John Day

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One more weekend away and now we get to settle in here for a bit.  Last Friday we took the trailer out to the John Day Fossil Beds area of eastern Oregon.  The weather was nice, though a bit smoky from nearby controlled burns.  We camped right along the side of the John Day river.  Saturday we spent driving about the area looking at really cool rock formations, the Cant Ranch, and the visitor's center.  The ranch includes a museum about the early days of the area.  It was a sheep ranch, so a wool display was inevitable.  Interestingly, there was such animosity between the cattle ranchers and sheep ranchers of the area, that there were sheep killing groups!  The visitor's center, completed this summer, has wonderful exhibits of the representative fossils of the area.  Both kids enjoyed it a lot and Chloe decided to do the Junior Ranger program.  This is about the seventh one she's done, but the first time she got to wear a Ranger hat for the photo!

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Scrabble had a good time camping too and got really dirty.  He was exhausted by the end of the day!