More From John Day Fossil Area

Originally we thought we would camp around the Mitchell (Painted Hills) area. But we couldn't find the campgrounds. 

(Here's another map for reference)

So we drove on, east towards the Sheep Rock Unit. This is Sheep Rock - known for it's greenish color which you can see in the next photo.

And this is Cathedral Ridge.

We drove north to Kimberly and checked out two campgrounds - each with 4 sites. They were pretty remote and primitive so we were hoping to get lucky and get a site, even though it was Memorial Day Weekened.

We are pretty picky campers and don't like sites that are too close together. We did find one site at the first campground. I even stayed there and Kevin drove up to the next campground (only a mile away) to see if there might be a better site.

There wasn't. But we weren't crazy about the one site we found so we decided to risk it and drive on.

After driving through 3 more, completely full campgrounds, we started second guessing ourselves. But we didn't want to back track 40 miles for a site that wasn't great and might not even be available anymore.

With two campgrounds left to check out, we found one that had an isolated site! It was right by the entrance so many people drove by us throughout the evening, but it was very far removed from all the other sites.

We let the girls play with fire. I remember doing this as a kid and it was just fascinating. The mom in me kept asking Kevin, "Is that safe?" or I would say something like, "I don't know how I feel about that."

When it started getting darker, we started playing with the camera and got some fun fire shots.

Then we started playing with this glow stick.

And we took turns running down the road to get cool shots.

Thankfully it wasn't too cold in our tent and we were able to get some sleep. We started getting worried when the temps hit 40, but we were cozy in the tent.


Sunday morning was clear skies and sunny and we headed to the last of the John Day Fossil bed units - the Clarno Unit. This is the one unit we have been to before and so it wasn't exciting and new.

Still, it was cool to see again.

On our drive home we saw some deer and Kevin hopped out of the car to get some pictures.

We also stopped at White River Falls State Park. We've been there before, but since it was on our way home and I love waterfalls, I wanted to stop again and get some pictures with the new camera. I love that I can make the water look soft.

Pretend this one isn't crooked. Just tilt your head a little to the right.

That's what we did this weekend. Now we are home and have a church hike today with a picnic/potluck/BBQ at our house following the hike.

And we have a busy week ahead of us. And I have a trip to Mexico!