Fun in the Wallowas

I sometimes forget how very large Oregon is. We went to Wallowa Lake for the weekend and it is six hours away, so that is 12 hours of driving for about 18 hours of fun. Not the world's best trade, but we always wanted to get up that way. At first blush, it looks a lot like any other lake on Oregon. Although it is quite expensive ($13 to $20 per person) I recommend taking the Wallowa tramway, which takes you to the summit of Mt. Howard which has a few miles of hiking and stunning views of the Eagle Cap Wilderness. You can also hike in, but that isn't happening with smaller kids as the hikes are up to 12 miles with a couple thousand feet of elevation gain.

We also drove to Hell's Canyon, but a forest fire was obscuring most of the view. Bummer.

I would not have survived without XM radio. Among the treats served up were Blotto's I Wanna Be A Lifeguard, which I have not heard in ages. And I had forgotten Midnight Oil's Truganini as well, which is too crazy as that song is awesome.

While in Joseph, the main tourist town in the region, we hit Mad Mary's Soda Shop, which offers "Everything Fun and Fattening." I can't speak to the pastries or candies but the ice cream sodas were quite good. I was a little confused by the fact that they called a root beer and chocolate ice cream a Black Cow, as I had seen that as a Brown Cow. Mary's called coke and chocolate a brown cow. The wiki page says that there is not agreement on just which is which. Mary's also offered the Purple Cow which is grape juice and vanilla.