GET TO KNOW YOUR LOCAL BAKERS
BY JAMES JOHNSTON
B
JAMES JOHNSTON
eing raised with four sisters makes Jeremy right
at home in the mostly female kitchen at Sweet
Life. He happily plays the role of little brother and
takes all the teasing with a good natured smile. In fact,
he says the ladies are his favorite reason for working
at Sweet Life (really Jeremy! It’s not the satisfaction of
a job well done?). Well, that too. Jeremy does it all at
Sweet Life, from baking and creating beautiful
deserts to stacking bags of chocolate in the store-
room.
His taste for sweets started at an early age when he
remembers making Christmas cookies with his
mom. He’s since modified his palate to incorporate
more unique flavors including some of his
favorites: whiskey milk shakes and candied bacon
chocolate cheesecake (he alone had to finish that
one off!). His favorite way to eat chocolate is
“straight up” or with salt. Surprisingly enough,
you won’t find him eating anything with molasses in it. Pretty much
anything else is fuel for his creative fodder, especially if paired with nice, cold pitchers of beer.
Sweet Life • 755 Monroe St. • 683-5676
www.sweetlifedesserts.com • Open Everyday till 11:00pm
Purple Sage
& Stone Bananas
Explore millions of years of climate change in
the center of the state.
G
lobal warming is scary stuff. In 50
years, Oregonians will be making
banana daiquiris with ingredients
from our own backyard — unless Al Gore
is totally wrong and George Bush and his
cronies are actually right about something.
Talk about long odds.
But this isn’t just another Bush-bashing
column. This space is for outdoor adven-
tures. Which unfortunately usually involve
long drives in that convicted felon of crimes
against the atmosphere — the automobile.
Well, this space isn’t necessarily for self-
reflection, either. You should make the four-
hour drive described below soon, because
the World’s Dumbest Man is going to be
fighting global warming the only way he
knows how — with one Middle East blun-
der after another that will make gas so
expensive most of us won’t be able to
afford to drive at all.
The John Day Fossil Beds National
Monument protects one of the longest and
most continuous records of climate change
during the Cenzoic Era, a period from 65
million years ago to present popularly
known as the Age of Mammals. And it con-
tains spectacular, otherworldly scenery that
shouldn’t be missed.
The 14,000-acre monument is organized
into three widely separated units just to the
north of the geographic center of Oregon.
The closest to us is the Painted Hills Unit.
You’ll turn north at a well-signed road
approximately 41 miles east of Prineville
on Hwy 26, then west on a gravel county
road. Skip the first picnic area turnout and
go directly to the second turnout, an over-
look of the largest of the Painted Hills.
These astonishing geographical features
are the result of volcanic ash expelled over
millions of years from the Cascades and
deposited in myriad layers that slowly
decomposed into soft clay. Complex
weathering and erosion processes turned
different layers of clay into a rich palette of
brilliant colors. Today, the Painted Hills are
low, smooth and beautifully sinuous
mounds streaked with crimson, bronze and
tan highlights.
From the turnout, you can take a short
stroll to an overlook or take a 1.5-mile hike
to the top of jagged Carroll Rim through
purple sage, bluebunch wheatgrass, Idaho
fescue and Indian ricegrass. Putting on a
great wildflower show in the spring will be
chaenactis, hedgehog cacti and bee plants.
Continuing east on the gravel road will
take you to several short but fascinating
walks through Painted Cove and Leaf Hill.
If you want a longer hike, drive farther
east on Hwy. 126. Approximately 28 miles
east of the small town of Mitchell, turn
north on Hwy. 19 to the Sheep Rock Unit.
Your first stop should be the Thomas
Condon Paleontolgy Center and its fasci-
nating displays about the flora and fauna
that inhabited the area when the climate
was radically different. There’s a fast-
moving rhinoceros that ran like a horse,
camels, sloths, oversized rodents, gom-
photheres (an early type of elephant) and a
bizarre hybrid bear-dog.
Proceed north on Hwy. 19 for another
three miles, keeping an eye out for the Blue
Basin overlook trail, a three-mile excursion
through eerie canyons of green claystone
and windswept prairies with grand views of
the John Day River valley. Keep a sharp
lookout, especially after spring rains,
because fossils are constantly being
exposed by natural erosion processes.
Several years ago, a visitor found a com-
pletely intact fossilized banana. Imprints of
palm fronds and other tropical vegetation
are commonly encountered.
Before too much longer, the John Day
Fossil Beds are going to record another dra-
matic climate shift. Will the arid desert be
growing bananas again? Will humans still
be visitors, or just another curiosity of the
fossil record?
ew
SEPTEMBER 21, 2006 39