We pay homage to Wally Byam

Today we drive to Baker City, Oregon, which happens to be the birthplace of Wally Byam, the founder of all things Airstream, including WBCCI – our Airstream club.  Wally pioneered caravanning in the 1950s.  Marcia and I bought our Airstream in 2005 and joined the club the same year.  We are heading now to our fifth major Airstream caravan, although we have completed many trips of shorter duration.  The club has become a great part of our lives.

Baker City is the largest town we’ve seen since Red Bluff, which doesn’t mean it is large, but it has charm. Highway 7 brings you down Main Street, with nice one- and two-story old buildings on a wide but not very busy street.  The striking exception is a nine-story structure built in 1929 as the Baker City Hotel, but as you may guess from the year, the timing was not fortuitous and it never lived up to local aspirations.  It is impressive and optimistic, with large terra-cotta eagles framing the street-level entrances, like a government building of some sort.

Wally Byam makes up one room in the town’s former natatorium (look it up), now principally a museum covering the Oregon Trail.  We say hello, bid our adieu, and continue our trek north.  Night is spent in the town of Elgin, at the HuNaHa RV Park; although a Friday and the end of June, we are one of maybe only three campers (one with Alaska plates) plus two sites of campground hosts.  We take site 21 as they call it the best, but the only difference we can see is that it is one of maybe a half-dozen that have picnic tables.  But a nice park, smart-alecky comments aside, next to a swift-moving creek with little litter.  

Town is closed so we stay “home” and have fried egg sandwiches for dinner.

Marcia seems to be enjoying the new iPad, doing the NYTimes crossword each day, and playing Words with Friends (a Scrabble-clone) with our son Kevin in Sacramento. 

We meet a very nice woman today cleaning the park’s restrooms.  She retired from a job as school custodian in Elgin, and now keeps the camp restrooms clean plus drives a school bus.   She owns a number of acres nearby.  The campground host, however, is seasonal, living in Arizona during the winters.  Even this late in the year some snow remains on the mountains bordering this beautiful valley.