Monthly Archives: June 1988

Mitchell, OR

camping
Gas station breakfast. The high for the day was only 75 F, because of heavy cloud cover.
Refilling water at the Bandit Springs Rest Area.
Ochoco Pass. An easy, gradual climb to get to it.
Debbie and Brian confirming our whereabouts. No GPS, only paper maps.
We hit Mitchell after just 5 hours.

The next day, we stopped at a city park in Mitchell, Oregon, where there was a very friendly welcome cat.

The Welcome Cat, friendliest of the 3 resident cats.
This was the Mitchell Community Park where we camped. If you look closely, you can see the Welcome Cat that showed us around the park.
The map said that the Oregon Hotel was a hostel, but it was defunct when we got there.

Showers were available in the laundromat for $1.50 each. No one was actually in the laundromat. The sign said to pay at the general store across the street. Well, everyone up to then had dealt straight with us, so we decided to deal straight with them. We each paid the required toll for the shower. At first, the tub was filthy, and there wasn’t really a door to the bathroom. Fortunately for me, the women took showers first, so the tub was clean and scrubbed by the time I got to it.

I thought the shower was okay, but Debbie thought they were dirty, so went across the street and actually bought cleaning products to scrub the shower. At her request, Brian stayed in the laundromat for security while she showered.

In the evening, we also got to meet Dennis and John, two students from UC Davis. Everyone was carefully deciding where to place their tents. We were all experienced enough to know that the worst place to pitch a tent is where there is lush green grass (because that’s where the sprinklers go on at 4 am in the morning.)

Lovely sunset with the Blueberry Cafe in the background, where we had both lunch and dinner.