Mountain Cruise in Joseph, Oregon

I've never been to Wallowa Lake, so when the opportunity arose for Cris and I to attend the Mountain Cruise car event in Joseph, I was on board. Cris loaded our '32 Ford Three Window into the trailer and we followed our friends, Linda and Larry, with their trailer (containing a '57 Thunderbird) on the eight hour drive to the northeast corner of Oregon.

We drove into Joseph and immediately noticed all the bronze sculptures adorning every corner and tucked into the landscaping along the main street of town. These are real life-size sculptures! The blue, blue sky and lightly snow-dusted Wallowa Mountains in the background added to the beauty.

Once through the town, we found our home-way-from-home for the next five days with a driveway long enough for both of our trucks and trailers AND our two cars.

When we turned around, this was our view. Wallowa Lake straight ahead, mountains surrounding it, with the moraines along side.

Our rental house came with our very own buck! We actually had two sleeping each afternoon in the shade of the trees behind our house. The other one was camera-shy.

Friday we took a 14 minute tram ride up the side of the mountain and hiked the trails at the top (8200 feet elevation - we could notice some shortness of breath) The view was gorgeous! We were happy tram-riders.

That's Wallowa Lake in the at the bottom.

 Here is the explanation of the moraines we saw. Click on the picture to enlarge it so you can read it.

A new, curious friend posing for a picture.

The car show drew 250 cars from all around the area. The entire main street of town was blocked off for the 10am to 3pm event on Saturday. There were food vendors, Joseph's Saturday Market, and a live band along main street, in addition to the unique shops and restaurants open for business. Some of my favorites:

Well, I'm biased. But Cris won third place in the Hot Rod section! All entrants and attendees voted for their favorite, so it wasn't just me.

We took some time to stage a photo shoot down by the lake.

Sunday we took a rail ride. The unique railrider unit has four wheels that ride the rails, two recumbent adjustable seats, and pedals that propel the unit at your speed. Guess who was better at this than I was! The trip takes about 2 hours to complete, with the ride from Joseph to Enterprise requiring only easy pedaling. The return trip, however, had a 1.5% grade, which  required a little (no, a lot) more energy to pedal back to Joseph. This is the young couple ahead of us

  and this is our travel buddies bringing up the rear.

 This is the only picture I took of myself!

The old railroad from Joseph to Enterprise runs through lush farmland.

We even caught this llama's attention (sort of in the center.) I think it was our panting on the return trip!

A beautiful time in a beautiful place. We'll be back!