Wallowa Lake 2015: Part I

Today was my first day back at work. I had a 5 a.m. wake up for dance team and an all day meeting for the committee I am on. Summer is over.
 So we will have a look back at some carefree summer days..
Every year my husband's family goes to Wallowa lake for about a week.
This is only my third time going, and each time I fall more in love with our beautiful state!
It is about a 6 hour drive for us, and this year I decided to try to document some of the countryside we pass through on our way. Even though it is a long drive, it a beautiful one.
This first picture is only 1 minute out of town...I live in a beautiful place!

Joel loves it when I take picture of him when he is driving (obviously!)

He loves it even more when I take selfies! 

Actually he must not have noticed I was doing it, because usually he makes fun of me and then tries to photobomb it with his hand. Our back seat is packed to the brim.

The Columbia River Gorge.

Windmills.

Somewhere between La Grande and Wallowa.

We made it to our destination after dark, and we were greeted with a warm welcome from our identical twin nephews, (I got a hug, Joel got a Power Ranger roundhouse kick! haha) and then had to set up our brand new tent for the first time using our car headlights. That was fun...so no picture until the next morning!

Doughnuts from Vali's Alpine Restaurant are a tradition. They are pretty popular though, and this year they stopped taking orders early and we didn't get our order in time, so we had to try to get there early and wait in line to get donuts for 18 people...the line was out the door...

Well, we didn't get there early enough. There were about 8 doughnuts left when we got up to the counter, and we didn't want to be jerks and buy all of them when there were still people in line behind us so we bought a few and split them.

My half was delicious.

Next it was off to cowboy church. We got there half an hour late, but we didn't miss the sermon. It was a whole 5 minutes long. I thought maybe it was just a recap but apparently that was the whole thing!

Since half of a doughnut didn't quite fill us up, we decided to go to the Red Horse Cafe for breakfast.

We had coffee and split a huge breakfast burrito, and it was sooo yummy.

This was just MY half!

We walked around town and looked at some shops, and then decided to head back to the cabin to play some cribbage. I snapped this sad picture of the lake on our way back.

A little rainy and gloomy. No lake time today!

There's blue skies in the distance though...

Oregon is so beautiful!
Happy Monday.

Wallowa Lake Trip: Part II

During our trip we spent 2 full days out on the lake. We found a small rocky beach area and took it over. The water felt really good and those views are hard to beat! I spent my time floating, walking around in the water, and reading.

I did quite a bit a of reading, but it was a little hard to focus as you can see ;)

This was my little buddy. Both days we went he was back and forth in the rocks near where I was sitting.

This is where we ate dinner one night after spending the day at the lake. It is a brewery called Terminal Gravity. The brewery is just outside of Joseph in Enterprise. I was having too much fun that night to take any pictures :) I stole this one from the website. 

The next morning my husband and I went with a group to go hiking again. Two members from our group were going back packing in the Lostine Mountains for 2 nights, so we went to drop them off and then we hiked with them for a little ways. We started at the "Two Pan" trailhead. We didn't make it very far though because, it was a long drive to get there and we had to get back to the cabin in time to say goodbye to someone who was leaving early. It was still a pretty hike though, and it inspired me--backpacking through the Oregon wilderness is now on my bucket list!

The non-backpackers :)

The deer at Wallowa Lake are not shy at all. They are all over just lounging in the camp ground and walking through yards. And not just little ones like this, but ones with big antlers! One night on a walk we saw 2 with big antlers just sitting in the grass at the camp grounds. This little one was in our yard one evening. He walked right up to us. Don't worry we weren't really trying to feed it, we just held out the grass for a picture.

Our last full day there, we spent the day shopping and hanging out in town. There are some really adorable places to shop. I bought a scarf and some earrings at a cute shop called BeeCrowBee. They specialize in scented oils and candles and the like but they also have cute jewelry and clothing. I had to take this picture in the Copper Creek store because my niece had been asking questions about Big Foot all week. I told her that Big Foot was real, but he lived in Southern Oregon :)

There were pretty bronze statues throughout the town.

After sitting down to blog this, I really wish I had taken more pictures! It was really a nice trip and I can't wait to go back next summer. It is such a beautiful place and I had a nice time visiting with family and friends.
Until next time Wallowa Lake!

Happy Thursday!

Wallowa Lake Trip

Every summer my Brother-In-Law's in-laws spend a week at Wallowa Lake. This year we were able to go with them. Wallowa Lake is such a beautiful area of Oregon, it was a delightful trip and it was great to spend time with family and friends. I apologize in advance, I didn't do a great job of taking pictures of everything we did, and a I borrowed a few pictures from websites. This post only covers the first couple of days of our trip.

This is the cabin where we stayed. Since there is a large group of us, everyone sets up and camps in the yard, and only a couple of people stay in the cabin. It is a very cute cabin. I think one of my favorite parts of the vacation was waking up in the morning and drinking coffee and talking with everyone in the tiny kitchen.

This shows a little bit of the view behind the cabin. There is also a music camp near by, so at any given time during the day you can hear a dozen instruments playing scales. It's kind of funny to hear how the musicians progress over the week.

This adorable little restaurant makes delicious donuts. Our group ordered 2 dozen donuts (there were a lot of us!) for our Sunday morning breakfast at "Cowboy Church". I'm kicking myself for not taking more pictures as I explain this post! We were there at the tail end of the "Chief Joseph Days" and there is always a little church service at the Rodeo on Sunday morning at the end of the event. One of the main points of the sermon I remember was that if you are following God's Path, God will provide the things you need, so we should not worry. So true!

After cowboy church we all hung out in the little town of Joseph for a while. My husband and I stopped in this little place for some coffee. When we got there, the line was out the door and we could tell that it was a local favorite. We overheard a conversation between a guy sitting down and a couple in line who knew each other. The guy said "Yeah, I thought I head down to live the city life for a few days"...referring to Joseph as the "city", haha, crazy to think he must live way out in the wilderness most of the time! 

We sat outside on the deck to enjoy our coffee.

This was the view from our seats. My camera just doesn't do the views justice!

The next morning we went on short hike on the "Chief Joseph Trail", starting just a ways up the hill from our cabin.

Here's the part of our group that went on the hike (minus one dog that didn't make it in the picture hehe).

This was the view behind us in this picture. That's part of Wallowa Lake from way above!

The end of the hike led us to a Waterfall. We then hiked down a different way that led us back right back to the road behind our cabin. I love hiking, I wish we could have done more while we were there! I have more pictures and I will have to do another post with the rest of our trip.

Also, Sorry I've been spotty at posting lately! I've been trying as hard as I can to soak up every ounce of summer that is left! I have to go back to work in less than 2 weeks and football has already started up for my husband, so our summer is starting to go away! It makes me sad :( I know there's lot's to look forward to in the year to come, but I just love the gorgeous weather during the summer and getting to be outside all the time!

Happy Tuesday!