| Usually if I have anything in the morning on these trips it is just a cup of coffee and maybe a pastry or something at the hotel if they have it. Here I decided to eat at the Oregon Trail Restaurant. |
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| More of a diner really. It is attached to the Oregon Trail Motel very near where I stayed. I went with the 2 pancakes, 2 eggs, 2 bacon and 2 sausages that was on the sign out front. I also had a really disappointing cup of coffee. |
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| Another cloudless morning. |
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| Sumpter had a population of over 2000 in 1900. Nearby gold mines will tend to boom a town's population. |
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| It currently has around 200 residents, which is less than 10% of 1900 population but more than double what it was in the 1960's. |
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| I'll tell you what the sign says. The Bank of Sumpter was established in 1899 with a capital stock of $10,000.00. The first officers were A.P. Goss, president, and A.J. Goss, cashier. The bank was destroyed by fire on August 13, 1917 and the vault is all that remains. |
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| I didn't have it on my map when planning the trip, so I am not sure how I thought to drive further to the next town. |
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| Must have been a sign in Sumpter that pointed to... |
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| ...the town of Granite. |
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| Not entirely sure what this building used to be, but the sign on the front says it is now a museum. |
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| It is around 8:30 in the morning. None
of the few dozen residents are stirring. Granite was originally called Independence, but they had to change it because when they applied for a post office in 1876 they discovered there was already an Independence, Oregon. It's just this kind of exciting information you come to expect when looking at my holiday photos. |
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| There's something about those flat from facades on these old western buildings that I just like. The sign says assay office. |
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| On the route to the next stop I noticed another town along the road. |
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| This is Whitney. It was originally a lumber company town. |
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| The rails of the Sumpter Valley Railroad reached Whitney Valley in 1901. At one time, over 150 people called this town home. However, when the railroad was abandoned in 1947, so was the town. |
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| Another old barn in the middle of nowhere |
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 More beautiful open land with a mountainous backdrop. |
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| Prairie City is a proper town, with more than 800 people living there. |
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| Not a ghost town, but a bunch of old buildings on the main drag. |
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| This was, you guessed it, a Masonic Temple. |
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| I tried to follow a sign to an interpretive center, but once I made the turn at the sign and drove on, there were no more signs. So I just took this picture. |
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| And on the road to... |
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| ...Galena, Oregon. |
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| Not much here. The road just sort of goes through. |
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| Of course winding along a creek. |
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| It was always in and out of national forests. |
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| The third state of the trip. I had only been to Seattle, so this is part of Washington I had not seen before. |
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| Now who put that in the middle of the highway? |
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| It is farmland out here. |
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| This is Dayton, Washington. All small towns need a small theatre. This one has been around since 1921 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. |
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| The Columbia County Courthouse was restored in the 1980's and 1990's. |
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| As was the old railroad depot. |
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| A wind farm. |
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| Finally made it to Clarkston, Washington. My first thought planning the trip was to stay in Lewiston, Idaho, just across the Snake River, but hotels were cheaper on this side of the state line. |
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| Another good room. I've never had any problems with Best Western Plus. |
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| Dinner was at Rooster's. |
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| This sign is amusing. |
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| I had an acceptable buffalo chicken
sandwich. It was too hot to sit outside, so I had a table by the window with a view of the Snake River. |
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