Travel in the West: Fossil, Oregon, Part 2

Once in Fossil, things slowed and changed. The weather was reluctant to give in to summer and two desert travelers welcomed the rain.

While waiting for the motor home master cylinder to arrive, we walked about town, took pictures and talked with people we met. Joe, Kay, Bill and Debbie weren't just names on tags pinned to a shirt and "How are you ?" was more than a way to begin a sales pitch or from an expressionless passing face.

The local grocery store's prices were in line with what we'd seen in Bend and after taking our groceries back to the motor home, we walked down to the fairgrounds for a tour.

Kay, who is also the rural mail delivery lady, showed us around the fairgrounds buildings and filled us in on some local history. Most of the fair ground buildings are quonset hut types; WW2 era. The office is new and a lot of the existing buildings have been remodeled and painted inside and out thanks to Fossil and Wheeler County volunteers. With less than 1500 people in the entire county, the volunteers have done a marvelous job. In the not too distant future, Isobel Hall and one quonset hut are due to be replaced by one 7000 sq. ft. building. The new building will be a large, early western ranch style structure. It will have space for large meetings, a commercial type kitchen and be available to local service organizations and community services. We wish them all the best, they deserve it.

On our walks and photo tours around town, we stopped in at the courthouse so I could put faces with the voices I'd heard when calling ahead to make arrangements. Because of everything there was to see, and the people we'd met, we extended our visit a few more days again.

By Tuesday evening, the carpet had been hand shampooed with Dr. Bronner's Peppermint soap, it was dry, looked good and smelled clean. By Wednesday evening the master cylinder had been replaced and the brakes in the motor home were better than they had been since we'd first driven it off the lot. We still had more to see and lots of interesting people to talk to that we hadn't even met yet. One of those people was Bill Rheinhart. Bill is a resident of the Haven House Retirement Home. I was referred to him as the authority on local history by one of the staff members. Bill and I chatted for the better part of an hour.

Bill's great grandparents were one of the two original families in the area and he'd been born in Fossil. While going to school, he'd worked summers at the lumber mill that was in the now closed down town of Kinzua, Oregon. At one time Kinzua was the number one producer of lumber in the entire US. Even though the mill planted trees as they harvested them, trees can be cut and made into lumber a lot faster than they grow. The town was bought, lock, stock and barrel after the mill shut down. Since that time, a world class 9 hole golf course has been constructed and a limited facility RV park is there. Because we were almost seven weeks behind our original plans, we didn't go by to take a look.

Bill told me that he'd moved to Seattle because of his job but, after his wife died, he moved back to his roots. The next day when we were touring the Fossil Museum, I saw a picture of Bill's wife in a sequined dress, dated 1939 and taken in the Philippines. The dress is on display at the museum. Apparently, Bill's job took him to distant corners of the globe. In 1939, the world was a lot larger than it appears to be today and a lot harder to get to far away places.

Bill told me the Haven House is a really nice facility, that the food is very good and the staff extremely helpful and caring. I was later told the facility was only partially filled and they'd like to have more residents. If I had to choose between it and most others I've seen, the Haven House would be at the top of my list. With the AirLink medivac helicopter service, the time between Fossil and a large hospital is less than what it takes for an ambulance to go across most cities.

After Wednesday night's class, we exchanged ideas with the instructor and students, then walked three blocks back to our motor home at the fairgrounds. On the way, a blacktailed deer bounded across the road, jumped one fence and then the other on the fair grounds parade field and disappeared over the hill. Deer are plentiful in the area and almost everyone we talked to had had everything from small dents to totals on their vehicles. With most of the deer encounters at night, we hoped all our travels could be during the day. We wanted staying in one location to be by choice.

The next day, we met Bernice, her two horses and dog and talked with her about her adventures, including the 7000 mile ride she was on.