Day Six

Today was a good day. In fact, today was an excellent day. This was despite waking up at 5am and not being able to get back to sleep. It was our first day without travelling, so we could actually do some stuff.

As we are in a motel we had to head out for breakfast. Went here. https://www.oldtowncafejoseph.com/

It was very busy. We were lucky to arrive when we did as most people after us had to go away and come back later. Even then we had a long wait for food. Ann had granola, yoghurt and banana. I had two pancakes. Thought that would be manageable. When they arrived they were the size of my head. I struggled to get anywhere with them. Ann thought it would be funny to photograph me when I reached halfway.

The photo doesn't do it justice

I ended up giving in with a quarter of the plate to go. Just ridiculous. Whilst in there I saw a man with the most American face possible. Take every American man you have ever seen and merge their faces and you would get this bloke.

We then headed just up the road to Wallowa Lake. We had three things we wanted to do, but we only had time for two, so we had a choice to make.

We decided to bin off going up the mountain on the tramway and do the other two. First we went to the marina and hired a boat. Took it for a spin on the lake.

It started off ok, but got very hot very quickly. We melted a lot. I managed to get my feet in the water whilst still driving the boat, which at least cooled one part down. The lake and views were amazing. It did remind us of Dante's Peak again, the bit near the end where they cross the acidic lake in a boat that looks very similar to ours.

Non acidic lake

Once we got back to dry land we grabbed a drink and headed to our second activity, the Lake Wallowa Mini Golf Open Championship. The course was littered with wild animals watching on. I took a one shot lead on the first, but the pressure of the animals got to me as I took a 7 on the second hole. This gave Ann a four shot lead after just two holes. Going into the back nine she still had a substantial lead but gradually it started to slip.

Eventually, after seventeen nail biting holes, Ann took a 2 shot lead into the final hole. At this point even the assembled bears, mountain lions and goats could not have foreseen the controversy that was about to happen.

The final hole was a typical one where the ball disappears back to the hut when completed. Now picture the hole. A fairly flat start leading to a small ridge and beyond that three concentric circles of plastic on a slope, the middle one being the hole and the others having a gap near the bottom so the ball would return to the golfer if they missed.

Ann was up first. She hit the ball, it jumped over the ridge, missed all three circles and rolled back down the slope. However, the ball did not return back to her as we had thought would happen. It disappeared off and a recorded voice shouted dismay at her as she had missed the hole. I went to investigate and sure enough there was no way for the ball to come out after your first shot. So what did this mean? How many shots did that equal? It definitely wasn't one.

I stepped up. Gave the ball a whack, it leapt up the ridge, hit the back of the outer circle and the bounced back straight into the hole.

We looked at each other blankly. What did this mean? What were the final scores? Ann said she was happy to call it quits. Of course she was! By my calculations as she had missed all three circles that equated to a four and with me getting a hole in one, I would win by one stroke. I did, however, know better than to mention this, so an honourable draw was agreed upon.

We headed back to the motel for lunch, having more of the stuff we bought last night. Then we got ready for our next activity and headed out to here:

http://jbrailriders.com/

We arrived early to check in. The young guy who did so noticed we were from the UK. He said 'Whereabouts is that? I'm not good with geography, is it near Canada?'  Oh dear.

We waited a while, making sure we were sunscreened up and then we got put in our vehicle.

Railroad device

Basically this activity involved sitting in the contraption and pedalling along the old Joseph branch line. Six miles there and six miles back. It was 90 degrees. Going to be a hot one. Luckily we got put at the back of the group which meant we could go at our own speed. We also got told that the journey out was downhill and the return leg was uphill. Great!

Despite the fact we didn't pedal much on the first leg, by the time we reached halfway we were boiling hot as there was limited shade. The cars got turned around and this time we ended up third which meant we were going to have to keep a decent pace so the people behind wouldn't be annoyed at us. We took a lot of water with us and boy did we need it. It was bloody hard work pedalling six miles up hill in that heat.

We actually made very good time and were very consistent in our speed. We arrived back at the start a good ten minutes before the people behind us.

It was a fun thing to do, although we were a little disappointed with the journey itself. The scenery wasn't really spectacular (There is another route the company run further down the line which runs along the river and canyon) and we didn't see any wildlife either which is another of the selling points. We did see an osprey nest which was up a pole near the start.

Rather messy nest

We headed back quickly to the motel to die and have cold showers.

We couldn't be bothered with much after that. We got some more food from the shop and then collapsed in the room to eat it.

Ann is now asleep as ever. I wish I was.

Back to travelling tomorrow.

States visited - 5

Osprey watch - high