Slice of the Road

Ah, our first full day in Wallowa!

After chatting with some friendly strangers yesterday evening, we decided to head on up to Hell's Canyon Overlook.  Our original plan (you know, the one we had before car troubles and road closures) had us exploring Hell's Canyon, so being able to view it via the overlooke had a certain appeal.

The drive up there was beautiful in and of itself, and consisted of many pulling-over-to-the-side-of-the-road-to-take-photos-moments:

(actually part of a failed panorama)

Oh look!  A rare photo of the two of us that does not involve Nathan scowling at his camera in the background, or the expanse of my arm reaching out to the lens...

recreate-ing SO HARD right now

There wasn't much actual hiking involved with any of this, so after we got back down out of the higher altitudes, I demanded that we go do a little hike near the campground that someone had mentioned the night before.  It was about 2.5 miles round-trip, and involved a waterfall, so it sounded pretty much perfect to me.

As it turned out, it went beyond the reasonable-expectation-of-perfect right into actually perfect, because we were the only ones on the trail.  And because we were the only ones on the trail, and knew that no one would be starting the hike so close to sunset, we let Isis be off-leash for the return trip.

my loves  (some of them)

She did quiet well, as it turned out: she alternated between walking between us and ranging ahead, but would wait when I gave her the command (which I only gave if she was getting out of sight).  It gives me great hope that someday, someday, she might actually be 100% reliable off-leash.  But not just yet... I feel strongly that a large part of her cooperation was due to being tired from the first half of the hike.  Knowing your dog's (or child's) limits is a large part of raising them properly, I suppose.

We came back into Joseph for dinner, and decided to try out a different brewery.  Mutiny was swankier for sure (in the way where I count local carving and photography as marks of swank), but delivered the same delicious food and friendly service.  I'm beginning to wonder if it's even possible to have a bad food experience in this town.