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Published: August 6th 2010
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Picnic along I-84
Soft green grass, play equipment and deciduous trees grace the picnic site... August 2-3, 2010: One of the things I did manage to get packed into the van was a paperback I suspect I picked up at a yardsale -- Pacific NorthWest: Travel Smart Trip Planner.
Flipping through it in our motel room in Hood River, I saw that it dealt mainly with coastal trips, but it did have a chapter called “A Perfect Day in John Day Country”. It gave an itinerary for visiting the several fossil sites of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. “Now that's something different,” I thought.
Apparently in the wake of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, evolution advocates from Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton and the University of California raced expeditions to the desert of Oregon and ended up shipping hundreds of crates of astonishing fossils, both flora and fauna, back to their universities, to have evidence to support the theory. (Those of you film-groupies who have just seen Creation might find this interesting.)
The “John Day Formations” cover about 20 million years, from 39 to 18 million years ago. In them are found more than 100 groups of mammals, some familiar and some totally new to man,
Picnic along I-82 #2
But turn to the river for playtime and the aridity of the region is apparent. including oreodonts (a 3-toed horse-like creature, not a dental effect from eating too many Oreos), rhinoceroses, camels, swine, cats, dogs and rodents.
Evidence shows that this geographical region was once sub-tropical, then later covered by hard wood forests, then even later by open grasslands. Astoundingly to me, paleontologists/ geologists can point to 17 separate eras when the area was completely covered with volcanic lava.
For us the most alluring site was called the “Blue Basin”, where the ground is blue from volcanic ash which was deposited aeons ago and rises in huge bluffs. Many amazing fossils have been found there as erosion gradually revealed them poking from the faces of the cliffs. The Blue Basin is not usually shown on road maps, but it's just a few miles north of the intersection of highways 19 and 26, where the main fossil museum is located at the “Sheep Rock Unit”. We had an early start to get there before it was too hot for walking. Although we didn't find any earth shattering fossils ourselves, we were intrigued by the location and enjoyed seeing the examples of fossils which had been found there.
Later we went to the Sheep
Picnic along I-84 #3
But a swim is always a relief. Rock Unit and were AMAZED by the fossils there. Although the era of dinosaurs is missing from these formations (only one dinosaur has ever been found in these parts), there are extraordinary fossils from both before and after the time of the dinosaurs—animals with huge jaws of weird teeth, skulls, leg bones, claws...and the most delicate and exquisite fossils of leaves, flowers, nuts and seeds.
The major tree in the fossil records here is the Metasequoia, or Dawn Redwood, which was thought to be extinct till some were found in China in the 1940s. I learned about this exciting find when I took Horticulture in college with Mr. Campbell, the friendly elderly Scottish teacher whose dentures whistled with every "s"—some of you will remember the greenhouse at Smith—it was the one case of a tree having been first named as a fossil. (Of course this is an entirely western perspective—the Chinese knew about this tree and no doubt had a name for it quite different from this Latinate one!) But in any case, seeds were carefully sent back to botanical gardens in England and around the world, and the “fossil” trees were carefully propagated and spread around. Those who've
Anson Wright Campground
A post-ride reading time, yes. visited our homes in St. Leonards or Pennant Hills (both in Sydney, Australia) know we always plant a Dawn Redwood. But do you know why the one in Pennant Hills, out the front of our house, has grown so well? If your curiosity impels you, email me and I will tell you.
When we were at the Sheep Rock Unit, we began talking to the geologist behind the info counter. He was a wonderfully well-informed man with a signature laugh, who operated a bit like a magician. He gauged our interest and then reached below his counter and brought out a fossil speciman and watched us ooh and ah. Then as we stayed talking, he drew out another, and another, as if from a black hat, each well-timed and appropriate to the discussion. Eventually he pulled out a rock of copper and silver from a hill which he has legal claim to. The rock looked like it was made of melted pennies. He told us the hill was “too pure” to mine, too far back in the hinterlands. We hope one day he can find a way.
We also visited the Cant Ranch, which is a national historic
Blue Basin
Looking out from the carpark site right there as well. I have learned a bit about the Oregon Trail and the settling of the Willamette Valley, since living in Portland. (We tended to overdose on the pilgrims and witches back in Massachusetts schools). And I know what terrific courage and hardship it took to get to the Columbia River and then raft down to the Willamette and start a farm. But I never knew that the migration reversed in the 1860s, when lads born in the Willamette Valley drove sheep east over the mountains and made their wealth “mining the miners” by supplying meat to the men who stampeded there during the goldrush.
Though I do think about my carbon footprint at times, I am also grateful that I could get to the John Day Valley in just two days on rubber tires. Can someone please send me a hair shirt, c/o Sky?
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Norma
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Wonderful!
Martha, Last ngiht I heard everyone had blogs from you but me. This morning I was delighted to find one. We showed the Mama film at the book reading last night. Everyone loved it!! We have sent your cheques to your address to you. Will Lucien know to open it? We have asked Baxter to pay for you to work with us for a day a week next year on the parents making a film. I am sure they will do it - Mid December. YOu cannot believe what a thrill it is to travel in this way with you. Amazing landscape. Amazing!! Much love, Norma and all the Gunawirra Gang