Small Towns in Eastern Oregon

Thursday, May 22, 2014--Circular Trip Out of Baker City and Back

We decided to stay at our hotel another night in Baker City because it is a bargain (about 40% of the price of most of the other places where we have stayed), and because there seemed to be interesting places to explore in the area.  We fly back to San Antonio on Saturday, and we didn't want two more nights in Boise.  Therefore, we followed some back routes near here and returned at the end of the day.

We headed first to Medical Springs.  Today, it is really just a crossroads with an old hot springs pool and a hotel building that probably is used only as a private home.  While there, however, we took a loop road into the national forest there filled with tall pines and cedar trees.  We stopped at a lake and walked for a while.

Leaving Medical Springs, we passed the Catherine Creek State Park and turned back to hike on a trail there that took us up a mountain and back.  People were arriving at the park with their recreational vehicles and getting settled for a long camping weekend related to Memorial Day.

We drove onward to Union, OR, an interesting small town with nice older homes, lots of local businesses, and an unbelievably large old hotel.  We just drove through the downtown area and continued onward to Cove, OR, which has a warm springs pool.  Unfortunately, the gate to the pool said it is open only from 7:00-9:30 each morning, and it was already 11:00!!

Our final destination was La Grande, OR.  It's the largest town in the area--the main shopping city and the home of Eastern Oregon University.  We parked downtown and walked the streets looking at the types of businesses there.  I was surprised to find an old-fashioned, downtown J. C. Penney store--the kind with a main floor and a mezzanine.  I didn't know any of those existed anymore.  The only thing different from the similar stores I knew from Greenville, Commerce, and other towns in the area where I grew up is that this one did not have the pneumatic tubes to send the bills and cash up to the mezzanine for the cashier to handle and then send back the receipt and change in another tube container.

The movie theater was showing films we might have enjoyed seeing, but the first scheduled showings were around 16:00.  We considered staying and going to one, but as we explored the town further, we tired.  We went to the Eastern Oregon University campus, walked across it, and entered some of the buildings.  It's a peaceful, nice, and small campus.  Eventually, we gave up on waiting for a film and headed back to Baker City.  We will be staying in our room tonight and watching TV, I guess.