Good deal!
With full tummies, we headed out to see the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center which was temporarily closed. But we did see this mural on the side of a building:
The guy enjoying his lunch and playing on his phone was an added bonus!
We were able to walk around the center and got these pictures:
For those of you that slept through this part of your American History class in school, here’s the cliff notes (interpreted by me). A 2,170 mile trail used by settlers that traversed from the Missouri River near Kansas City to Willamette River near Portland where 400,000 – 500,000 people migrated west in search of starting up the new frontier. The United States was offering land to the settler to entice them to settle the area and claim the land as United States property from Britain who was also trying to claim the land. The Native Americans lost out on the land that they had lived on for centuries. As Katrina and I have traveled through the northwest we have often wondered how those pioneers traversed the land going over mountains and river and through vast wildernesses and deserts. Those were some tough people!
On the drive back we stopped along the road to see this monument and the original wagon wheel ruts:
Pretty cool, eh?
We got this picture of some rocks that had very colorful lichen on it:
We also got a chance to actually see the mountain clearer:
We got back to the Busse Bus in time to let Bear out before we headed up to Haines for the Demolition Derby! Check out these pictures:
We had a bang up time (pun intended)! Our favorite was when they hosted barrel racing with kids on motorcycles and older kids on ATV’s.
The funniest is when they had cowhides races where one driver would race across the arena and pick up their cowhide rider, race back to the beginning and hook up the cowhide where that rider would then jump on it and race back across the arena through the mud.
Back to the coach because we were heading out to Washington the next morning and we couldn’t take anymore jammed packed, exciting days like this one in Baker City.
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