Journey to the Painted Hills

The magnificent Painted Hills of John Day National Monument in Wheeler County, Oregon.

Have you ever wanted to go someplace so badly you ignored all common sense and took drastic measures to get yourself there? I wish I approached flossing my teeth with the same ambition that I used to get myself to the Painted Hills of Oregon. And I might never have gotten to see the landscape you see above if it hadn't been for the chance encounter and the kindness and care of a perfect stranger named Skeeter. And it all started the day before I was due to hit the Painted Hills; the number one place on my list of places to see in 2019.

Below, you'll see a screenshot of the route I took on my first trip through the Pacific Northwest. The entire trip was planned based on a sudden dire need to see the Palouse Hills of Washington and the Painted Hills of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Oregon. And the rest of the trip really evolved from there. 

On the first day of my adventure, I flew to Seattle from Newark, New Jersey via Alaska Airlines, picked up a rental car at Dollar, and headed straight for Mount Rainier National Park. But heading straight for anywhere on one of my road trips usually consists of making four or nine stops along the way. One excellent sandwich from Mike's Community Cup, on the eastern outskirts of SeaTac, four scenic viewpoint stops, three babbling brooks, and one stroll through 4,000+ wildflowers later, I was finally entering Mount Rainier National Park. It was breathtaking; more beautiful than I could've imagined. 

It didn't take long to lose cell service. Fun, I thought. I secretly love when that happens while I'm traveling all alone. I know that scares you, Dad, but when I'm in a national park, there are tons of people and park rangers roaming around, so try not to worry. Losing cell service is cake, but losing GPS signal, well, let's just say it requires a bit of winging it and a certain level of resourcefulness and chill. 

No GPS signal in a national park is fine because they're very well-marked, and they give you handheld paper maps upon arrival. But trying to navigate out of the park and to your next destination 100+ miles away gets a bit more complicated. I'd say my first day in the Pacific Northwest was a day of many extraordinary sightings and much improvising on the fly, as is the first day of any good road trip.

While trying to find my way out of the park, I learned that there are a few different degrees of losing GPS signal. The first: suddenly, it looks like the road just ends on your map, but the digital arrow that is your vehicle is still navigating through the gridless abyss that is your phone's screen. When that happens, you'll usually still have the top bar telling you to keep heading straight for 9.1 miles. And what you'll need to do after that may or may not appear once those 9.1 miles are up. Either way, you should still have the bottom bar counting down the miles and minutes to your destination.

That form of having no GPS feels a bit like glamping compared to this next one. When you really can't pick up a signal, your phone will look a lot like photo #2 below. It'll say, "The Internet connection appears to be offline," and it won't direct you anywhere until you find better service. BUT, if you leave that screen open and if you can see where it is you're trying to go, on the map, that little blue dot that is you will start to move as you move. So if you can see where you are and which direction you need to go, you can follow along and direct yourself to your destination. And that's just what I did after a fun-filled day in Mount Rainier National Park. I turned right where it looked like I needed to turn right, I stayed straight until the next intersection appeared on my map and in real-time, and I navigated all the way into luxurious LTE territory. I was so proud of myself. All alone, in a state I'd never visited on a day, I flew for six hours and drove for five, half of which without a fully-functioning GPS. Victory was mine, right? Not quite.

Even with full cell service restored, I still wasn't able to navigate to my hotel. I couldn't open a website, calls and texts still weren't going through, and now the thrill of trying to find my way was being replaced by crankiness, hanger, and an overall aggravation that called for room service and a bubble bath. Because navigating my way out of the national park, through roads that had very few other roads intersecting, was somewhat easy, but trying to find my way through a city with dozens of side streets and traffic lights, was significantly more challenging. 

Eventually, I made it to the Hilton Garden Inn of Yakima. And the kindest man at the front desk picked up on my stress level right away and asked how he could help. I told him about my technological difficulties, and how I was concerned about getting to my next destination, and as luck would have it, this man used to be a Verizon Wireless technician. Honestly, what are the odds of that?

He explained that my phone basically didn't know where it was because of the change in time zones and putting it on airplane mode for my flight. In layman's terms, my phone was confused and needed to be turned off for a few, then turned back on again to wake up anew. It was the most simple, logical solution I'd never thought of, and it worked like a charm. I powered it off then on and eureka! I had a fully functioning phone again. At least until midway through the next day.

I woke up at 8 am, lugged my bags out to the car, ran back inside to make myself a quick do-it-yourself waffle, grabbed some butter and syrup containers to go, and ate it all with my hands while driving out of Washington State. This was slated to be my longest day of driving: 308 miles & 6 hours. It was the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument exploration day that I'd been dreaming about for months. And those Painted Hills were going to be the highlight of the whole trip. They were the biggest non-negotiable destination on my 3,427-mile itinerary. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING could keep me from getting there; not even the chance to feed grapes to Jon Hamm while he lay in a hammock in his Don Draper best.

So there I was, just roving along, enjoying the scenery, stopping here and there to marvel and snap shots of landscapes I'd never laid eyes on before. My GPS went out again about an hour into the drive, but I wasn't sweating it. I was a pro at this point. I followed the route I knew I needed to take, feeling comforted by the 36 pictures I'd taken of my detailed Google map the night before, just in case the intersections got a bit hairy. My plan was foolproof, I had maps and backup maps all on my phone, nothing could go wrong.

I stopped in a tiny town called Kimberly at the John Day River Trading Post to stretch my legs and stock up on snacks. At the register, I noticed they had a laminated map of the route to and through the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument districts. What a handy thing to have there! I took several pictures of it for safekeeping, paid for my goodies, then got back in the car. I put my phone back on its mount, went to unlock it to resume my follow-along GPS routine, and that's when I realized something was gravely wrong.

Remember that screen you saw back when you first pulled your iPhone out of it's glossy, white package? It said, "Hello" in every language? Well, that's what my phone was doing. Only a pop up appeared over the hellos that said, "Activation Required." My heart sank. What, in the name of all that is holy and unholy, just happened? I clicked the option to activate, and it told me that I needed to connect to WiFi in order to do so. My blood began to boil.

WiFi?! Seriously?! I was in a part of the country so remote that I hadn't seen a bar of cell service or a speck of GPS signal for hours; at least 100 miles. The thought of finding WiFi was comparable to trekking through the desert without so much as a drop of water in sight and looking for a lemonade stand that specifically serves blackberry infused lemonade with ample ice and twisty, rainbow-colored straws. If cell and GPS signals were out of the question, WiFi was really just laughable.

I tried turning my godforsaken phone off. I pressed every button, I yelled at it, I put it in my purse then pulled it back out again, I tried turning it off and yelling at it again, plugging and unplugging it into different chargers, but the damn thing just kept saying "Bienvenido, Hola, Konichiwa, 你好" and "Activation Required." Heart pounding, blood pressure rising, sweat beginning to pool under my pits, I decided to whip out my laptop. Maybe there was a house hidden somewhere I couldn't see, and maybe, just maybe, they had WiFi. I pressed that familiar, but distant signal on my laptop, but there wasn't a single network in sight. Obviously. I ran back into the Trading Post just to triple-check that they didn't have WiFi. And indeed they did not.

Wait a minute! How could I forget?! My stepdad gave me his spare phone to take on my trip, just in case! I can use that for GPS, right?! Wrong. His phone wasn't working either. I couldn't even use it for the follow-along GPS routine I'd grown so accustomed to. What about my iPod?! That thing gets texts! It's brand new, and it's got dozens of apps on it. One's got to be the Maps app, right? Wrong again. Well, it had one, but it also wasn't working.

So what else could I do other than keep heading in the same direction I'd been heading before? I knew that I was on the right road to the Sheep Rock district, and I also knew I'd eventually pass the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center, which was also a VISITOR CENTER! Genius! They must have WiFi! I'll be fine once I get there. Just kick back and cruise and enjoy being more unplugged and off the grid than I'd ever been before.

What felt like 60 miles later, turned out to really only be 17 miles later, Cant Ranch appeared on my left. I remembered seeing a mention of it on the NPS website. It was a historic home and museum. So, I pulled in to see if they might so happen to have WiFi or a map. Negative. Cant Ranch closed over an hour ago, and even though they had a little hut out front that held some literature, the pocket for the map brochures was the only empty one. My anger and frustration were beginning to transform into panic with a touch of terror. Not only did I not have a clue how to get to the Painted Hills, but I realized that I also didn't have a clue as to the location of my hotel. All I knew was that it was a Country Inn (Radisson) in a town called Prineville. That's it. No street address, no phone number, no gameplan as to how to find it. But the ranch was beautiful, and despite the fact that I was completely verklempt, to say the least, I still used my iPod to take a few pictures of the place.

I hopped back in my car, checked my phone once again in the vain hope that it had been struck by a miracle, but it hadn't. A few more miles down the road, I found the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center on the right. It was a huge building—had to have WiFi, no way it didn't have WiFi……it didn't have WiFi. I tried to curtail the New York intensity that was no doubt oozing from every one of my pores, but I could tell by the look on the sweet cashier's face that I was serving up way more energy than she'd ever experienced before. She was softly sympathetic, "Oh, gosh, that's somethin'…I'm not so sure where you'd find a signal out here. Let me get Ranger Tom and see if he can help."

A very young, very thin, very soft-spoken, friendly man came to my aid. With a can-do attitude and an optimistic smile, he asked, "What can I help you with?" It didn't take long for his smile to fade to a frown, "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry, that's…well ok, let's see what we can do. Oh, you said you're heading to Painted Hills, right? Well, I know they have WiFi over there. Their ranger station will be closed, but the WiFi's always on!" he ended on a chipper note. Slightly more optimistic, I replied, "Oh, that's amazing! Thank you so much! But the thing is…I actually need to type in the network name and password in order to unlock my phone. I can't just select a network and use it. I actually have to type in the name and password." With a smile and rainbows shooting out from his palms, Ranger Tom offered up the same solution, "Oh, but the WiFi is free! Anyone can log into it. No password needed."

Trying hard not to sound frustrated, I explained a few more times that I needed a network name and password in order to log into my phone, and eventually, he understood, "Gee that stinks. They close in about 15 minutes, and it'll take you over an hour to get there." Again, attempting to mask my frustration and panic and not be too overbearing, I asked, "Is there any way you could contact them and ask what the network name and password are?" 

"I think it's just Painted Hills, and I'm not sure if there is a password." He still wasn't quite getting it. "You see, but I need to know exactly what the names are… I'm so sorry to be such a pest… I'm gonna buy some stuff, I promise. I'm just wondering if there's any way we can phone them and ask if they know this information?" I couldn't believe he didn't think to offer this on his own, but maybe it was just my New York, solve-it, do-it, fix-it now mentality surfacing again. In an effort to silence my internal pandemonium, I took a few deep breaths, while Ranger Tom called the other station.

After two failed attempts to reach the rangers of the Painted Hills district, Ranger Tom very solemnly told me they might've already gone home for the day. He had the kind of facial expression a sympathetic, brotherly figure would have while telling poor little Edith Finkleheimer that quarterback Bobby wasn't going to be picking her up for the prom after all.

I could tell he genuinely did feel bad for me and really just didn't know how to help. Since he had a computer and working hardwire internet, I asked if he could look up the address and phone number of the hotel I was staying at so I could write those down on something that wouldn't require activation. Then I asked if he could show me using Google maps how I'd get to Painted Hills and my hotel in Prineville. Believe it or not, I still wasn't giving up on the hills at this point. Even if it meant getting stuck there and having to sleep in my car and eat it on the hotel fee, there was no way I was going through all this trouble and not seeing the Painted Hills.

While giving me this information and showing me my route on his screen, he pointed at a town called Mitchell. "Ya know, this little town just might be your one shot at WiFi, between here and the hills. It's a really small town…pretty much just one street, and it's off the main road you'll be driving on. If you blink, you could miss it, but someone there just might have WiFi." I laughed a little in my own head, at the thought of this, and just smiled, thanking him profusely for all of his help. I bought a postcard with a picture of Cant Ranch and a pin for the memories. I guess even in my exacerbated state, I somehow sensed that everything was going to be alright and that I was going to make my way to the Painted Hills and then my hotel. 

So back on The Journey Through Time Scenic Byway I went, well aware of the fact that I needed to head west when I hit the intersection of US-26. The ranger told me that the town of Mitchell was about 33 miles away. So I started counting from the first mile marker I saw. I wasn't even sure it was going to be worth stopping in Mitchell because the ranger's description wasn't the most promising, but once I saw the sign for the town's business district, my intuition pulled me down East Main Street.

The first thing I noticed was one of those classic, made-of-medal school signs. It said, "Mitchell School, Home of the Loggers," and in those stick-on letters, it announced that graduation would be held in the gym the very next day. But there was no school in sight. Just an empty parking lot and a little old jungle gym. (After my trip, through use of working WiFi, I learned that the Mitchell School does exist, it's just interestingly not located where the sign stands.) Further down the dusty street, there were more motorcycles than cars parked along the side of the road, with about a dozen wooden, saloon-style buildings that all appeared to be closed. Maybe because it was a Sunday? It seemed so desolate – I was waiting for a tumbleweed to blow by. Lots of vehicles around, but it didn't seem like anybody was home in the whole town. 

THEN I noticed a big, white, house with a light blue roof and blue-trimmed windows. An ornate trellis stood at the entry on the sidewalk, beside a white, criss-cross fence, and through it, I could see a collection of birdhouses and adorable figurines artfully arranged on tree stumps in front of a stately porch. There was a "For Sale" sign and an authentically vintage, once-probably-neon sign out front that said, "Oregon Hotel," I read it, and without more than 10 seconds of hesitation, I decided to try my luck.

I walked up the slightly creaky wooden steps, just a tad nervous, and let myself into a lovely, quaint space that felt like every floorboard, every lamp, every painting had many stories to tell. It was like being in a large living room that had been preserved in antiquity. It was so quiet, I feared that my audible breathing could disturb the peace.

There was no one at the front desk to the left of the entryway, but there was a closed, managerial-looking door beside it. Nervously, I decided to give a gentle, friendly knock, but before my knuckles could hit the wood a second time, a gang of dogs charged the door, barking, jumping, clawing, scratching. It sounded like there were at least four of them in there, and they sounded huge and terrifying. I jumped back with eyes wide open and hands clasped over my mouth to keep my heart from flying out. Where the hell was I, and who's door did I just knock on? Two voices quieted my mangey nemeses, and then a woman opened the door just enough to squeeze her petite self through. She shut the door quickly behind her.

"Can I help you?" she asked. She was pretty, she had bangs, wore her hair in a ponytail, and her aqua tank top really made her tan pop. She also might've been chewing gum and wearing gold jewelry, denim shorts, and flip-flops. "I am so so sorry to have disturbed your dogs…and you! So so sorry!" I genuinely felt awful. I clearly just interrupted a leisurely Sunday afternoon and some quality canine time—most definitely disturbing the peace—and now I was about to ask for a favor. The nerve of me!

"Oh, don't worry about it…what can we do for you?" she asked, trying not to appear as curious as she no doubt was. I'm guessing they weren't expecting any guests, and judging by my lack of luggage, I was most definitely unexpected company. "Well, ma'am—" "Oh, call me Skeeter," she said with a smile. I smiled back. "Well, Skeeter, I'm a bit…well, I'm in need of a bit of help finding my way…you see I'm having some technical difficulties with my cell phone and I can't …it won't…you wouldn't happen to have WiFi, would you?" "Mmhmm, I sure do," she replied so nonchalantly, without a clue as to what this meant for me or how she was saving my life, my day, the highlight of my trip!

"Oh my god, really?! Would it be ok if I tried to log into it? I just—" "Sure! The network is…" She went on to spell out the network name, and I went on to explain what had happened and how I'd also need the password in order to bring my phone back to life. I gingerly asked for that as well. I posed my questions as though I was asking her if she felt comfortable performing open-heart surgery on me quickly. I felt like such a major inconvenience. As though asking for her WiFi information was as bothersome as asking her to please run to the store and buy me a specific shape of pasta, then come back home and make a rich puttanesca only to tell her she forgot the anchovies and she'd need to run back and get them.

She spelled out the password, I typed it in, and it said "Invalid." My jittery, fat, little fingers must've slipped on a key. She assured me that it was the correct info. I entered it all one more time, and just like that, I had a fully-functional phone again! "Oh my god! Skeeter! I can't believe—you have no idea—oh my god, I could kiss you! Thank you so so so so so so so much!" Tears were welling up in my eyes, and Skeeter giggled, "Oh, it was nothing! I was happy to help!"

"And I appreciate it so much, but I don't think you realize how much you've helped me. How can I ever repay you??" I pleaded. "Oh, but you already have! You're so welcome, dear." I reached into my purse for my wallet. Unzipping it, she stopped me, "Oh no, no, you put that away." "Please, it's really the least I can do. You have no idea how much you've helped me. Turned my whole day around. I was so—please …it's not much, but please take it." She was laughing and refusing with eyes wide-open, shaking her head with arms crossed. "You put that away, I'm not taking your money."

She wouldn't take it, and man was I persistent. I offered her the only two twenties I had on me, and she continued to refuse. Then, I offered just one. She still refused. I pleaded with tears in my eyes, "Please! It's the least I can do." She turned me down. Her hotel had a for sale sign outside, and she simply would not take any money from me. "Lauren, stop it, you would've done the same for me. Put it away." She spoke like she knew me. Sternly, but almost laughingly, the way you'd tell your friend on her birthday if she tried to reach for the bill, "Get out of here with that! Your money's no good here." It was very cute.

My final plea: "Couldn't you just take it and put it towards the next person's bill?! Ooo yes, that's it! Say that some kind stranger stopped by and left some money towards their stay!" She laughed, "No, we're not doing that. I won't take it! Put it away." I just wanted to squeeze her and give her a pedicure or something. I was so overcome with gratitude and just desperately wanted to express it. I guess I did, but I still think of her and hope something really great happens for her. And then I hope something even better happens, and then I hope she'll accept the Christmas card I'm going to send her. I think I'll print the pictures I took of her hotel and put them in there. And I want to include a check, but Mitchell's such a small town, I wouldn't want her to go through the trouble of having to find a bank. What do you think?

Sending cash in the mail is so dicey. Maybe I'll just book a room at their hotel and tell her I wish I could actually be there in person to stay and thank her again, but it'll be at least another year or two before I can get back to Oregon. I really hope I can get there before they sell the place. Imagine that—I really had no mental plans of heading back to Oregon in the near future because I'm too caught up in wanting to explore more of the Midwest and the rest of the states I haven't been to yet, plus Norway and Easter Island and Egypt. But here I am daydreaming about a plan to get back there just so I can go back to Mitchell – a town I'd never planned on ending up in, to a hotel I was fated to find. All because it brings back such wonderful memories, feelings of achievement, simplicity, and home.

Plus, while I was on their website the other day, I read that you can prospect thundereggs (look them up they're the coolest things) in the Lucky Strike Mine, just minutes away from the Oregon Hotel. Not to mention, it's one of the only towns and only hotels between the magnificent districts of John Day National Monument. And please trust me when I say that seeing the Painted Hills of John Day National Monument was worth every ounce of struggle and frustration of that day and then some. It was one of the highlights of my trip. I hiked, I sat on a bench and gazed over those colorful layers of time. They're magnificent. Not to be missed. But I think they were even more special because of what I had to overcome to get to them.