It is March and with kids that means it is the time for Spring Break. Back in AZ that meant we would travel to our cabin up north, but we are in Idaho now and no cabin. ”B” still wanted to do something, the only issue was that I am teaching at 3 colleges and I didn’t give a spring break for my shortened SCC online class (no worries it was all online), one of the other colleges in Idaho had the same spring break and the other has spring break the following week. As a result I only had 4 days without an in person class where I could get away. We had to plan around that time frame. Also, “G” didn’t want to travel too far since she isn’t a big car trip person.
So, as a family we did a deep one night research dive and we found – Baker City, Oregon. It was only about 2 hours away and there was some nice places to eat and some nice looking hiking. We found a cute AirBnB just off Main Street and booked it. They had an optional Airstream in the back to hang out in or even sleep in (which the girls considered).
We headed out after school on Friday and got there and had a lovely Mexican dinner at El Erradero. The food was good and fair priced. The Sopaipilla dessert was not good, but our dinners were large and filling and tasty. Then over to the BnB and it was a small place with a basement. The wood floors creaked every time you walked just about anywhere in the place, but that was fine with us. We all got a place to sleep and we called it a night. Oh wait, it was pie day so we tried to find some pie and we did that at the grocery store (and we needed some groceries for the few days).
On Saturday we had breakfast and then headed into town. We stopped at a bakery called “Sweet Wife Baking” and picked up some baked goods. While there my department head from BSU was there with his wife and walked over and said hello. We chatted briefly and then went our separate ways. We then headed out to do a hike. We went to Dooley Point south of the town. We weren’t sure what to expect, and what happened was – snow! Lots of snow.
Here are a couple pictures of the car at the trailhead:
Needless to say we didn’t do that hike. Instead we walked along the road for a while and it was nice, but windy and cold. After that we loaded back up and headed back to town. We wandered around Main Street a bit. They have metal sculptures or animals along the street. WE popped in and out of a few stores. We went into the Cheese Fairy and got some fancy cheese (and tried a few others). Not my thing, but “A” and “B” loved it. We also got some truffles at another store that had a lot of random things in it. We decided to get pizza that night at Paizano’s Pizza. “A” and I got Strombolis. I liked mine, “A” didn’t care for hers. “B” got a pesto pizza and “G” got fried cheese ravioli. It was a classic US pizza place, and the food was fine. Nothing great. Afterwards we headed across the street to Inland Cafe and got really good pie (and “G” got a huckleberry milkshake). This was a greasy spoon diner and the people were very nice. That was it for that day.
Sunday it was supposed to rain all day so we headed to the National Historic Oregon Trail National Site just outside Baker City. We did some outside hiking around the area first because it wasn’t raining, but boy was it cold and windy. After walking a bunch outside we headed inside and ate lunch, the girls worked on Jr. Ranger booklets, and then we wandered the museum/information area. It was very informative. I am not much of a history person, but it was a good layout and presentation of what it was like to travel the Oregon Trail. Oh, and we bumped into my BSU department head again there. The girls completed their Jr. Ranger stuff and we got our first BLM (Bureau of Land Management) pins. After that we went to where there were original Oregon Trail wagon trails and were very unimpressed. You couldn’t really tell they were anything other than slightly less shrubby areas. Then back to the AirBnB before we went to dinner and the fancy hotel. This hotel was fancy looking and we all ordered nice food, but we were all somewhat unimpressed with it. It was overpriced and not that great. Oh well. Then back to AirBnB and had our truffles for dessert. And again, none of us were greatly impressed with them. They were fine, but nothing special.
Monday “B” and I had to get in some work so we did that on and off throughout the day. But we did find time to go back to Inland Cafe for breakfast. I had a Denver Omelette that was very good and the biscuit that came with it was amazing. “G” had cinnamon French toast and hard boiled eggs and that was tasty. “A” had a very good waffle with eggs and bacon. And “B” had two Huckleberry pancaked that were huge. They had to be the size of a 12” dinner plate easily, along with bacon and eggs. We all agreed it was very good, and while there we picked up more pie for dessert that evening. A little later we headed out on another hike at Phillips Lake. We thought that because it was a lot lower in elevation than Dooley Point that snow wouldn’t be an issue, but we were wrong. The snow was still there, but we decided to walk the trial anyways. We hiked for a round trip of 3.3 miles and all the girls had very cold and wet feet. Their hiking boots just weren’t cut out for it. My boots did a fine job, but they were certainly a little soaked through later in the day after the water worked its way through. I enjoyed the hike. It was pretty and it snowed on and off a couple times while we were hiking, and then the snow really hit just as we got back to the car (thank you God for that). I took my 35mm camera with me and it didn’t work all the time because it has a battery in it (it’s a Canon AE-1 program) and I think the battery was getting low and the cold was preventing it from working fully. It was work sometimes, but not others. Oh well. I think I got some ok pictures on my really old film; I’ll find out someday once I get through all the film. Dinner we had at the AirBnB and it wasn’t anything special. The pie was delicious.
The next morning we loaded up and headed back home. We grabbed some lunch and ice cream in town before headed back and that was nice. We got sandwiches and “B” and “A” also got soup. My sandwich was tasty but there wasn’t much meat on it. My ice cream also didn’t have much flavor. I was disappointed in the place. The drive was easy and all was good.
It was a nice spring break trip. Would I head back to Baker City? Maybe. It wasn’t great, but some of the food was good, and it isn’t that far away. “B” made a good find for something easy to do at the last minute.