We left the heat of the valley and headed up towards Eastern Oregon. A friend of mine suggested checking out Joseph, Oregon. We wanted to get some good four wheeling in. However, we realized there's a lot of wilderness around Joseph so we called up the forest service and they suggested Umatilla National Forest. When we got to Baker's City we headed west towards the mountains. We found a pull off Northwest of Cabell City and got camp set up.
The next day we had breakfast and headed out on Packsaddle Trail and within 30 mins of navigating narrow trails I realized the steering wasn't steering. So I got out and checked the Wildcat. Sure enough the tire rod end was bent and the tires weren't tracking together. Ty was up ahead and within 2 minutes I had to stop as I knew what would happen next. After a quick prayer he came back to find me. We tried using the tow strap to straighten out the bend to no avail. We ate lunch while we were there and got turned around.
Check out our previous experience with this down in the Arizona desert. I knew we would have to winch the machine back down the hill if it went much further. Sure enough within 50 feet the A arm weld broke and without any tools, we were out of luck.
Since it was a nice shady trail the kids hiked up ahead and I "drove" the side by side to help up hills and tight corners while Ty steered with it attached to the back of the King Quad. It took a while but since we were only 3 miles in it wasn't too bad.
At that point we had a decision to make. What do we do now? Since the side by side was totally out of commission we only had the small dirt bike and the ATV. But not enough room for 5 people (see above).
We moved to a better camping spot since we were going to be spending more time at camp and wanted it to be a bit more centrally located. It was a trick to load the side by side into the toy hauler even with tools, but we made it happen as we didn't have a lot of options.
Stop right there! That's good! :)
By the time we got there it was time for dinner and so the kids set up some hammocks and we ate. Rhett crashed out after dinner on the couch and the girls stayed out in the hammocks half the night before they got cold.
The next day we drove into a nearby town called Sumpter that is famous for it's Gold Dredge. So we learned how to pan for gold and bought the few flakes and garnets we found. Then we toured the Dredge. It was really neat. Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally was happening that weekend so we saw a lot of cool motorcycles.
After eating some of the best hand dipped corndogs and meeting some fun people from Hagerman and getting some cotton candy, we drove to Phillip's Lake. The water was much warmer than I thought it would be so we did some swimming. Then drove drive back to camp and relaxed.
The next morning we chilled for a while and I went on a walk up the trail and found a few fun structures. An old toilet, shelter, treehouse and the best surprise, a swing. I brought everyone else to check it out.
After a lazy morning we drove up to Olive Lake. Along the way we stopped to see Fremont Powerhouse. It was a really cool old building.
We stopped after that to hike along a crag for a few minutes before we got to the lake.
It was one of the most beautiful lakes I've ever been to! We'd love to come back here. There was a great campground there too.
The water wasn't even cold here either. We were wishing we'd had our kayaks. Instead we hiked 3 miles around the lake trail. It was so pretty! The kids did so well! After we got back we made some apple crisp which really hot the spot.
Monday morning we enjoyed hanging around camp a bit more and got some more practice in with the dirt bike for the kids and some for us too. We wanted to tour the Sumpter Valley Railroad Depot so we drove into McEwen and realized the town is pretty well shut down during the week. We played at the park for a while before we headed back to camp.
Since the mosquitoes were pretty bad and there wasn't much more to do that we hadn't already done, we decided to drive home in the cooler temperature and go to the Filer pool as a family the next day
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On our way home through Boise, we stopped for my favorite, St Lawrence Grid Iron Shrimp and Grits!
