Our planned low-key day turned out to be one filled with learning and beautiful scenery.

While figuring out what to do yesterday, I remembered that the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was near Burns. The Refuge came to national attention during the now-famous occupation of the site by the Bundy family and their miscreant followers. We were curious what the refuge was really like, so we headed south to check it out.

The refuge is a gorgeous place, an area of ancient sea/lake beds surrounded by mountains. The damage done to the Refuge by the Bundy miscreants has largely been repaired. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to damage the great little museum on the grounds and we were treated to beautiful displays of birds that are found in/near the refuge. The sheer number of bird types was amazing. I’m posting a few images so everyone can get an idea of what the museum was like.

After wandering around the grounds for an hour or so, we wound up by a small lake at the edge of the visitor area. There were 4 people there who knew an amazing amount about birds in general and birds of the Refuge in particular. We talked with them for quite a while until the mosquitoes feeding on us got to be too much to handle.

Back on the main road we drove south to the village of Frenchglen. Quaint little town, one of the few towns in the vast eastern Oregon desert. Drove back to Burns and had dinner in a little family-owned Mexican restaurant. Nice ending to a low-key day.

We have the last event of #connectingus20 today at the Harney County Library. After the event, we are headed to Eugene for a radio interview about our trip with KLCC radio on Wednesday followed by a scheduled 4pm arrival in Newport that same day.

This is a bittersweet time for Sal and me, as this phase of the project winds down. It’s been a great adventure, made even better by the comments and encouragement we’ve received from our Facebook Friends, blog readers, and our library hosts. We truly appreciate you.

This day was a travel day from Idaho Falls, ID to Mountain Home, ID, a distance of just over 200 miles. Short day, into the hotel early, smooth sailing on low traffic roads.

Or so Sal and I thought. The only part that proved correct was the low traffic part.

It was raining lightly when we pulled out of Idaho Falls. It started raining a lot harder as we left the city limits. We drove in and out of rain for the next hour or so. Stopped in Arco, ID for a “pit stop” and a drive thru the nation’s first city powered by nuclear energy.

Rained off and on for the next two hours of so with a few sun breaks. Got to see some beautiful countryside when it wasn’t raining. We were moving toward a very large storm that looked like it was passing to the north and would be gone by the time we got to where it was. 

Wrong.

When we hit the edge of the storm it was raining so hard we could barely see the road ahead. It was in the mid-30s outside and we could see ice in the stuff hitting the windshield. A truck passed us with fresh snow on the windshield. I thought to myself “uh-oh, trouble ahead”.

A mile or so further and the rain turned to sleet/snow mix, rapidly accumulating on the road. The stuff hitting the windshield sounded like thousands of BBs. Couldn’t see more than 25 yards or so. Everyone in our lane slowed to about 25mph and cautiously maintained the distance between our vehicles. We drove in this for about 30 minutes. Trucks passing in the other lane threw up a heavy slushy spray that left us temporarily “blind”. We witnessed numerous lightning strikes before and during the storm, something unusual in a snow storm.

We slogged on thru the mess. As we reached the edge of the storm we also started rapidly losing altitude and before long emerged into bright sunshine.

This was our 3rd wicked storm on this trip. Hope it’s the last.
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Event in Mountain Home today, our next-to-last one.

Day 29: Event in Valentine, NE.
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We had our 8th event of the trip in Valentine, NE. In spite of cold, sleet, and rain, an enthusiastic group of artists came to our #connectingus20 event. This was the first library we put on our itinerary. Sal’s love of hearts made this an absolute must stop.

We started off as usual with connecting safety pins into chains. Our guests warmed quickly to the task and produced some nice chains for themselves, some of which made their way into the art created in the second part of the event. Sal explained what part 2 was about, adorning books as art. Our host Anna had pre-selected some great books on Nebraska history and culture for us, so our guests selected a book they liked and created a colorful theme around their book. The creativity shown by combining these simple material never ceases to amaze.
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Part 3 was the playful part of the event. Using her skills as a laughter coach it only took Sal a few minutes to have everyone dressing up and waving large bands of color around. Kimber volunteered to let the other guests cover her with cheesecloth. This is a new element in this part of the event we added after watching how much fun everyone had covering a volunteer at our Clyde, OH event. Kimber was patient while being covered in layer after layer of colorful cheesecloth. She put on quite a performance when it was time to exit her “cocoon” to the laughter of everyone. Great job, Kimber!

Thanks to Hedda from the artist’s group and to the team at the Valentine Public Library for promoting another successful event. And thanks to Janette for suggesting Coachlight Inn; their BLTs are yummy!

Off to Casper, WY today with a stop at Carhenge, a great find out of Atlas Obscura.

6,439 miles so far; 1700 or so to go. Back to long driving days in this sparsely populated part of the US.

Day 28: Travel day to Valentine, NE.

We left Cherokee mid-morning in pouring rain. We're on the fringes of the big storms going on in the Midwest. Fortunately, we're only getting the rain, not the brutal winds hitting the eastern half of Iowa.

Crossed into Nebraska about an hour after leaving Cherokee, still in the rain. Went from smooth 4-lane road to not-so-smooth 2-lane road. Not bad travel though, as traffic was light and moving at a good speed.

One of our travel aids is Bryan Farr's book "Historic US Route 20". I have a copy on my iPad and it's providing some interesting ideas for side trips and little "gems" we might have missed otherwise.

One of those gems is the Ashfall Fossil Beds near Orchard, NE. This 15-mile side trip took us 12 million years back in time to the days of a huge volcanic eruption in what is known as Idaho today. As the ash rolled in, it killed the animal life around a large watering hole, covering the bodies in ash and creating a rock casket around thousands of animals.

While on the site, we were fortunate to meet up with a student paleontologist, Colton, who explained the some of the fossils and talked about the one he and a partner found and how they excavated it. 

This was a great history and geology lesson in a place we least expected it. 

We arrived in Valentine, "The Heart City" in the late afternoon. We have an event at 12:30pm today, then off to do some more exploring in the area.

Day 22: Event in New Carlisle, IN. Short drive day for an early afternoon event.

Our event in New Carlisle was a different format than the ones we usually do. We were part of a Woman’s Day event at the New Carlisle Public Library, an event with about 15 participating organizations. Instead of a group who came for our entire 3-part event, individuals and small groups came past our table at random intervals over a 2-hour period for book adornment.

No safety pins this time; only cheesecloth and book art. We had about 25 ladies that adorned books during the event. We got some quizzical looks as we explained what we wanted them to do, but everyone got in the spirit and created yet another batch of amazing colorful art adorning the books. Sal kept busy talked about our project and guiding the book adornments while I performed my dutiful role as photographer and assistant project manager. The event lasted 2 hours and we were busy almost the whole time.

The library itself is a large, beautiful building that serves many constituencies. They offer a variety of programs and have broad public support, a true public service organization. They even have their own pair of guinea pigs. Thanks to Roanna for making this a fun and unusual opportunity to talk about our project and create new art.

Overnights Saturday and Sunday in South Bend, IN. I’m going to the Studebaker National Museum today for my last car museum while Sal Strom busily works on processing the art from New Carlisle. ​