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Published: September 21st 2008
Lizard
High Desert Museum - Max's photosFossil, Oregon to Blackfoot, Idaho
Tuesday July 29th to Thurs July 31st
Leaving Crater Lake, we felt lucky that our first day the air had been crystal clear, since on the 2nd it was a bit smoky from wildfires. This day, Tues July 29, we had a long driving day ahead of us. Headed for Bend, Oregon, and then up toward John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. With the information about the town of Fossil and an idea about going to the museum at John Day first, we headed up the highway, kids on Game Cube probably, Rollie driving and me either checking work e-mail and doing some edits/layout or blogging.
High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon
We had seen pamphlets for a museum, called the High Desert Museum, just south of Bend, and decided stopping there would make a good short leg-stretcher. Of course, once you get Rollie and Max into a museum, good luck just stretching your legs! It was, however, well worth a longer stop. The museum had indoor display cases, but also a lot of outdoor displays and installations showcasing various regional ecosystems, animals, and the history of the high desert region. This region,
Bald Eagle
at High Desert Museum which stretches from Nevada’s Great Basin up through Oregon and into southern British Columbia, was shaped by the Native Americans who lived there, the European pioneers who were ranchers and loggers, and also is the center of important dinosaur and fossil areas - so each of these topics had its own interactive display area. From the Desertarium with snakes and scorpions, to the Birds of Prey Center, which houses only birds which are unable to be rehabilitated back into the wild, and the river otters, bobcat, and cougar - it was a fascinating place.
John Day Fossil Beds National Monument
We pushed on through Bend and stopped for lunch in Redmond, I believe, and also called the Bed and Breakfast we had read about to see if they had any rooms for that night. The proprietor was very friendly and not only had a room, but advised us not to head west to the Painted Hills and Sheep Rock units of John Day Fossil Beds, since the museum (Thomas Condon Paleontology Center) would be closed by the time we got there, but instead to go north through Antelope to the Clarno Unit and follow the Geologic Time Trail to
the Trail of the Fossils hike there in order to see the fossil leaves and tree trunks embedded in the rocks. We were also advised that in the town of Fossil, both of the 2 restaurants closed at 8 PM, so if we wanted dinner there we should arrive before closing. On this road we saw a medium sized brown bird cross so quickly over the road we really couldn’t tell its shape, but then it was followed by another much smaller - a chick - and another and another - we kept looking and when all 7 of so had crossed, dived into the bird book - and determined we had spotted some kind of grouse or other - probably common sage grouse.
When we got to the Clarno unit, we started on the Time Trail, which has signs describing the geologic history of the area and on which each foot represents 37,000 years. This links to the circular trail that lets you get up close to the fossilized leaves and seeds of the forests that covered this now high desert area 44 million years ago. The Fossil Trail connects to the Arch Trail, which takes you higher
up the Palisades and past the greenish remains of logs from those ancient forests. The scenery was spectacular and the chance to “find” the fossils in the rocks (at first they are not easy to see - and then the imprints seem to leap out at you as your eyes adjust to noticing the outlines) was exciting. We were able to mosey along quickly enough to reach the town of Fossil by 7:30 and get dinner. We found our B&B (the main house is awfully hard to miss in the daytime because of the giant mammoth sculpture in the front yard, but the mammoth is hidden in darkness at night) and the rooms were of the “plain but charming” sort - very comfortable. In the morning we found the generous breakfast buffet served in the main house to be very tasty, and enjoyed meeting some of the other guests - who told us about their fossil digging exploits from the previous day.
Fossil Dig
We arrived at the high school fairly early and there were some fossil hunters there, just leaving, but no one else and no tools. We kind of looked around, found quite a few fossil leaves
Fossil leaf
Clarno Unit, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument - all Max's pix unless noted just lying on the ground, and then a local volunteer and the dig leader (hired by the county to help manage the site) arrived, with tools we could use (what you need is gloves, a chisel, a hammer, and maybe some small chisels too) and lots of information about how and where to dig out pieces of slate, and how to “work” a big piece with the chisel and hammer, hoping to split it to reveal a fossil. Max had the best eye and the best luck - was able to find many good, whole leaves. Rollie also had some nice finds. Mine were of the smaller variety, some ancient sequoia, one little leaf. Miles also didn’t have very good luck, yet he had found almost the best fossil in the huge discard pile when we first came in - a poplar leaf and one other - very nicely preserved. The local volunteer was a really terrific woman, who had teens herself and a good rapport with the boys, and the dig leader also was full of information about the area, patiently showing us how to use the tools, and keeping our spirits up during the times we weren’t finding
Blue Basin trail
John Day Fossil Beds National Monument anything. We learned to use a light coating of hairspray to “set” the surface of the fossils, wrapping them in tissues and carefully placing them in a box for travel. We didn’t happen to have any of those ideal packing materials on hand, but placed them all carefully in the car (already loaded with stones at every passenger’s feet) with the intent to acquire them on down the road.
Blue Basin Trail and the Paleontology Center
About mid-day we left town and on south east along Rte 19 heading toward the Thomas Condon paleontology Center. On our way we saw the trailhead for the Blue Basin area hike called “Island in Time.” This was one our B&B hostess had recommended as one the kids would like - with fossil animals showcased under plastic. It was a very hot day, however, and the boys didn’t want to go (and Max and I had a fight about something - don’t recall now), so they stayed in the car and we took the trail. The fossilized creatures were actually plaster cast replicas shown in situ or in similar locations to the original find, but the real ones had been transported to safety
Mammoth sculpture
at B&B in Fossil, Oregon in the museum. Nonetheless, the trail was fascinating because of the color and shape of the canyon - a greenish tinged rock (not really blue), the interpretive signs along the way, and the variety of colors of stone in the craggy landscape - which is apparently one of the richest fossil areas in the world. One of the things that makes the area unique is that there is an almost continuous 40-million year fossil record of the plant and animal life that was in the area from 56 to 4 million years ago. According to the park brochure “it is a record of such continuity and duration that scientists can test theories against the fossil record.” The brief but extremely hot trail brought us gratefully back to the car and its air conditioning. We drove onward to the museum - which was utterly fascinating. Not only were the major displays interesting as they guided us through the changes in the region that led to the types of fossils we had seen, but under each display were drawer after drawer of yet more specimens - many labeled as having been found at the “Fossil High School.” We spent all the time
we could spare here - seeing each display, watching the film, looking at the scientists in the lab cleaning and casting specimens. The view outside gave a hint of the “painted hills” effect that was back west at the 3rd unit - the one we couldn’t back-track to see on this trip.
We had decided to drive through scenic areas but nevertheless try to get as far as we could for the rest of this day, as we wanted to shorten our drive through Idaho the following day. We drove on, following the John Day river, through lovely, rugged scenery, through the town of John Day (I think there was a good coffee shop there), up through the mountains via Sumpter to Baker City. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to keep on east to the National Oregon Trail Visitor’s Center, but - next time! From Baker City we connected to the interstate (I-84) and drove on down to the town of Ontario, where we found a motel. The next day we crossed over into Idaho and touched base with my Uncle Mike in Blackfoot, checking to see if it was still OK for us to visit, which it was
Lava
Craters of the Moon - and planned to just drive through on the interstate, through Boise and on. However, it didn’t take long before the traffic, and the sameness of the highway began to get to us and we looked for a way to parallel it without being on it. I had originally thought we’d get much farther along (as the trip to Fossil hadn’t been in the plan) the previous night, and had planned to camp at Craters of the Moon National Monument. So we decided we still had time to just drive through there and take a quick hike and still make it to Uncle Mike’s before dark. So we departed from the interstate to take highway 20 through a series of towns so small we were hard pressed to find a place for lunch - and eventually resorted to buying some picnic-y stuff at a small grocery store and heading into the park to lunch in a little splattering of shade in the volcanically-barren picnic ground. With hunger at bay we set off to explore.
Craters of the Moon National Monument
What a fantastic and fantastical park! The lava flows formed tubes that collapsed into caves. The incredible rope-like patterns
in the lava don’t come out so well in our amateur photos - but were just beautiful to look at. In addition to taking the circle drive and climbing up to several spatter cones, we took the (park-constructed - since the lava is so sharp) trail across the lava flow to 3 of the ice caves, which ended up being lots of fun. Our first effort to enter “Boy Scout” cave found us in a too-narrow, very sharp and cold spot and I thought “well this is not fun” and was about to give up on the whole thing. I think I’m a tad claustrophobic and wasn’t prepared to wriggle on my belly over sharp volcanic spikes. But then it turned out we’d mis-read how to enter - and Max figured it out, so we took another entry route and could do it by crawling or squatting rather than belly-flat - and all 4 of us got into the larger cavern that lay inside and marveled at how dark it was with our headlamps off, how cool (almost cold) compared to the baking hot day outside, and at the shapes of the dripping spiky formations (not quite stalactites - since
these aren’t limestone and won’t “grow” the way limestone does.) Although I was concerned about spending too much time and running late to get to Blackfoot, we also went into the other 2 caves on that trail: Beauty Cave (a large one with no crawling or head scraping) and Indian Tunnel cave. All very different in shape and size.
It was cool to be allowed to just explore these caves on our own. They provide lots of safety warnings, but luckily have not made paths, roped anything off, installed lights or anything else - so you can have a more authentic “exploring” experience that makes for a refreshing change. This is another park I’d like to re-visit and take some of the longer hikes - the Wilderness Trail or Molds Trail, for example. Here in the park there was also a display about how the volcanic activity and basalt fields were part of the geologic history of the formation of the great aquifers of Idaho that help support its farming. This is how what would otherwise be high desert terrain can be so fertile - the wells draw upon a vast series of aquifers, including the eastern Snake River
Plain Aquifer. I found this explanation on the Idaho Dept. of Environmental Quality web site:
"Fractured basalt aquifers are found in southern Idaho, the Lewiston-Moscow basin, and the Weiser area. Basalt is a fine-grained rock formed by the cooling and hardening of volcanic material. It tends to contain many fractures through which water easily moves. In addition, thin areas of sediment have been deposited between the basalt layers. These areas provide additional space for water storage or movement. Idaho's major basalt aquifer is the Eastern Snake River plain Aquifer."
Blackfoot Idaho
In the late afternoon we left and made our way toward Blackfoot. As we drove through Atomic City (yes, there is a small city called that!) we stopped to read roadside displays about the nuclear power plants in the area and its history in the development of nuclear energy. There is an enormous US Dept. of Energy installation (providing a lot of local jobs) just northeast of the National Monument. Once in Blackfoot we found my uncle’s house (after driving up and down his road not seeing it, as it was set back from the road a ways) and met up with my cousins I had not
seen for about 20 years - Bret and Tracy. Tracy was visiting with her son Gianluca, just a year younger than Miles, and Bret and Linda’s son Dustin was around Max’s age - so it was great fun for the boys to finally have some kids to play with. They played soccer in the yard, played with water guns, went over to Bret and Linda’s to play on the Wii - and generally whooped it up. It was terrific for me to connect with this part of the family again (and have simpatico political conversation!), since I hadn’t seen Uncle Mike or the cousins since Grandma Vera’s 80th birthday when I was still in grad school. It was a shame that the timing was such that my Aunt Karen had flown out the previous day to visit her daughter Jenny in Cape Town - another reason for there to be a “next time” in Idaho. Also we missed meeting Tracy's husband - who was going to join her in a week for a trip to Yellowstone - following on our heels. So that's an excuse for them to come east sometime and see the Blue Ridge at its most lovely
- in fall or spring! (summer or winter visists would be fine too, of course
).
We felt so well taken care of - and had a wonderful take out Chinese meal - something the boys hadn’t had in months! (Linda even found a vegetarian option on the menu for Rollie).
The Potato Museum
The next day we went along with Dustin, Tracy and Gianluca to the Idaho Potato museum, a small-town museum that proved surprisingly interesting - telling not only about the global history of the use of the potato, but the history of potato farming in the US and Idaho, the machinery old and new, the processing, current methods for sorting, storage - you name it. Armed with complimentary containers of freeze-dried hash browns, t-shirts for Max and Miles reading “Darth Tater,” and, of course, potato guns for each boy, we let the kids play on a display of old train cars near the museum, and then bid our farewells and drove on toward Yellowstone - where we had camping reservations for the next 5 nights.
World of the Pharaohs
We took a detour into Idaho Falls, where Tracy had told us that the local museum was hosting a traveling exhibit of Egyptian artifacts from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. How lucky were we! Two floors, about 6 rooms of displays, short, sweet, and beautifully displayed - real Egyptian statuary, sarcophagi, pottery, amulets, jewelry. It was substantive without being overwhelming - just right for all of us except Miles - who was done after the first two rooms and headed for the car to wait!
Next blog: Yellowstone National Park and Thermopolis, Wyoming.
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