In early May I had a couple of days off and the weather forecast called for a couple of really nice days! Having extreme cabin fever brought on by months in the Portland, Oregon gray skies, I pulled the camping gear out and headed for north central Oregon!
In spring, even in May, most Cascade camping is snow bound. So if you want to car camp, you have to look elsewhere. North Central Oregon has the Deschutes and John Day Rivers. The John Day begins way east and it’s a snow melt-fed flow. It courses through sleepy valleys and ranches before wending its way into the canyons and fossil beds of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. There are sections where the road passes right by the river – truly beautiful, especially in spring, when the valleys are still green, and the mountains are so brown you’d swear you were in the southwest.
I started in Arlington, where Oregon 19 winds south through wind swept agricultural areas and is home to thousands of wind turbines…
All along highway 19 you view wind turbines.
The turbines stretch out in every direction. It’s an area prone to constant wind, so this comes as no surprise.
It is comforting to me to know that sizable efforts are underway to tap clean sources for electricity!
There aren’t many people out there. It’s wide spaces of farms with not much in between. Instead of flat farmland like Kansas, it’s as if that same land has been upheaved everywhere. In the distance you can glimpse snowy cascade volcanoes Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, and Mount Adams.
The first town you pass through is Condon. I’d never heard of Condon, but its lonely place in this part of Oregon is palpable. Its downtown has a cowboy feel, but also a feeling as its best years are behind, and that it is falling further into decay. Somehow I found this appealing.
There were architecturally significant buildings – crafted in the days when a human hand’s touch added character. But many were in disrepair. 
Still, I found this refreshing.
I’ve spend some time in Sisters and Joseph, and once in Condon, those places seem so fake – very gentrified. There, outsiders moved in and upgraded everything. Where as Condon is nakedly left alone, as it was, the bare bones of its old West Heritage laid bare. In some ways it is sad, in others, attractive.
The town still sports a Hotel, plus some other trappings of a frontier town…
The next town I came across was Fossil.
Fossil, Oregon, is another sleepy town quietly nestled in the hills of the John Day region. There, I witnessed cowboys passing the time with downturned hats on the porch of one of the general stores.
In Fossil, I realized I was nearing the John Day River. I saw postings advertising services for river running like shuttle services!
You are now in river running country!
Cabin Fever Chronicles - Getting Outdoors with Rod 