Yellow Pine Campground (between John Day & Ontario)
All the while I kept wondering who this John Day character was. I found out the next day from a very obscure historical marker half-way through Idaho on a not-very-well-used highway that he was a fur-trader based out of the McKenzie camp in Idaho and all the other people in the business referred to the river which runs through present-day Idaho and Oregon as "John Day's River." I wonder how many beavers and otters he killed in his lifetime. Enough to warrant a city, river, county, forest, fossil beds and who knows what else after him. Funny you don't see many things named after beaver and otter in that area any more. There is supposed to be evidence of elephants and other animals in the fossil beds in tghe above picture.
I pulled into the USFS Dixie campground around 7:30 pm. There were about 30 sites well-spaced with lots of barriers between spaces and only one occupant in the whole place and the price was only $5 per night. You could hear a pin drop. Based on all the complaining I've been doing, you would think this would think this would be the campground I have been dreaming of, all the solitude I want and then some. I was tempted and I sat and thought about it for a good long while, but the irrational fear I have of being attacked in my tent still lingers and my sense of safety in numbers overruled search for solitude. I am now searching for solitude with a reasonable number of people within 100 yards of me, but no closer than 100 feet.
At 8pm I came to what turned out to be a trio of similar USFS campgrounds within a few miles of each other around 8pm. I took the middle campground which had a host and two other occupants. I took a site near the host's trailer, but his vehicle was gone and he was not in the campground the entire night. So much for safety in numbers.
There was a nice little asphalt paved path through the dense forest near a stream which I used to stretch my legs before retiring. The air was brisk, but not near as cold as East Lake. It was just right to get a good night sleep in the fresh mountain air. I had planned to make it through most of Idaho then next day, so I was up early and on the road again headed east.