Ben's Birthday at Fall Mountain Lookout

For Ben's birthday, we rented a Forest Service fire tower on top of a mountain in eastern Oregon for two nights. It was amazing! The tower was outfitted with a stove, a futon, a fridge--all the comforts of home packed into a room about the size of my office, with windows all around looking out over the mountains:

Here's the fire tower from the outside:

Bringing the ferret cage up the narrow stairs was pretty exciting... as was the drive up many miles of steep gravel Forest Service roads. We sectioned off part of the room for our ferrets and then baked a shepherd's pie our first night out. The next day, we drove out to the Painted Hills, which pretty much beat all my expectations for it. Here are a few photos to give you an idea:

It was probably the most alien-looking landscape I've ever seen; it looked computer-generated. We spent most of the day hiking around the hills, then drove back to the cabin to check on the ferrets (who seemed to enjoy the vacation). Later, Ben and I went out for a meal at the Snaffle Bit restaurant in John Day. The place looked like a dive from the outside, but when they realized that we didn't have a reservation, the waitress placed us in a separate room with seating for six and a chandelier--absurdly fancy, but appropriate for Ben's birthday! Dinner was perfect, then back to the cabin for a spectacular sunset.

It was a great vacation! I am definitely looking forward to booking more Forest Service cabins in the future--they have a whole series of fire towers in Oregon and Washington that you can rent out in the mountains for about $40 a night. Plus, ours came complete with a great set of binoculars, through which Ben spotted our first mountain blue bird. We'll be back, Fall Mountain Lookout!