Day 3: Pendelton, Blue Mountains & Joseph
We woke up around 8:00 to a warm day with blue skies. We had
made reservations the day before for the 9:30 amPendleton
Underground Tour. From our motel we walked up and down the main streets
that have a boardwalk-type sidewalk. The town is nice and clean. The tour
walks you through about a block underground Pendleton to show how the Chinese
railroad workers lived in the early 1900's, as well as the upstairs 'cozy
rooms' where a brothel was run for many years. 
Included in the tour were speakeasy rooms, a chinese laundry, jails, meat
market, opium room, living areas and much more. There are many tunnels underground
that go for miles in the Pendleton area was a major place where the Chinese
performed cheap labor for the railroads. The tour is well put together as
it takes you through rooms where gambling occurred and saloons during the
early 1900's. There were also secret doors to leave when police arrived. The
second part of the tour takes you upstairs to the old brothel of Madam Stella
Darby and the history of her life in Pendelton. The actual rooms have been
refurnished as they would of been in the 40's and stories are told about how
business was run. Sitting rooms, Madam's bedroom, a chapel, and girl's rooms
are just a places that people are able to see. The stories of the town's history
are just as interesting as what you see. The tour guide was very knowledgeable.
The tour took an hour and a half. We walked back to the motel that we stayed
at and ate early lunch across the street at Como's Italian Eatery. They had
good soup and sandwiches. The four of us were full on $20 and we still had
sandwiches left over for that night.
We left Pendleton at noon and drove SE on highway 84 as this takes you up
a steep pass that overlooks the Pendleton valley. We turned off on Diamond??????
Pass Road which had some nice views of the valley and mountain. This was the
road used before the highway was built. This road brought us back down the
hill onto a Indian reservation. The next town we went thru was Westonas when
we had turned north on 11, it was a small town with cute little houses. We
let the kids out to play in the park for a little while as there was nobody
else there. We continued north on 11 and decided to go to Milton-Freewater
which reminded us of California because of the walking overpasses that cross
the highway. There seemed to be quite a bit of farming in the area also. We
started back south and turned off on Upper Dry Creek Road. 
This
was a gravel road that takes you thru grassy pastures with views overlooking
the valley and eventually goes thru a forest area with old cabins and an occasional
a deer along the side of the road. We came back onto a paved highway 204 thru
the Blue Mountains, with a summit of 5380 ft. This area is used for skiing
and bobsledding during winter and is pretty quiet in the summer. It was pretty
quiet when we drove thru Tollgate withmany seasonal homes and chalets here.
We drove next to Elgin
which was a small quiet community that reminded us of Black Diamond back home
as it was surrounded by mountains and a logging operation on the outskirts
of town.
We drove thru Wallowa
County including the towns of Wallowa, Lostine and Enterprise before finally
reaching Joseph. 
Joseph is named after the Nez Perce Chief Joseph whose tribe has lived in
the area for centuries before White man found gold in the vicinity and started
reducing the Indian land rights and eventually putting them on reservations
in Idaho and Washington. The
Nez Perce Indians used to have tee pees along the Wallowa Lake and this
is where Chief Joseph was finally buried. There is a monument with his name
on it overlooking 
Wallowa
Lake. This is a large lake with lots of cabins, campsites, mini-golf, go-carts,
games and also the Wallowa Lake
Tramway that goes to the top of a mountain to overlook the lake. It was
4:30 when we arrived and took the 15 minute tram up to an altitude of 8200
ft. 
It was a clear sky and nice views from the tram. We didn't realize until we
got back down that the tram stops taking people up the mountain at 5 pm, although
you can stay as long as you like. At the top we went on several trails that
were slipppery because of wet snow and walking uphill. We weren't quite dressed
for the weather, as it was kind of chilly up here and we kept falling in the
snow. We saw some small ground squirrels and other small animals running along
the ground. We were up there for about 45 minutes before taking the tram back
down around 6:00. There were deer walking around the parking lot that people
were feeding out of hand. While in Joseph I talked to someone about the road
conditions in the Hell's Canyon region. They told me that one road was closed
for the summer because of repairs necessary after the road flooded earlier
this year. This would mean that we would go to Imnaha and then drive south
along the river in order to go south to Halfway. Hat
Point Rd was also closed which is a gravel road from Imnaha that gives
a view from the Hatpoint Lookout Tower.
Imnaha is a small community where the Imanha River runs into the Snake River
about twenty miles down the canyon. We took Lower Imnaha Rd which is gravel
and would go by private ranches that overlook the river . We saw deer grazing
in a field and also one walking along a ridge in the sunset. We couldn't see
much of the sunset because we were driving thru valleys much of the time with
high hills/mountains on either side of us. The scenery and isolation of this
area makes it easy to imagine what it might of been like in the late 1800's/early
1900's. This land once belonged to the Nez Perce Indians and they called this
trail which is now a gravel road the Nee-Me-Poo
Trail. This trail goes all the way down to the Snake River but we turned
around half way since it was 7:00 at night. I will come back here again earlier
in the day next time. We drove back to Imnaha and started on the Upper Imnaha
Rd that goes towards the southern part of Hell's
Canyon. It follows the Imnaha River. We saw lots of deer and many farms
and ranches. We finally pulled over next to the river around 9:30 to go to
sleep. We let the kids sleep in the back .
We drove 300 miles today & 750 total in three days.