painted hills

How can I be sick of rainforests?  How spoiled am I?

Actually, I'm not sick of rainforests, beaches or mountains.  I was just ready for a change of scenery.  Oregon has such a wide variety of environments that it seems a shame not to visit all of them at least once.  This weekend, I decided to go with more of a desert feel.

I wanted to take a good three day vacation for a while now but especially before school started.  Arturo and I were originally talking about camping at Bagby Springs by Mt Hood but then he brought up the idea of the going to the John Day Fossil Beds which intrigued me.  A co-worker then verified that it was an awesome place and urged me to go so I did.

The John Day Fossil Beds are divided into three main sites.  Today, we drove out east and visited the first site, the Painted Hills.  They were pretty but also kind of boring.  There just wasn't a lot there besides uniquely colored hills.  However, the drive out there was fun and Ochoco National Forest, where we camped at, was also pretty and scenic.  It was odd too because there were cows in the forest and, unfortunately, hunters all around. 

We drove around the forest quite a bit, didn't like the camps that we saw and settled on a meadow with a unofficial campsite to the right of it.  It was perfect.  I like car camping because it allows you easy access to everything and you don't have to feel like dying before dark like I did last time we went out.  However, the coolest part and the whole reason for going out camping was the stars.  It was really all the scenery I needed to see.