It's nice to find things to do near Wallowa Lake when you're on vacation in Eastern Oregon. With Highway 39 closed near the junction of Highways 39 and Oregon 86, you can still reach most of the Wallowa Mountain Loop Road (Highway 39) from the Joseph Oregon side.
Even the
Bronze Antler Bed & Breakfast innkeepers get to enjoy the sights around here every now and then! Bill & I recently drove out to Harl Butte off of Highway 39. There's an historic fire lookout there. When we arrived we were surprised to find not only the historic building but an individual manning the lookout as well. From his vantage point he could see into the Imnaha River drainage, plus from his location you could see the fire lookout tower at
Hat Point and across Hells Canyon into Idaho.
What impressed us most was the hand-stacked volcanic rock wall surround the lookout site (he told us a previous lookout had spent 10 summers erecting the wall). Someone obviously had a lot of time on his hands in between watching for lightning strikes and monitoring fires in Northeastern Oregon and across Hells Canyon in Idaho!
Harl Butte is about 1 1/2 hours from Wallowa Lake. When planning your Eastern Oregon vacation, consider adding it as an out-of-the-way place for vast beauty. We keep maps here at our
Eastern Oregon lodging to get you there and back again. Hope to see you soon!
So here we are at the end of May 2010 and the Hells Canyon Scenic Byway is now unofficially open! Checked with the Forest Service this week and, although there are parts of the road that are down to one lane because of snow, the road between Joseph and Hells Canyon is passable. What a relief!
My contact at the Forest Service tells me that the road will be officially open once the snow is all melted and any rocks and debris are cleared from the road (which will be soon). So, if you've wanted to know about Highway 39, or the Wallowa Mountain Loop Road, or the Hells Canyon Scenic Byway (all the same places)--the answer is yes!
This photo was taken in July 2009 at Hat Point and you get the idea of the abundance of wildflowers in the area. It's a little early yet, but the flowers are coming soon too!
If you're looking for some Hells Canyon lodging along the way, our Eastern Oregon bed and breakfast is right along the Hells Canyon Scenic Byway. We're not the most convenient to Hells Canyon Dam (about 2:45 hours from the dam), but we're about 2 hours from scenic
Hat Point in Hells Canyon and less than 2 hours from the
Hells Canyon Overlook. Not much is convenient in the way of Hells Canyon lodging, but Joseph Oregon is a good jumping-off point!
We've noticed that sometimes our blog is found by people searching for "Things to do in Joseph Oregon" so we thought we'd write about things to see and do here. The
Chief Joseph Days Rodeo always takes place during the days leading up to the last full weekend in July and the last weekend.
Even if you're not a big rodeo fan, there's plenty to do in Joseph Oregon during rodeo week. It's a gala time--all the shops, restaurants & galleries on Main Street Joseph Oregon are open and decorated for the event. This year there'll even be a carnival set up (just not quite sure where yet). And then there's the Chief Joseph Days parade on Saturday--lots of pageantry, horses, musical groups and a bit of humor. . .
On Tuesday afternoon, the bucking broncs will "stampede" (really, it's a controlled trot) down Main Street heading for the rodeo grounds. Nightly rodeo performances will take place Wednesday through Saturday nights. With
tickets priced at $12 to $18 most anyone can attend and see one of the best small town outdoor rodeos in the Pacific Northwest.
If you're still planning your Eastern Oregon vacation for the summer, think about visiting Joseph Oregon during rodeo week. We still have two rooms open at the
Bronze Antler Bed & Breakfast over the weekend of rooms available during the week.
It's time again for the
Oregon Mountain Cruise--the Joseph Oregon Classic Car Show that happens every second weekend of June!
This year's show is June 11-12, 2010, on Main Street in downtown Joseph Oregon. As you can guess by the snazzy purple VW bus, this year's theme is "Tune Up, Turn On and Cruise In"--including a 60s dress contest.
Our
Joseph Oregon bed and breakfast is long sold out for the event. Our guest list for the weekend includes returning guests Bill & Marcy Holton of
Holton Secret Lab. We
blogged about them last year. Bill's got some great cars and Marcy's gotten fond of posting car restorations on YouTube. Here's one from a recent visit with a local Tri-Cities, WA, television station:
Hope to see you at the Cruise with your love beads. We'll be there in our tie dye T-shirts. Oh, and call us to be on our waiting list for the weekend. You just might get lucky.
It's funny how people start looking for Joseph Oregon hotels and wind up at the Bronze Antler Bed & Breakfast. This week we've hosted two artists who are visiting Joseph Oregon regularly.
Denny Boone is currently working with the
Valley Bronze Foundry on his bronze sculptures. Denny and Mari have stayed in at least five different lodging accommodations in and around Joseph Oregon, and they've finally found their "home away from home" (so Mari says).
We'll see them again in a couple of months when Denny's bronzes reach their next stage of production that needs his hands on input. We're hoping to see the finished bronze of this current work, "Rollin" (pictured at left).
Denny and Mari stayed in the
Mirror Lake Suite. Of all our rooms, this suite comes closest to a boutique hotel in terms of its amenities. Needless to say they've reserved the same room for their return visit. No Joseph Oregon hotels in this town, but the Mirror Lake Suite will definitely work!
We enjoy hosting artists here in our Joseph bed and breakfast. It's fun to talk with them about their art and, for the bronze artists in particular, to see their work move from clay or wood to finished bronze sculptures. See ya soon, Denny & Mari!
So, by now you're probably planning your Eastern Oregon vacation for the summer. If you like to hike, then basing yourself from Joseph Oregon can be a good compromise if someone in your party likes the creature comforts.
Here's a 2008 video of a couple hiking into Ice Lake. This hike is a long one-day hike (7.7 miles each way from the Wallowa Lake trailhead), but we've had some guests here at the Bronze Antler Bed & Breakfast that did the hike in one day and even took an hour at the top to read a book and enjoy the sunshine!
If you'd like more information for planning your hiking vacation, we suggest getting a copy of Fred Barstad's
Hiking Oregon's Eagle Cap Wilderness as a good start. Fred's trail descriptions, drawings and diagrams are very good.
And if you're looking for a place to stay in Joseph Oregon with plenty of creature comforts, we've plenty of room on our availability calendar for your summertime hiking adventures. You can use the buttons at the right of the blog page to link to our calendar. See you on the trail!
You just never know who will walk through the door when you own a bed and breakfast. This week Joachim Becker, president of
Zoho Music in New York, graced our little Hells Canyon lodging with his presence.
Joachim was on his way to Portland and decided to see a little of our fantastic Eastern Oregon countryside on his way. I wish we could've gotten him the spectacular view of
Hells Canyon from Hat Point but the road is still snowed in. Just a good excuse for another visit to our Hells Canyon lodging in the summer or fall when the road is open.
Zoho Music is about to release a tribute compilation of music written by Oklahoma-born songwriter, singer and guitarist JJ Cale. Watch for
"Tribute to JJ Cale, Volume 1: The Vocal Sessions" on June 10, 2010. Joachim was kind enough to leave an advance copy with us and with our other guests. The liner notes are clear, concise, and reveal a lot about JJ Cale as well as all the wonderful musicians appearing on this release.
We wished Joachim well on his drive to Portland, then loaded the CD for kitchen cleaning duty. With a variety of artists contributing to this CD from Swamp Cabbage to The Persuasions to Greg Skaff & Jimmy Hall among others, it's just the ticket for a voyage through classic American roots music! Thank you, Joachim!
The announcement we've all been waiting for:
Mutiny Brewing Company in Joseph Oregon is brewing beer! Just last Sunday, April 18, 2010, the Facebook post appeared,
"Mutiny is brewing"
It looks like the release party is scheduled for the second weekend in May--Mother's Day Weekend. It's the same weekend as the Joseph Gallery Walk, so there'll be lots to see and do in this little Eastern Oregon vacation spot in a couple of weeks.
Congratulations, Kari! This
Joseph Oregon bed and breakfast already knows what great food your restaurant serves up for our guests. And adding your own beer will be icing on the cake!
This morning I served breakfast for two. Our guests are taking an early Spring Eastern Oregon vacation and enjoying the slower pace at this time of year. Over their vegetarian breakfast (today consisting of cream sherry soaked orange slices sprinkled with unsweeted dried coconut, local farm-raised eggs, sauteed apples & onions, tomatoes marinated in balsamic vinegar, and Morningstar Farms breakfast patties), we talked about ginger.
Turns out she loves ginger and he enjoys it too. So, I pulled out my favorite products from
The Ginger People. She hadn't heard of this company before and was enthused to know they make such a variety of ginger products. I have a feeling the Ginger Juice and Ginger Syrup will probably be on the breakfast table tomorrow with the whole wheat waffles.
I sent them off to hike along the Imnaha River well below the snow line still very obvious here in the Wallowa Mountains. They have a few
Ginger Chews from The Ginger People in their pockets. These particular chews are the Hot Coffee variety. I typically don't leave these chews out for the guests because they are an acquired taste, but it's fun to share them with guests that enjoy both ginger and coffee!
We love delighting our guests with a little of the unusual. If an Eastern Oregon bed and breakfast is part of your travel plans this year, our Bronze Antler Bed & Breakfast might supply a little of the unusual for you!
I recently discovered
Urban Spoon and found out that I can probably link my blog posts that are restaurant reviews if I include the Urban Spoon symbol in the post. So, this is a repeat of a January 2010
blog post about
Mutiny Brewing Company in Joseph, OR, but with the Urban Spoon symbol. Let's see how long it takes this blog post migrate to the Mutiny Brewing Company listing on Urban Spoon. . .
Ah, it's wonderful to be back in Joseph Oregon again! Last night Bill & I walked downtown to the
Mutiny Brewing Company for a quiet little dinner and to check out the
new winter menu. As always our question: Is Mutiny Brewing Company closer to brewing its own beer?
Our attentive server Moses assured us that Kari plans to start brewing beer
next week. If that's the case, then our Joseph Oregon microbrewery should be serving by the end of January 2010! We'll keep watch and continue to report.
As for dinner, the Tasty Rice Bowl was definitely that--black beans and avocados floating in a dollop of sauce with a lot of peppery punch! And Bill's Asian Chicken Salad was as savory and delicious as usual. The special
Barley Mushroom Soup with Beef was definitely the show stopper--savory, hot, and just what you need on a winter night in Joseph Oregon. And Mutiny Brewing Company has a
fan page on Facebook where the specials are posted.
Keep it up, Kari! Our bed and breakfast guests are anxiously awaiting the new Mutiny Brewing Company beer!
The
Wallowa Valley Festival of Arts takes place every year during the first weekend of June. It's a juried fine art show and brings in artists from all over, especially the Pacific Northwest art community. It's also the kickoff event for a great summer in Joseph Oregon and Wallowa County!
This year's dates: Friday-Sunday, June 4-6, 2010.
Location: Joseph Oregon Community Center
The entry season for artists is currently underway and the Wallowa Valley Festival of Arts directors committee is posting about the artists on the Festival's page on
Facebook.
This event is the Eastern Oregon premier fine art festival. It starts with a fun wine & hors d'oeuvres Artists Reception on Friday night. It's the public opportunity to meet many of the exhibiting artists, the judge and Featured Artist, the top award winners, and first public viewing of the art entered in the show.
An "
En Plein Air" event where the public can watch artists working in various locations throughout Wallowa County is still in the planning stages but will be announced soon (and here on this blog too).
On Saturday night, June 5th, a Quick Draw event will be held somewhere in Joseph Oregon (location to be determined at this point). It's a lot of fun to watch the artists work on the spot.
All the art entered in the Festival is available for sale plus there's a silent auction throughout the weekend that closes on Sunday afternoon.
The Festival of Arts is walking distance (2 blocks) from the Bronze Antler Bed and Breakfast. We have plenty of room available for the weekend. Give us a call soonest or click the link at right and reserve your room before they're all taken!
What a night for a Pub Talk! Last night, the
Oregon Entrepreneurs Network hosted one of their trade-marked Pub Talk programs at Mutinty Brewing Company in Joseph, OR. The theme was "
Marketing from the Ground Up" and three of us local businesses were invited to present about some aspects of our marketing.
Paul Arentsen of
Winding Waters River Expeditions talked about how his company uses Picasa to post pictures from his river trips and to encourage clients to share pictures and experiences from their trips among themselves. Winding Waters also keeps two blogs: a very important
Fishing Report and another "fun" one called
The Gearboat Chronicles, written by one of the river guides, with a good dose of tongue-in-cheek humor.
Kari Gjerdingen, owner of
Mutiny Brewing Company, talked about her use of
Facebook and Twitter for her restaurant. She makes a point of posting the restaurant's specials on a regular basis--good for us when we want to send our guests there for a lunch or dinner. Of course, we all wanted to know when the beer will be available. The new forecast: about the middle of April 2010.
And of course I talked about blogging for our business here at the
Bronze Antler Bed & Breakfast. I pulled a few statistics about our blog--it's amazing how many people want to know whether or not Highway 39 is open through Hells Canyon, or what's going on for Chief Joseph Days Rodeo!
One of the things I found so interesting too is how well the three businesses fit together. For example, if you're planning a visit to Joseph Oregon or an Eastern Oregon vacation, you're going to need a place to stay, somewhere to eat, and something to do. Between our three businesses, we've got you covered!
If you're thinking about taking Highway 39, keep thinking. . .this road connects the Oxbow and Brownlee Dam in Hells Canyon to Enterprise and Joseph Oregon. Some people know it as the Wallowa Mountain Loop Road. Or Forest Road 39. Or the road from Joseph OR to Halfway OR. Or even the Hells Canyon Scenic Byway.
Anyway you look at it, this road is
seasonal and typically doesn't open until sometime in May or even June. It all depends on the snow and how soon it melts.
Put this note on your to do list under Joseph Oregon Vacation or Eastern Oregon Vacation:
Call the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest Service Visitor Center at
541-426-4978 (ext 0) Bookmark this page:
http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/w-w/conditions/index.shtmlThese are the folks responsible for the road opening and closure and will have the most current official information.
In the meantime, we're happy to help you plan your Hells Canyon to Joseph Oregon trip. Just hang on a little longer before taking Highway 39 unless you've got your snowmobile!
It's not too early to think about what to do in Joseph, OR in August 2010. The 14th Annual
Bronze, Brews & Blues Festival will take place on Saturday, August 14th at the Joseph City Park.
As we have every year that the Bronze Antler Bed & Breakfast has been open, we're helping sponsor this year's festival. Professional media photographer Dean Davis of
Dean Davis Photography in Spokane, WA, will once again emcee this year's festival. Dean and his wife have stayed with us every year since 2001!
If you
still need lodging for the event, we have
one room left at our Joseph bed and breakfast. Don't bother looking for the Joseph Oregon hotels (there aren't any), but staying in the
Sawtooth Mountain Room would be as good as staying in any Joseph Oregon hotels. And our bed and breakfast is
walking distance (that's one block) to the Joseph City Park, site of the Bronze, Blues & Brews Festival.
It doesn't get more convenient than this!Give us a call toll-free at 866-520-9769 or click on the links at right to book your room for the Bronze Blues and Brews Festival today!
We just love setting the scene for couples to
reconnect. These days with so much input coming from all directions, it's nice to
step away with the one you love and just be yourselves.
Another romantic getaway Oregon style recently occurred here at our Joseph bed and breakfast. Our guests this time live only about two hours away, so a 2-day trip to Joseph Oregon was not a major investment of time and money, nor did they endure hours upon hours in the car to arrive at a picture perfect gorgeous place--Wallowa County with the Wallowa Mountains as the scenic backdrop.
Here's what they wrote in the Mirror Lake Suite's room journal:
"Bill & Heather,
Thank you so much for giving us probably the most relaxing and enjoyable weekend we have had in a very long time. Not only did you take care of all our needs, you treated us like extended family! The room was even more wonderful than we expected and every time we entered the bathroom it was like a little adventure. I am sure we will be back in the future."
I guess they're referring to the
steam shower, or maybe the
pipeless jetted tub, or perhaps even the
Neorest toilet/bidet with its remote control. Who knows? Regardless, they enjoyed their stay here with us and we certainly enjoyed facilitating their together time.
If you're thinking about a reconnecting weekend or stealing a couple of days midweek from your busy schedule, give us a call toll-free at
866-520-9769 and we can help figure out which of our guestrooms would be best for you. We're also happy to make dinner reservations, order flowers, chill a bottle of cider or champagne, or whatever else you'd like to set the scene for a relaxing romantic getaway Oregon style!
Everyone deserves a new toy every now and than. Thursday, March 4, 2010, was an exciting day at the Bronze Antler Bed & Breakfast. The bed and breakfast Executive Chef and co-owner (that's me) was the happy recipient of a new GE dual-fuel range.
See, Joseph Oregon is not anywhere close to natural gas lines. That's one of the reasons we decided to open our Hells Canyon Byway lodging way out here where we're somewhat remote from things like natural gas. I've been wanting a gas range ever since we opened the Bronze Antler Bed & Breakfast and it's only taken me 10 years to get it!
It might not excite you, but the beauty of this baby is that is has a gas top and two electric ovens--the best of both worlds. And it fit in the bed and breakfast kitchen without getting out my Sawzall!
Having the ability to quickly control the temperature on the range with the gas is awesome! I tried it out Thursday night with lamb chops. They were seasoned only with salt and pepper and seared in the skillet, then rested in the oven while I made a reduction sauce. I sweated some shallots and threw in some small crimini mushrooms with a little butter, and added a cup and a half of exquisite $3.95/bottle Merlot. Once the liquid reduced to about half, I added a couple of tablespoons of butter.
While the sauce was reducing, I boiled up a big pot of water and cooked rice noodles. I then pan-fried them with scallions and tamari.
Heather & I had a very delicious dinner. We were so excited with the new stove that we forgot to take photographs of the stove in action or of our dinner before we ate it.
Now we're ready for the Eastern Oregon vacation season. C'mon guests!
It's the time of year when summertime event organizers go looking for sponsors and advertisers. This year we're sponsoring a bull during the
Mountain High Broncs and Bulls--a get down and enjoy kind of rodeo event held every June in Enterprise, Oregon.
What: Mountain High Broncs and Bulls
Where: Wallowa County Fairgrounds, Enterprise, OR (only 6 miles from our Joseph bed and breakfast)
When: Friday through Sunday, June 18-20, 2010
More information:
www.mountainhighrodeo.com or Lee Daggett at 541.426.5380
Last year we
sponsored a bronc, so this year we thought we'd go for something bigger like a
bull. If you've never been to a bull-riding event, then the Mountain High Broncs and Bulls is a good place to start. It's fast, it's fun, and you get to see real action from start to finish.
And our
Eastern Oregon bed and breakfast is still completely available for that weekend so you can bring all your friends too! How about this for a contest: Bring your friends out, attend the Mountain High Broncs and Bulls on Saturday night, and the fearless among you participate in the "Ring of Fire" You and your friends stand in the middle of a good-sized ring on the ground in the arena. Then they release the bull into the arena. The last person left in the ring wins the purse--it couldn't be easier!
This week we are hosting an artist here to do business with
Parks Bronze Foundry in Enterprise, Oregon. Michael Keller is an accomplished woodcarver from Chelan, Washington, who is expanding his artistic pursuits into bronze. A visit to his website,
White Eagle Studios, makes you want to pick up your pocket knife, put a good edge on it, and get started!
He does have a very important disclosure on his website, however:
Important disclosure: Wood carving and whittling may be habit forming and could prevent you from engaging in household chores and other unpleasant tasks. Carving is enjoyable and you may be prone to sharing it with others; thus, causing them to experience the same distractions from less pleasant tasks as you may experience yourself.
He chose our Joseph Oregon lodging because (among other things) there are no Joseph Oregon hotels, but also because our bed and breakfast is a very comfortable place to stay. This week Michael is working with Steve Parks and the Parks Foundry staff to complete his bronzes--choose and apply the patina, mount the bronzes on their bases, and bring his new works to the foundry for transformation into bronzes. Michael blogged extensively about the process--you can read in depth about the transformation at his blog post, "
From Woodcarving to Bronze".
We've not yet seen the bronzes and are looking forward to seeing them before he leaves for Chelan. Our job is to keep Michael well-fed, well-slept, and well-connected to the Internet so he can concentrate on his work at Parks Foundry. So far, I believe we're doing well!
We recently hosted a guest on business travel who started his search by looking for "
Joseph Oregon Hotels" on the internet. I'm not sure whether he used Google, Yahoo! or another search engine for his search, but he very quickly determined that there are no Joseph Oregon Hotels and called us here at the
Bronze Antler Bed and Breakfast for information.
His priority: Wireless Internet access. He was out here in Eastern Oregon to do some inspections of project installations and needed to be able to check and send email.
Not a problem here! In fact, he remarked during his stay that the connection here at our Joseph bed and breakfast was better than some big hotels he'd stayed in while on the road.
Plus, we served breakfast when he wanted it so he could make his morning appointments, gave him directions to some out-of-the-way places he needed to go, and advised him about travel on some of the gravel roads here in Wallowa County. And we were here at the end of the day with a nice glass of sherry when he was ready to kick back and read his email.
Here are his comments from the room journal of the Chief Joseph Mountain Room:
Heather & Bill: It has been wonderful spending three days/nights with you--extending my time a day to enjoy this beautiful place--and do some work from the wonderful room-with-THE-view! Delicious breakfasts and great conversations infused a deep richness. . .Thank you!In retrospect, I guess that fact that he stayed in the Chief Joseph Mountain Room with its commanding view over the Wallowa Mountains kept him in front of his laptop, but in front of the south-facing windows of the Chief Joseph Mountain Room so he could look into the mountains. Hope he wasn't too distracted by all the natural beauty!
If you're on business travel in Eastern Oregon and are looking for the Joseph Oregon Hotels, be sure to consider us here at the Bronze Antler Bed & Breakfast. We might be smaller than what you're used to, but we make up for it with big
service and attention to detail!
We know it's getting on to Spring in Wallowa County when some of the restaurants come out of their winter hibernation and announce their new operating hours.
Calderas, one of our
favorite Joseph Oregon restaurants, will open starting March 18, 2010.
(Calderas was open for a packed house on Valentine's Day. All four couples staying at the Bronze Antler Bed and Breakfast on February 14th enjoyed a romantic getaway Oregon style dinner at Calderas. Yum!)
Nancy Lincoln informed us that Calderas will be open:
- March 18th to May 18th, Thursday through Saturday, 10 am to 9 pm
- May 19th to September 13th, Wednesday through Sunday, 10 am to 10 pm
And Calderas is more than just
fantastic food. Nancy and her son are both glass artists. You'll find their pieces for sale at Calderas, along with antiques, jewelry and other gifts. Dinner this year features
tapas (small plates) along with
classic cocktails,
desserts,
wine and
expresso. And during the day you'll find
sweets and
savory pastries.
When you're wandering the Internet looking for a
Wallowa Lake hotel or
Joseph Oregon hotels (as some of our guests tell us they use these terms when they start their searches), hopefully you'll bump into other aspects of Joseph Oregon like Calderas and the
Bronze Antler Bed and Breakfast!
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