The Great Prairie Safari -- Day Thirteen

13 May 2013; Gooddale's Cut-Off --

Early morning viewing of "cute little creatures", including this Golden Mantle ground squirrel got the human denizens out of their warm sleeping bags and tent relatively early.

Leaving the Craters of the Moon National Monument, we drove along a wagon train route surveyed by a guy named Gooddale. A historical sign told that this route was explored as a cut-off, reducing the distance from a Snake River crossing near Pocatello to Farewell Bend by several days' travel. But mainly due to the Oregon-bound travelers' concerns over Indian raids and/or harassment along the Snake River route to the South. This route went along the North edge of the Craters of the Moon and over fairly high mountains; further West.

When the next meal was discussed [GGSon's I & II brought up the subject almost as soon as we had finished breakfast and were headed down the road] another beef steak was expressly desired by #I. Grumpy suggested Baker City, shortly after we cross the border into Oregon. That town being a "cowboy town", he opined that there would be better quality steaks than in a town in Idaho. After perusing the names of various restaurants listed by Greta Garmin, and driving though downtown Baker, Grumpy hinally directed the Chaufeur to pull into the Trail Cafe just off the freeway. GGSon I devoured a thick T-Bone, cooked "medium" (pink in the middle), complete with all the trimmings. Grumpy tried to keep up with his New York steak, but lost out with hardly a whimper. [How could that skinny little --uh, big kid surround such huge quantities of food??]

As we climbed the Blue Mountains from the East, dark clouds up ahead at first threatened, and later made good on that threat by drenching our "wagon" and motivating a discussion between the passengers about the wisdom of our planned stay in Emigrant Springs State Park for the night. Due to the increasingly heavy rain,  we cancelled our plans to camp out at Emigrant Springs and instead elected to spend our last night in a Super 8 in Pendleton. This motel had a swimming pool, much to the delight of the two boys. Instead of supper this night, they opted to "hit the pool".

They would have stayed until closing time (2200), but for the Queen Mother who called, "TIME!" at about 2030 so we could all get a good night's sleep in this most comfortable "camping ground".

Tomorrow will be the last day of the "Great Prairie Safari" and the last installment of this series. Don't miss it -- no telling what will happen!