We woke very early and very cold; it dropped below freezing overnight. We were delighted to see deer in the campsite as we laid in bed. A four-point buck and three does, sniffing the ground and snorting. My friend Katherine considers deer to be large rodents but I guess I’m enough of an urbanite to be happy to see them. They came almost close enough to pet, but I resisted cracking a window and offering them food. Instead I just huddled with a cup of hot tea and watched their antics. I was particularly taken but how very still they could freeze when they picked up some subtle sound with their articulated mule ears.

Eventually the deer moved on, and so did we. Camp was packed up and we got on the road to head back into Portland. The assorted forest fires cut the trip a little shorter than we might like. I’d like to make up the time with some shorter trips from PDX, Bagby, Breitenbush, maybe a couple of days at the coast.

As morning came, we said goodbye to the Deadwood campground and got on the road. I stopped to take a picture of this daisy/sunflower looking weed that seems to grow on the roadside everywhere we went in Idaho. It should definitely be the state flower. Or maybe the state weed. And yes, the haze in the background of that photo is from forest fire smoke in the area.

We left Deadwood and returned west to Banks, where we started northwards on route 55. The web had reported the fires mostly contained but we saw fire crews on the road and some of the routes to hot springs were closed by fires. We ventured near one commercial “hot spring” place and then remembered why we hate them and continued onward, winding through the forest towards Hells Canyon. It’s deeper than the Grand Canyon, but the drive along the river was less inspiring than I’d hoped, and there was not a bit of relief from the intense sun. We decided to come into Oregon and entered the Wallowa-Whitman national forest. After some exploring along the Imnaha river, we found a nice campsite with water access and were delighted to read different regulations here than in the Idaho forests: campfires allowed! With relief we relaxed into the evening. One match!

Like clockwork, we were up with the sun, but our campsite was nestled so deeply in a canyon, that’s about an hour later than normal. Still, the haze of forest fire hung in the air. We got on the road, traveling deeper into the valley. We followed about 6 miles of gravel road, looking for a hot spring, but the site we found was in full sunlight and my thighs were looking pinker as the day progressed, so we passed on it. However, we did see the rump of a brown bear galloping away from us into the woods, which was pretty great!

We explored south from the Payettte Valley, and eventually made our way into Boise so I could find WiFi and check my work email. Yeah, I’m supposed to be on vacation, but it’s the tail end of this project and there are a couple of issues still to be wrapped up. At least I can say I’ve seen Boise now. Though it was shrouded in as much haze as the mountains were. I hope that’s all from fire smoke; I hate to think that’s just plain ole urban smog. All things considered, I’m more excited by the bear butt than I am Boise. Still, we found a coffee shop and I scratched my work itch as briefly as I could get away with.

We soon bolted town and headed north, to the mouth of the Payette Valley again. We stopped at a couple of camp sites, looking for hot springs. At one, we even ended up high on a steep hillside, finding the source of a hot spring, but no real place to rest your body more than 8 inches deep. We finally returned to the Deadwood campground and set up for the night.

And we awoke about the same time the sun did. We took our time breaking camp, but still got on the road before 9:00 am. Except that we immediately crossed into Mountain time and it was 10:00. We also left I-84 very early in the morning and started making our way forward on US rural routes, taking every opportunity to leave the path to explore the Main Street of some tiny no-stop-light town. Everett, Fruitvale, I forget the name of them all. As we went farther east, a haze built in the sky. We passed a couple of bus loads of fire fighting crews, working some fire in the Payette River Valley. The warm breeze carried a sharp smell of a camp fire.

We made our way to the Deadwood campground, a US Forest Service campground we visited during the big 2004 roadtrip. As before, there were a few visitors to the campground during the day, stopping to use the bathrooms or to eat a brief lunch, but otherwise we had the campground to ourselves. As soon as things settled, I carried a big hat, camp chair and book to the stream that runs alongside the camp. I set the chair in the stream in about 10 inches of water, back turned towards the sun. I settled in with my book and let my feet gradually acclimate to the cold stream. I had a couple of good naps in between chapters of my book. Delightful, though the tops of my thighs were disturbingly pink when I emerged from the water at dusk.

Because of the extreme fire hazard, again there was no campfire. Sigh.

Today was all about the driving. We followed I-84 east, almost to the edge of the Oregon-Idaho border. Well past the pass, we saw an abandoned factory just off the frontage road that paralleled the freeway. Someone I know has a real fetish for abandoned buildings, so I took the next exit and drove over an old iron railroad bridge to the frontage road. Driving back a couple of miles, we found the factory. There was no fence to cut through or climb over; the only prohibition was a spray-painted stencil of “no trespassing” on a few of the buildings. Really, it’s like they were inviting us in! My guess is that it was an abandoned cement factory, pulling limestone from the adjacent hillsides. Tall concrete silos, massive iron pipelines that could be rotated along the longitudinal axis, twisted piles of metal and lumber, dark dusty underground chambers, the eerie squeak of metal twisting against metal in the wind.

And, delightfully, some really excellent graffiti. Really, this far out in the hinterland, where do people get to practice graffiti enough to do work like this?

We finally stopped for the night at Farewell Bend state park to camp. It was over-groomed, like a golf course, but was a good enough place to park for the evening. Strong winds wanted to pull the pages of my book from between my fingers, and made a campfire impossible. We settled for a salad for dinner and went to bed not long after the sun did. Considering how long it has been since the bus was taken out for a cruise, things went very nicely.