Not an accident thankfully, but definitely an "incident."
Heading out this morning for the '5 mile drive down a gravel road' I first have to park, get out of the car, open a gate, drive through the gate, park the car, get out of the car and close the gate. You are picturing this, right? Every day- coming or going- this is the routine.
Today, I drove up to the gate and there, on the other side were cows. Maybe 8 or 11? Big cows. Waiting. Staring. Chewing.
What to do?!
I parked as close as I could to the gate and decided to push the gate out towards the cows. I shoo'd them. They stared. They chewed. I got into my car, I said 'STAY!' to the cows. I pulled through the gate. I got out of my car. I went to close the gate. The cows stared. They chewed. ALL BUT ONE.
ONE made a run for it. ONE cow trotted past my car and into the Lands Inn property. Oh no! I called out to the cow. I asked it to come here, this way, no no, come back... It stared. It chewed.
Now the grass IS better on this other side of the fence because there IS grass on this side. The cow would not come to me. And I was NOT going to it! I couldn't go back to tell anyone because I was certain the other cows would all then make a go of coming in... So, I drove away. The group of cows looking concerned and more likely jealous that their buddy was locked on the other side... and had plenty of food to munch away on!!
I had to drive about 45 minutes until I found a few bars of Verizon so I could call and report (confess) the cow incident to the Inn. There was probably a better way to handle a small herd blocking the gate and I'm sure I did it all wrong :(
Moo'ving on...
Today I drove to Clarno, the furthest section of the park, to hike, meet with Josh the Ranger/Paleontologist, and do some painting or sketching.
It's a pretty drive along the John Day River and it takes about 2.25 hours. (With the cow incident I was now about 45 minutes behind schedule.)
But Clarno is heroic! It's regal! It's huge!