History and half pillows

Okay, this has been an ongoing beef of mine ever since I started road tripping. The infernal hotel half pillows. You would think it would be easier to outfit hotel rooms with standard size pillows. But, possibly in an effort to provide a more artistic bed presentation, the half pillow was invented. I don't know about you, but I can't sleep on half a pillow. In fact, in order to get a consistently good night's sleep, I bring my own king-sized pillow. It doesn't matter what type of bed I get, the pillow makes all the difference. Anyway, for your viewing enjoyment, here's an example of last night's half pillows with my own pillow to provide scale, and tonight's offering.

I left Kennewick, WA this morning and drove about two and half hours to Baker City, OR. After a quick lunch, I went to my only fun destination of the day, Baker Heritage Museum. This museum is fairly small, but loaded with nice exhibits of local history and miscellaneous items.

Of the historical artifacts, most were pretty standard...stuff about gold mining, cattle ranching and pioneer life. Still, there were some things I found interesting. Here is a school wagon, equivalent to our modern day bus, a 1939 era Snickers candy box and vintage dolls. I thought the dolls were a bit creepy. That second one appears to be looking at me.

There was a cool scale model of the town they built for the movie, Paint Your Wagon, which was filmed near Baker City back in 1968. I thought the scat quiz for kids was educational and humorous. I sure learned a thing or two!

The museum also had a special exhibit of rocks, minerals and fossils donated by two local families. I was very impressed by the sheer number of beautiful items. Here are a couple that I found particularly unique that I had never seen before...the second one is a fossil coral.

Tomorrow, I'll finally be seeing some outdoor natural wonders as I head over to Yellowstone National Park. The weather and roads have been pretty iffy for the past week, so I'm a bit apprehensive what I might find when I get there. To make matters worse, I might be coming down with a cold. I hope it's not the case. I'll see how I feel tomorrow morning...