Two Flat Day

I am a statistician.  While I am sometimes annoyed or pleasantly surprised by the rare event, I am also somewhat intrigued by the outliers of life.  I'm not sure if yesterday's events actually classify as outliers, though, as there is probably a strong correlation between flat tires and traveling in a full vehicle on bald tires over rocky roads.  At any rate my colleagues and I experienced the rare two-flat day while on a reconnisance trip for a grant collaboration at the Zumwalt Prairie Reserve in Wallowa County, OR.

Flat #1

Flat #2

Despite the two flat day, moods remained high.  Perhaps it was because we were at one of the most beautiful places in the West.  It was early spring, the mountains were full of snow, and the first wildflowers were blooming in the prairie.

Prairie Smoke

Larkspur

Bounded on the north by the Grand Ronde River canyon, the east by Hell's Canyon of the Snake River, the west by the Blue Mountains, and the south by the Wallowas, the Zumwalt Prairie is a distinct and geographically isolated remnant of the northern Rocky Mountain bunchgrass prairie system.  While some of the land was plowed at one point, the land has been primarily used for grazing and few true remnants of native prairie remain.  The Nature Conservancy purchased the Zumwalt Prairie in two parcels, and has made some progress restoring the landscape.

This is a depopulated landscape.  The Nez Perce--Nimi-ipuu--were the first inhabitants of the land.  This is the land of Chief Joseph.  After the 1877 war, the land was divided into 160 acre homestead parcels.  By the 1920s, over 30 rural schools served the area.  Then came the Depression, and Wallowa County never recovered.  To this day, unemployment and poverty remain high, and the rural schools have now been turned to bunkhouses for the Nature Conservancy volunteers.

If you can believe it, this farm had telephone access in the 30s, but today can be reached only by satellite phone.  Our cell phones were of little use when the first flat occurred, but that didn't matter.   It wasn't such a bad day at work after all, and it ended in the best possible way ever--at Terminal Gravity brew pub!     

Former school house

Barn at Summer Camp

 

Ground squirrel

Formerly a two-seater outhouse!

The "suicide" elk--found with his head in a pond!

Barn swallows

Elk herd on the horizon

Monuments placed by the Nez Perce and thought to be trail makers.