Furlough and Fishing

John Day River at Spray, Oregon

Unfortunately, we entered another furlough.  The "good" news was that I had already planned a fall fishing trip.  This year, Cory and I headed to Spray, Oregon where I had learned there was a bar in a converted grain silo overlooking the John Day River that also served wood-fired pizza.  It was too much to resist and was located in a part of the state I hadn't been to before.  Even better yet, I had planned to stay at a campground right in the middle of town and they had lifted their fire restrictions.  Unfortunately, the weather wasn't supposed to be great.  In fact, on the day we left, it was pouring down rain and super windy which continued all the way east to Prineville.  At least after that, the rain tapered off and by the time we got to Spray, even little bits of sunshine were poking through.

We set up camp and as luck would have it, there were zero other people in the entire campground AND they had pulled the payment envelopes for the season, so we stayed for free!  And on the other side of town, the pizza and drinks were delicious.  And in super small towns like that, everyone is so friendly.  We got to chatting with several other folks and stayed for a couple hours before heading back to camp and lighting a fire for the evening.  Round about the time the rain started, we were ready to head to bed in our cars.  And because nobody else was around, we stashed all the gear that we wanted to be kept dry under the roof of a gazebo.

Ben's Bar (an old grain silo)