June 7th - Work Train in Prineville

Dan's work had to send him away to a place called Prineville for a bit of training. Not because he was so lousy, but for him to obtain a new level of knowledge in... trees.

 

The drive always starts off early in the morning with a few drizzles and a rainbow. SO early, in fact, that I - yes, ME, Anna LEE had to drink coffee. Gross.

Once the grey clouds pissed off, we got a nice view.

Prineville, in my opinion is located in the middle of nowhere. It's flat, boring, and has no restaurants. NO restaurants, I tell you. I have to say that Dan was a super trooper for putting up with my 24-hour whinging. But in my defense, all the greasy food was turning my saliva into concentrated oil.

 

The weather was either too good (too hot), or too wet. There was really nothing to see. It was a small town, and probably never changed since the 90s.

I don't know what this was, but we saw this building with the horse sculptures. It looked like a Merrygoround for adults.

I did enjoy my diner experience. It was fun to pig out with Dan every morning.

 

Eventually Dan took me to the next town to get some Asian cuisine, where they use those green things called vegetables without serving them in a jar of oil.

Victory dance! We found a Vietnamese restaurant.

Oh my. So delicious.

Other examples of food we had in Prineville: Mexican

I didn't actually drink this, but felt compelled to take a photo.

Well, once my stomach decided it's suffered enough, it was time to leave Prineville.

It was a nice change of location from La Grande, but I really couldn't handle eating chunks of butter everyday.

Dan making a nice pillow castle at Best Western before our departure - they gave us plenty of pillows.

On our way BACK was what I really thought was beautiful -John Day Fossil Beds- If we had anything like that in New Zealand, people would make movies about it.

These are the beautiful Painted Hills

 

Painted Cove Nature Trail

    

Some photos of the unbelievable Blue Basin

 

 

The biologist that is Dan, told me what these animals were: Antelope (or "pronghorn"). He spotted this pair as we were driving. So we pulled over and took about 500 photos as they approached us. (Check out the calendar shot below - pretty good eh?)

 

And a dead one?

Once we got near home, we stopped to have lunch. And what better than Dairy Queen to clog up the intestines a bit more. And just look at how much bread came with my butter.

 

And the trip was over! Time for my hair to celebrate.