Cove

After our week in La Grande was up, we couldn't bear the thought of heading home to Portland so soon so we booked a night at the Union Hotel. On our way to Union, I happened to get in touch with Mayor Jim Lundy of Cove. Cove is kind off a highway that is off a highway, so you really have no reason to go through there unless you're really trying to go through there. In fact, this was only the second time I had been there--and both times I've had to stop in at the market to ask for directions.
The entire town is on a gentle slope at the base of Mt. Fanny facing west-southwesterly, something my wife immediately picked up on. At our house the sun seems to go down an hour earlier than everywhere else in the world because of Forest Park being directly to our west. But here in Cove, sunset is probably at a more Mid-Western, acceptable (to her) time. Cove's unique topography might explain why they have one of the region's only wineries.
Mayor Lundy invited us to sit down in the shade of his deck while he autographed our map and he told us a little about life in Cove. I swear if there was lemonade involved, we probably would have stayed there all day because Mayor Lundy is one of the friendliest and most interesting people we met on our trip to Eastern Oregon. The man keeps bees, for chrissakes.
The Lundy family and their yorkiedoodle (?) live on about an acre of this gently sloped land on the eastern edge of town. He has a little creek that feeds his garden and apple trees year round, although he explained to me that Cove was originally "prune tree country." Apparently the landscape around Cove was dotted with prune drying houses years ago that would occasionally burst into flames and destroy the entire town. I find it fascinating that in addition to all the other things one had to worry about 60 years ago in Eastern Oregon, prune house fires could destroy your livestock, house, barn, or entire town on a whim. Maybe that's why we call them dried plums now.
40 down, 202 to go.