Goodbye Pendleton, Hello Dayville

Jill's Journal: We bid farewell to lovely Pendleton today.

Any town with a slogan like “Let’er Buck” is bound to be a good time. And it was. We loved it.

But all good things come to an end. Today we drove and drove and drove some more, over four mountains, through about seven different environments, all on extremely quiet country highways. The scenery was beautiful and highly varied.

Sometimes we saw lots of scenery like this.

Sometimes we saw lots of scenery similar to this.

And sometimes we saw this. Rob actually had to stop the truck and wait for this guy to mosey out of the middle of the road.

We’ve crossed the 45th parallel a few times in the last few weeks. Today there were literally no other cars (for the better part of three+ hours, we saw perhaps one vehicle going the opposite direction about every five miles), so it was easy to stop and just snap a picture!

There were so many cool old barns, all weather-beaten and full of character. This one is from 1883 and is still structurally sound. Eastern Oregon really is a hidden gem.

And then we found civilization. Well, sort of. I challenge anyone not from Oregon to find Dayville on a map! Heck, I suspect most people from Oregon would also have a hard time finding Dayville on a map.

It’s a little place. Real little. The official population at the last census was 138, to be exact. Total land area is .5 square miles. We’ve never stayed in a town so small. We’ve never stayed in an RV park so small either – there’s only six spots. We are loving it.

This is the big store in town. Clearly, getting a parking spot in front is not a problem.

We can only assume the “D” on this mountain stands for Dayville. Oh, what a fun place.