A Weekend in the Oregon Mountains

Every year at this time, there's a show in downtown Joseph, Oregon that is put on in conjunction with the Oregon Mountain Cruise. People come from all over for it, even though it rains and pours nearly every year. This was my first time going to the show, and Andy's first time having a car in the show.
We drove over with Aaron - it was his real maiden voyage for his 'T', so we followed him the whole way and could barely keep up with him! His car ran like a dream, although he complained of the minimal padding in his homemade seats. There was no overheating on the grueling Rattlesnake Grade, and that was a huge relief!
Forrest had reserved a cabin for us in Wallowa since we had a non-camper with us and hotels were booked up. It turned out to be a very nice place to stay - almost too nice! But we got to use the full kitchen to make some meals to cut down on eating out, and we played some frisbee in the yard with the friendly deer roaming around in the middle of the game!
It turns out that the deer in Wallowa are so tame, that Fish and Game have to paint the non-friendly ones with an orange stripe so you don't approach them like a domestic animal. Pretty ridiculous, huh? It was cool to see them up-close and completely comfortable in their environment though...Dottie decided to see how friendly they really were and ended up feeding one out of her hand for awhile.
We wandered around Wallowa a little and saw this old, deserted lodge. Forrest actually remembers staying in it when he was a kid and his family visited the area. Looks pretty haunted now!
We spent Friday night in the small town of Enterprise. Some car-buddies of ours live there and decided to throw an impromptu car show on their main street, so we showed up for that and had a good time! There was even a little rainbow to dress up the main street as the sun was going down. And, the restaurant there had live music that just happened to be this young kid (out of high school for a year) who played amazing piano and sang really well too. He played all sorts of classics and put on a good show. Needless to say, I was content.
On the way to the car show on Saturday morning, we pulled off the road so Aaron and Forrest could uncap their headers and make some noise rolling into the show. It turns out that we picked a beautiful place for this - I couldn't help but wander off and take some pictures!The show itself was quite good. There was some variety, even though the majority at this show tends to be realllly nice street rods with 'please don't touch' signs. We met some friendly people, and some famous people, and the rain held off until the afternoon!
Here's a sampling of cars in the show. The purple and silver truck on the grass actually belongs to the owner of a company called Chevs of the 40s. We were walking around the day before the show and stopped by to check it (and his wife's car next to it) out in an RV park along the road. He came over and talked to us for a good long while, opened up the whole thing and described every detail of it to us. Turns out that his company tries all products on their own vehicles before guaranteeing their performance to customers. If they fail, they don't sell the product. I was really impressed by that.
Here, I am having a lesson on painting methods...
And, here is the most exciting part of the whole weekend for Andy...
The guy with the mustache is Dennis Gage, from the My Classic Car television show. He was there to make a show about the show, and chose 3 cars to feature. When we rolled in - in fact, when we were still registering - he showed up with his crew and started talking to us. Forrest's car really caught his attention and he scheduled an interview with him for later in the afternoon! It will air on the show sometime next year. Look for our Buick in the background!Then, he posed with our group so we could say we'd met him. He's a very energetic and really personable guy. And, he shares another hobby of Andy's...when we were leaving town on Sunday morning, we passed him and his camera man walking up the road all suited up for backpacking! They were headed to a lake somewhere up in the mountains there to camp for 3 days.
Aaron left really early the morning after the show, and we opted to caravan back with Forrest. That turned out to be a good plan, as Aaron told us later that he drove back home in torrential rain.When we went, it was still a little rainy and a bit foggy in the valleys, and there were rocks all over the road! It felt like an obstacle course going thru the grade this time!But, driving in these cars was fun as always and we made it without any breakdowns...
...and came home to our first handful of sweet strawberries!