Sunday, July 2, 2017

Major destination for the day:  The Painted Hills!  If you're never heard of it, that's not surprising.  It's a long way, on good but winding roads, so even many Oregonians have never been there.  It's worth the trip, even a stand-alone destination!

So on this beautiful Sunday we headed east from Redmond, and it wasn't far to Prineville, OR.  There is a beautiful viewpoint of the town on the way in from the west.  (Watch for it, it's cool!) 

The large buildings appear a big tire warehouse.

  
Here's a video from the Prineville viewpoint.  (insert video here) 

After a couple of more hours of winding highway, with cool-looking rock formations poking out of Oregon greenery, we reached the Painted Hills section of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.  This part is on the way in to the park area.

Here's some from inside the the park.

There are several nice hiking trails in this area; a visitor could plan an entire day just for this part.

There three main park areas within John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.  Painted Hills is reached first along this route, and Sheep Rock is another hour or so east along the highway.  (There is another park/fossil area to the north; we didn't get to that one.)

Here's the Sheep Rock area.  There was a nice fossil museum here, and the rock formations in the area were surreal.  There is a lot of nice drives and hikes in this area, too. 

 

By this time it was getting hot and late in the day, so we headed back "home" to Redmond.

Continuing adventure click here.