What a difference between east and west!

[BillieGlitter]

I just spent Friday and Saturday in Joseph, OR. I had not been back "over there" in 28 years. Having grown up in the south eastern corner of Washington, and spending every summer on Wallowa Lake for family vacations, I was shocked at how different it really is from the Portland area.

My friend was laughing at me constantly, because I kept squealing like a little girl when I would smell a field being burned, or hear one of those loud, incessant Cady's chirping madly. And when we drove up into the Wallowa National Forest for our hike and subsequent gun play, I was SO happy to see mule deer, and I scared him several times, gasping at the sight of little "groundchucks" as we called them...He almost lost me 3 times in the woods, as I would head from a cluster of Indian Paintbrush over to the delicate purple daisy looking flowers....

It is amazing, the things that you do not notice, because they are just so a part of the everyday landscape. My poor friend..he kept having to stop so I could take photos of silly things like cattle crossing barriers in the road, and the landlocked red fish swimming upstream. All the things that time had erased from my memory. Although I know I could never live in such a small place again, it was so wonderful to bask in my childhood for 36 hours. i plan to return, and bring my own kids, so they can see all of these things that charmed me as a little girl, and then again as a grown woman...

[Memphis]

I understand completely! Living here has given me a new found appreciation for the south and its nuances

[wayner]

Just read this, it also brings back memories. Wanna drive in the country?

[flopster_2005]

That part of Washington/Oregon is pretty nice. My family homesteaded there in the 1890s. My grandfather had about 250 acres of trees and 'worked the forest" falling trees and milling it for customers. My grandmother was the school teacher. Both my grandfather's and grandmother's families had large homesteads and held onto most of it through the 60s although no relatives own anything now that I know of...I don't have any close family living over there any more but I do have a few dozen relatives buried in the ground in a country cemetery. My brother and I were digging through old family pictures and found some great ones. One showed my dad and my uncle, age 6 and 5 respectively, wearing their overalls, cowboy hats and book bags, going to school on the first day in Sept. 1927. My dad is long gone but my uncle is hanging in there at age 91. There were also many pictures of life in those years-1910 to the 50s.

They mainly were in Anatone, WA but they spent a few years in Flora, OR.

I've been told that the area is a destination for fly fishing but, not being a fisherman, I only know what I read... Last time I was there was 1991 for my grandmother's funeral. She died just short of her 100th birthday..