John Day Fossil Beds

We awoke at Smith Rock and it had been a long night. I slept pretty well, but woke up a few times and could hear Zyla wheezing. This was not good because she had so many issues with her lungs anyway. Now she was sick and it was settling in. We pretty much made our mind up at that point that we were going to have to end our camping adventure early and head home after visiting John Day Fossil Beds. Zyla was still up for a trip to John Day, so we made it happen. We split tasks between packing up the tent and the car and getting breakfast ready. I drove the show, but eventually we were on the road. Our first destination was the Painted Hills. The drive out there was not bad as the snow was melting and the scenery was alive. The water was running swiftly through creeks that often probably did not have water. 

When we got to the Painted Hills unit, there were two hikes to do in the same area. First, we went to the overlook which was just a short trail. It had a nice view of colorful hills. It was the hike that everyone did. The other hike was across the road and not as many people did this one because it went uphill a lot. It was the Carroll Rim Trail. It was short also. That was sort of the theme for the day. We were going to do a lot of short hikes. We saw only a couple of other groups on this trail. The trail climbed uphill to the top of a butte and then dead ended. It was a nice view. We looked, sat on the benches which seemed to be a theme for this place, and then scampered on back down the trail. We were going to continue back on the road but instead had to backtrack to the bathrooms. There were like two public restrooms for everyone. 

It wasn't like this was a busy place, but there were people around. The next goal was the Painted Cove trail. This was probably my favorite. While short it had nice colors and a walkway. It was over really quick and soon we were on to the next short hike. This time we master the Leaf Hill Trailhead. Here the signs could tell us all about the fossils that we could not see. The last trail in the whole area was the Red Hill trail. This one was probably the most disappointing. What was my verdict? All of these trails were short and uninspiring. I thought that there might actually be some fossils, but not really. I am glad we did them, but probably one of those things only worth doing once. So we packed in the car again.

After a quick stop for lunch and a little time to throw the football, we were off on the road. It was a little over an hour drive to the next stop. This was the Sheep Unit of the park. Our goal was to hike Blue Basin, but it happened to be closed because of a rock slide. When they showed a picture of the rock slide, I was rather disappointed because it did not look like much. Instead, our only choice was to hike the Island in Time trail. This was an uphill hike through a canyon with a lot of bridges in the hot sun. We were enjoying the warm weather for the first time this year. The hiking was easy and the trail was in very good shape. Along the way, there were signs telling us about fossils in the area without there actually being fossils in the area. 

Zyla was getting worse and we knew that this was going to have to be our last hike of the day. There were other units of John Day that we were going to have to enjoy at a later date. She was a trooper, though, doing these hikes when she was feeling so cruddy. We made it to the end of the trail which was a nice view. There was a bench there and a sign to tell us that we were at the end of the trail. The goal of the hikes in John Day was to keep you on a very narrow path so that you did not explore. Not really my cup of tea. We headed back down the many bridges. When we got back to the car, we knew it was time to go home. Zyla was really struggling. In the following days, we would take her to the InstaCare and find out that she had RSV. The rest of our spring break was managing her symptoms. We even had a night where we took shifts staying up with her through the night. We watched her oxygen levels until we felt we had turned a corner. It was still nice to get out as a family on some hikes together over spring break, but in the future, we were definitely going to have to do more.