Eastern Oregon Road Trip

My husband and I took a little road trip in the fall of 2025 to Eastern Oregon. We have done this trip in the summer over five years ago and wanted to see what is all looked like in fall. It did not disappoint! We were able to see fall colors in the mountains and a little bit of snow. It was a nice trip to slow down a bit and just wander along.

Day One

We started our roadtrip by getting breakfast sandwiches at Sparrow Bakery in Bend. We love to go here as a treat! Then we started the roughly 2 hour drive to the Painted Hills.

Here at the Painted Hills we started by going to the Painted Cove Nature Trail which has a short wood path that you can walk on part of the way through some of the hills. Some of the path is on dirt so be sure to wear shoes you don't mind getting a little dirty, if you walk the full way.

Next we drove over to Leaf Hill Trail which is a quarter mile loop where you can look for old leaf fossils.

After that we went to Red Hill. This lives up to it's name, it's a large red hill. Here you can walk around the backside and have a rest on a bench or see the front side of the hill.

Last for the Painted Hills was the Overlook Trail. This is totally worth it to walk to the end of the trail to see all the different views of the painted hills. So so pretty!

Then we drove to the town of Mitchell and stopped at Tiger Brewing for a drink and some lunch at the food truck.

After lunch we headed to Baker City which was just under 3 hours away. This was an interesting drive since you go over a pass and we ran into fresh snow a few times.

Then we just called it a day.

Day Two

We woke up and went to explore downtown Baker City. We wandered around a few shops and found a cute store called No 1911 in the main downtown area. This shop had lots of cute clothes and accessories.

Then we headed to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. This was well worth the stop.

It was way bigger than expected. We wandered around for quite a while inside.

Then headed outside to walk on a few trails. We didn't end up going that far, but I would definitely stop here again on my way east.

We then drove down the road a bit and stopped where you can walk down trails with ruts from the wagon wheels when people made their way out on the Oregon trail. It was just crazy to be there and think about the long difficult journey people had trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.

We also stopped at the Oregon trail monument on the way out of town.

Then we drove 2 hours toward Joseph and stopped in Enterprise at Terminal Gravity for a late lunch.

After lunch we finished our drive to a little cabin were were staying in just outside of Joseph at the Wallowa Lake Lodge

There is a larger lodge that is open in the summer but since it was off season it was closed.

Day Three

We woke up and went for a stroll right where we were staying. It was slightly snowing which made it all even more beautiful. There were quite a bit of fall colors out.

We then headed into town to get some breakfast at The Blythe Cricket. They had some very tasty breakfast sandwiches. The views in town of the near by mountains are so pretty!

On the way back to our cabin we stopped by an overview of the lake, the pictures don't even do it justice!

Then we bundled up a bit and made our way to do a 5 mile hike up above where we were staying in the East Moraine Community Forest. There were tons of different ways you could go in the woods and it felt like we could have just kept on going and going.

After our hike we stopped by a few shops in town, got some hot chocolate and headed back to the cabin to relax. Make sure you look up when things close in town if you go during the off season, most shops closed at 4PM when we were there. For dinner we checked out Embers Brewhouse in town which was very tasty.

Day Four

It was time to head home, but first we stopped by the lake to get one more look.

We broke up the trip home by stopping in Pendleton where we signed up for a Pendleton Mill tour. You can sign up for tours for free here.

It was really interesting to see how the fabric was spun before getting ready to make a blanket.

I could have watched the machines all day making blanket after blanket after blanket. Really cool experience to see how it all worked.

After the mill we picked up quick lunch in town then made our way home. It was a nice relaxing trip with really pretty views. I can't wait to come back in summer time again to get to do a bit more exploring!