Occupation of Independence

 Leaving the Southwest makes you first think of being cold, but that really isn't true along the Snake or Columbia rivers .  I've even managed to enter Oregon without suffering the indignity of being in the Pacific Time Zone .  Perhaps this results from southeastern Oregon having a mindset that got established back in the Oregon Trail days. It has been warm enough to get my first insect bite and to see the first snake of summer: Photo doesn't show him sticking out his forked tongue at me.  He was one little pissed-off snake. The Oregon Trail passed along these sandstone bluffs .  My little girl has played here a couple years ago.  She likes sand. Ahh, what a smooth road went along the foot of those bluffs!  A cross-country-style mountain biker like me can really love smooth, flat, and fast, as the pioneers no doubt did. A couple geese were pocketed in those bluffs.  They were easy to hear, but hard to see.  They got a rhythm going that remi...