Painted Hills Trip

The boys and I were watching a show called Aerial America and discovered a place in central Oregon called the Painted Hills. I had lived in Oregon for years and had no idea it even existed! It looked amazing and I decided to take the boys to go see it in person. We made a stop at Multnomah Falls on our way.

  

We left the beautiful Gorge and headed into the desert.

We stopped in Fossil, Oregon to dig for some fossils behind the high school. How cool is that?! There is a shed with tools to use. It turned out to be a little tougher than I imagined, but we still managed to find a handful each.

 

From Fossil, we drove to our first stop of the Painted Hills tour. It was really amazing to suddenly see multi-colored hills. They seem so unreal, yet there they were.

  

At this first place we went, there were 4 or 5 places to pull off and walk along some trails to different view points. They were each amazing. It was super hot (around 100 degrees) so we weren't as energetic as usual.

close-up of the ground)

  

 

Day 2: Sheep Rock, Blue Basin, Cathedral Rock, Paleontology Center

We decided to get going as early as possible so it wouldn't me so hot on our walks. We stopped at a little pull-off to see these cool basalt pillars.

  

Roadkill

Sheep Rock: There is a historic farm here and I just kept thinking "What a beautiful place to set up a farm" 

snake!!

Next up was the Blue Basin. This was the longest "hike" we took. There is a 3.25 mile loop around which I think would be fun to do someday, but for this trip, we chose the 1.3 mile trail straight into the Basin.

 

There were a few places where there were fossil replicas to look at. It's so fascinating how much our earth has changed over time.

  

   

I think the trail went a little further, but the kids were melting, so we turned back to the car. At the point we stopped it just reminded me of a smaller, blue Grand Canyon. It was really beautiful.  

Cathedral Rock 

We went to the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center also. It was pretty cool. They had a big room with lots of fossils found in the area along with timelines and maps and such. It was pretty interesting. And it was air conditioned which was a welcome relief! 

It was definitely a worthwhile trip!