Into the Twilight Zone

I'm cheating on my own blog. Maybe. It depends on your definition.

Some define a staycation as only taking day trips and sleeping at home.
Yet others define it as staying close to home or in your own country.

I'm going to allow myself this broader definition: day trips OR longer trips as long as we stay in Oregon.

Because I really want to go to Eastern Oregon.

Because there are Haunted Hotels. Ghost Towns. Abandoned Mines.

There's the bleak and beautiful landscape shaped by ancient volcanoes, glaciers and violent floods, marked by wagon wheel ruts of hopeful pioneers who sacrificed much to journey into the unknown.

Because it's "another dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity"
and  "a land of both shadow and substance".
We will truly take "a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination".

"Next Stop: the Twilight Zone!" (keep scrolling for day one)

Into the Twilight Zone, Day One

Heading up to the high desert and into the twilight zone.

How to prepare for a Twilight Zone trip to Eastern Oregon?
Watch all the Western episodes of course!

I especially enjoyed “Showdown with Rance McGrew” and "Mr. Denton on Doomsday".

On the first day's drive, we listened to Twilight Zone Radio Dramas on CD and some amazing music (suggested list at bottom of the page.)

A quick stop in Pendleton for dinner at the Prodigal Son Brewery seemed a natural choice. If time had allowed, we would have taken a tour of the mysterious Pendleton underground.

We arrived at our first destination, the historic hotel in Union, well after dark. Perfect.

We stepped into another world: vintage 20's music coming from the elegant dining room, 

antique furnishings, original murals contributed by a patron in the 30's.

The gracious proprietors have good reason to be so proud of their hard work restoring the Union Hotel.

We took a night time stroll through the town. With the colors stripped by the night, and the streets nearly empty, 

we felt like we had stepped into our own Twilight Zone narrative.

Somewhere at the end of town a cowboy was singing his heart out. His voice echoed off the empty brick buildings.

Just more photos...

Rosie guards my purse at the Union Hotel.

Suggested song list for your own Twilight Zone adventure (I did not use all of these, some are too "out there" for my husband):

Art Detail at the Prodigal Son Brewery
in Pendleton

• Twilight Zone: The Movie (suite) by Jerry Goldsmith, on "40 Years of Film Music"
• Actual scene music from the TV series! "The Twilight Zone: The Complete Scores of Bernard Herrmann" 
• Cello Concerto Farewell to Philosophy: (Bar 222) by Gavin Bryars. Moody, Gorgeous, spooky.
• Trumpet Concerto: II. Nocturne by Henri Tomasi, Lush, advanced harmonies, could be the soundtrack for a ghost story.
• The Planets, Op. 32, H. 125: VII. Neptune, The Mystic by Gustav Holst
• Cantus Arcticus Op 61 (Concerto for Birds and Orchestra) by E. Rautaavara
• Tree Line by Toru Takemitsu 
• Rothko Chapel 5th Movement by Morton Feldman 
• Mysterious Adventure by John Cage
• Lux Aeterna by György Ligeti
• Also check out: Hovhaness, Stravinsky, Mussorgsky

(keep scrolling for day two)

Day Three: Wandering the Back Roads, John Day Fossil Beds

"It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity."

Twilight Zone Opening Monologue, Season 1

Day Three Itinerary:

• Explore Baker City (and the "timeless" search for a good cup of coffee)
• Wander the back roads
• Go Rockhounding along the way
• Have a late lunch at the Dayville Cafe 
• Hike in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (Vast and Timeless)

Early Sunday Morning, Baker City was still asleep.

All around town there is evidence of restoration, and of civic pride

Historic buildings of brick or local stone.

The Lone Pine Cafe. If only we had been hungry! We watched the waitress bring tremendous

 breakfasts to the sidewalk tables outside our window. But the coffee was very good.

With a borrowed copy of Rockhounding Oregon, we set out to find one of the sites along the Old West Scenic Bikeway, CR20.
We settled on investigating Vinegar Creek, the second stop listed in the guide.
We tromped across the grass, hoping the rattlesnakes were all asleep!

The creek had some interesting rocks, and we played for a few minutes with my Dad's old rock picks. It would have been easy to spend a lot of time looking for "just one more", a common theme in Twilight Zone stories.

Dayville is next to the turn-off for the John Day Fossil Beds, and is home to the Dayville Cafe, well reviewed for its burgers, breakfasts and pies.

We were not disappointed!
They are closed Mon-Tues, so this was our only chance.
I don't think we were hungry again for about 24 hours.

We checked in to our quaint and cozy room at the Fish House Inn and drove to the Sheep Rock Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds.

What these pictures can't tell you is how utterly noiseless it was, all sounds hushed by the peaks.

We were there just before sundown, and the park was empty. 

Alone in a silent, lunar landscape,

Surrounded by this amazing strata of ancient geologic history, layers of sediment and ash.

(keep scrolling for day four)

Day Four: Wonders of Light and Shadow

It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, 

and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. 

Twilight Zone Opening Monologue, Season One

Day Four Itinerary:

• Find the John Day Picture Gorge Pictographs
• Explore the Painted Hills, one of the seven Wonders of Oregon
• Look for UFOs as we pass through Redmond
• Enjoy the scenery and ...
• A good conspiracy theory sci-fi audiobook as we return home

The sun was just coming up as we came to the place where the road
winds dramatically through Picture Gorge.

The friendly owner of the Fish House Inn told us the secret to viewing these pictographs. 

Then we popped in the audiobook we started the day before: 

The Men Who Stare at Goats. 

The book is not the same as the movie, my husband informed me. 

It's a fascinating account of the military's exploration of psychic powers. Plenty weird enough to fit in our Twilight Zone adventure.

It was all new to me, except the part about Art Bell back in the 90s. 

Art Bell's radio program "Coast to Coast" kept my husband awake during his graveyard shift back then, and he became one of Art's favorite faxers. We know this because we went to his book signing in Portland, and Art signed one of my husband's faxes to: "My Favorite Faxer". 

We were so caught up in the audiobook that we almost missed the tree. 

"STOP!" I yelled. "Turn back!"
"What? Why?" my husband asked.         Did I just see what I thought I saw?

Yes. Milepost 88 , US Highway 26

The Mitchell Shoe Tree

Finally we arrived at the Painted Hills.

Early morning is not the best lighting for the painted hills, but we were happy to be there.

So on through Redmond. 

Back in 1959 there was a famous UFO sighting, and as late as this August there have been more sightings near Redmond.

My own Mother, who was not a frivolous person, insisted she saw one once.

Sadly, we failed to find any UFOs.

But we did encounter these cheerful aliens.

Happy Trails!
(Click "Older Posts" to see the previous Staycation: Time Travel to the 1920s)