John Day Fossil Beds and Kam Wah Chung Museum

Our last day in John Day we spent exploring the fossil beds. We passed through the town of Dayville, which was good for photo ops with their western store front facades. 

Surprisingly, the teenager wasn't into hamming it up for us here.

The painted hills and the Sheep Rock formation are so impressive.

They have a great museum, which we had mostly to ourselves on this hot day. Our littlest naturalist checked out each fossil sample in the many displays, and we all learned a lot about the geology of the area.

Cathedral Rock

Later that afternoon we went to the Kam Wah Chung Museum in John Day, starting out in the visitor center to learn about the Chinese and immigrant worker experience in the area, which peaked during the gold rush era. The store was owned by a resourceful pair, and remained closed from their death and remained untouched for three decades. It was an amazing time capsule of their life and the experiences of immigrants. The kids saw the bullet holes in the door (and currently no minorities in what we'd guess to be a two-hour radius), a stark lesson in racism and its effects. The museum and tour are well done, but we did have a good family talk later on about a few of the comments made by the tour guide. She emphasized that the two men were accepted by the white community, and were the only two Asians buried in the town cemetery. Our family's discussion centered on how accepting the town doctor and business man, but pushing everyone else out of town, isn't really all that accepting at all. What do you think?

Kam Wah Chung Museum

www.oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=5

John Day

Heading out from Bend we took Hwy 26 east. This was the first time the now-frequently used term 'butt-clenching' (and its variations) were introduced into our family vocabulary. As in, we're cruising happily along out of Bend, then the highway takes a sharp left, and then, oh, we're going straight down another hairpin into Prineville, aren't we?!? Then, safely at the bottom, "Well, that was a butt-clencher, wasn't it everyone?" 

Luckily from there on out the road meandered peacefully through some farms and we were all able to relax and enjoy the drive. 

 As we got closer to the John Day Fossil Beds national monument we wound through the canyons, in awe of the scenery. 

The Sheep Rock.

In these more remote areas it can be a bit tricky to find a good place to camp for the night. Sometimes things are advertised as RV parks, but they are really mobile home parks with mostly full-time residents and tricky parking and navigating. We could technically head to a true campground, too, but in unknown areas we're still not in the 'zone' to drive into an area that we're not sure we can get out of. (We do have roadside assistance, do you think they'd come if we accidentally put our RV in a tent spot and can't get it out?)

We found the John Day fairgrounds (and RV park!), which turned out to be a great place to stay. We were within walking distance of downtown, and the only stoplight in the whole county. (They have a bench there on the corner, so you can do a bit of car watching on a slow evening.) We had deer walk through in the evenings, and the only radio station in the area was on the corner. (The programming kept us on our toes, you start the morning with old-school country, progressing into more pop-ish country, then disco/jazz in the evening.) 

We also had our first laundromat experience, which was fun to do as a team.

She's way cuter than Rachel Green, and way more helpful. =)