John Day Fossil Beds National Monument - Painted Hills Oregon

We take our leave of Walla Walla with the next destination being the Painted Hills in John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. We'll be staying at the Fish House Inn again (one of my favs). We have stayed here before but were unaware that of the "must see" sights so nearby! 

John Day National Monument has three different units, (in separate locations) with the Painted Hills being the most popular. If you are looking for it, you will find it north of highway 26 and northwest of the town of Mitchell Oregon. If you are GPS literate, the coordinates are: 44.65320, -120.25836.

The day we visited the park was mostly cloudy, so we were at the mercy of the weather gods to illuminate the landscape and show us the amazing colors of the hills.

 As it got closer to sunset and as we were preparing to leave the park, there was some "glimmer" of hope that the sun might break through for final pictures. Since arriving in the park Tom had his eye on a special spot by the overlook, so we made a beeline for it. By this time the wind was picking up and sent a chill through any spectators, but my intrepid photographer persevered and was partially kept warm by racing from one vantage point to another before the sun set.

Just before sunset the clouds lifted, revealing a narrow ribbon of clear sky between the mountains to the west and the clouds above. It allowed just enough time to for the warm light to creep across the valley and ultimately highlight the hills beyond.

Just to give you an idea of how cold it was, we drove through the snow the next day to La Pine State Park, 

and found these sights the next morning: 

Unbeknownst to us, nature was busy creating a beautiful ice bowl, just for us. It was sitting in a depression on our bike cover. It really was a thing of beauty, but the only way to keep it was the pictures we took. We ended up leaving it on our picnic table, but because the campground was almost empty, we may have been the only ones to get to see it before it melted away.

The Deschutes River runs by the state park

The next day we're headed back to Northern California.