Tuesday, July 18, 2006

The Cove Chronicles - Day 6: Seeing The Sights

No rest for the wicked...

Today Mom, Dad, and I took off on a trip up into the hills to the west of La Grande.

We saw a buffalo ranch (that I can't upload the photo for...).

We saw some beautiful mountain scenery on our way through the hills, and even spotted an abandoned gold mine.

We also stopped in Granite, a SMALL town that started out with the mining rush in the late 1800's. Granite...Population: Tire. (If you get that joke, I salute you.)

There was an old graveyard in Granite that looked interesting, so I stopped in a snapped a few photos.

Interesting graves...they listed the cause of death on them. "Died at Birth", "Killed at Golden Monarch Mine", "Died By His Own Hand", "Murdered", "Burned To Death"...Granite doesn't strike me as being the most peaceful of places during its heyday.

Then it was on to Sumpter, where we stopped to check out the Sumpter Valley Dredge.

This thing was HUGE! It scooped up the dirt so people could mine it for gold, and it left huge piles of gravel in its wake.

Like these.

Pretty cool stuff, though.

After stopping for lunch, we proceeded on to John Day so Dad could talk a bit of business with a customer there. Nice folks, they were. On our way out of town, we stopped by the Shoe Tree.

Shoes in the tree, hence the name.

We stopped in McEwen, a stop on the Sumpter Valley Railway.

I wanted to see the trains there.

Interesting little area.

Then we headed back into Baker, where I switched driving duties with Dad (who had been driving all day), and we headed home.

It was a fun trip. I got to spend all day with my folks and get to know the area that I claim to be my home a little better.

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