We drove from the Big Bend BLM campground to a small town called Heppner, OR. I had not filled my tank when we left I-84 because it was only 150 miles into the tank and I could go another 300. Well we are lucky we had enough because the truck was at 35 miles estimated remaining when we pulled into the fuel station. Eastern Oregon has a lot of emptiness. We did see a flock of turkeys as we headed up through the mountains.
We did a bit of grocery shopping, so this stop killed our budget for the day. Oh well, we were still heading north back into Washington to visit the Whitman Mission NHS. We did manage to get photos of us crossing the borders. The last two were on freeways and right across a bridge so pics were not an option. Kathy cleaned up the images a bit since people have taken to defacing the signs with stickers.
The Whitman mission site was a location where some Christian missionaries set up to convert the local people, teach them farming and modern methods, and ended up being blamed for not being able to save locals from measles. The local tribe murdered Mr Whitman, his wife Clarissa, and 15 others. This incident started the Indian wars in Washington and ultimately opened the region up to the current day. We hiked around the site and found apples in the orchard and a flock of turkeys walking about. Lots of the signage at this site is negatively written and is a bit of a put off. Hopefully some updates will occur soon.
We headed back towards the Pasco area and grabbed a McDonald’s for dinner. We headed towards Hanford NHS to find a place to camp. The local park campground was closed for the season and we tried three other RV parks, which were more trailer parks. There is a lot of harvesting of apples in this area so I presume spots are filled due to that. We ended up at a Walmart/Home Depot for the night. That parking lot was a bit more active than we would have liked and only two other campers were there. It worked out though and we got a bit of sleep before the landscapers started at 6:30. I was able to get a new eyebolt at HD and some chorizo at Walmart.
The Hanford visitors center is the only early one we have visited. 7:30 it opened. However tours are only in Fri – Sun. Funny thing, we like to get stickers and postcards for souvenirs and they don’t sell them and referred us to a local bookstore around the corner…. Which opened at 11AM. So we made breakfast and hung out until 11. The remainder of the day is driving to the Coulee Damn and Lake Roosevelt.
Here are some additional photos from the last two days.
https://www.overlandadventureexcursions.com/photos-albums/nggallery/album/20250916-17-whitman-mission-and-hanford-nhs