Idaho/Oregon

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Our first stop this morning was to the Idaho State Capitol Building. It is under major renovations so we weren't able to go in it. Its a fairly typical looking capitol building. Guess we'll have to come back in 2010 to see the chambers. Then we headed to Baker City to see the Oregon Trail Interpretation Center. Baker City is a very old gold rush town with lots of historical buildings downtown. The Interpretation Center is out of town about 3 miles on a hill overlooking ruts left from the Oregon Trail. It was interesting to see what these settlers put up with to start a new life. But having seen a lot of Wagon Train growing up it was familiar. Then we drove through Hells Canyon. The overlook we went to was 6000 feet up and 10 miles across. Very dramatic except for the smoke from the forest fires in California and southern Oregon and the 2 annoying children who seemed to follow us around fighting with each other while their parents were off enjoying the view. The road through Hells Canyon is one of Oregon's Scenic Highways and it definitely was. After driving through the beautiful Wallowa National Forest we ate dinner at Foley's Station in downtown La Grand. Its a restored old building. Rodney said it reminded him of some of the places on Sixth Street. The chef was very proud of his gourmet menu but we were so tired by then we just had salads. It seemed too difficult to sort out the different dishes and make a decision. After traveling over 500 miles we decided to stay in La Grand and head out to the Columbia River Gourge in the morning.

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