Day 5: Southern Oregon
Woke up to blue sky at 4:30 am. We drove into the tiny town
of Diamond. Everything was closed at this early hour. We took a picture of a
?????car at the Seville's Hotel. 
The
hotel's porch had mosquito netting around it which comes in handy in this part
of the country. We took the Steen's Mountain Byway to find the Page Springs
Campground---missed the turnoff the first time, went a little too far and came
back. Stopped to use the outhouse and let the kids out of the truck. The campground
was large and flat, not a lot of trees. Then went back to highway 205 to Frenchglen
another small town named after two men, the son's last name was French and his
father-in-law's was Glen. The town's general store/hotel/restaurant/gas station
was closed at 5 am so we started to take the road to the Hart Mountain National
Antelope Refuge. There was a sign that said road closed. We decided to go just
a few miles to check out the road which seemed fine, but not knowing what laid
ahead and needing gas we turned back. Headed back to Frenchglen for gas, but
still no signs of life. Then we tried to find the old ghost town of Blixen.
Went back and forth a few times along 205 but couldn't find it. We went as far
south as Roaring Spring Ranch, before going back again to Frenchglen.
Around
8:00 am the general store/hotel/restaurant/gas station in Frenchglen was open.
We got gas, some information/directions and I think Dale bought another book.
We got directions to Blixen, found out the road to the Hart Refuge may be passable
(after about 13 miles we'd know for sure), the Steen Mountain Byway was not
completely open yet and Fish Lake (18 miles beyond Page Springs) had opened
3 days ago. We decided to go there next. First we came upon Lily Lake. Both
Lilly Lake and Fish Lake were small lakes, with a few campgrounds and lots of
bugs. There was several patches of snow a few inches deep near these lakes,
even though it must have been in the 70's at 9 am.
We went back to 205 and turned south to find the ghostown of Blixen. The directions
were to take a right when you see a mailbox with the number 40 on the left side.
The trip turned into an adventure, but it really wasn't worth it. The road was
dirt and full of mud puddles. We took several wrong turns and finally asked
a rancher where it was. He replied "Down that road on private property!" After
waiting for a herd of cows to slowly cross the road we got within a quarter
mile and had to stop because the road was one big mud puddle. Dale got out and
took a picture of some buildings before we turned around.
After
we got back to Highway 205 we turned North and took the road toward the Hart
Mountain National Antelope Refuge. The road seemed fine, just a few small puddles.
We stopped at the Hot Springs Campground. The springs were located in a wooden
bathhouse painted brown. The door had a lock for privacy. If someone's waiting
the sign says to limit your use to 120 minutes. The springs themselves were
enclosed in a cemen. wall painted brown and is about a 5' x 5" and 6' deep pool
surrounded by cement. The water was warm, but not hot. The rocks below the cement
were slimy--but to be expected in a natural spring. I'd like to stay overnight
here someday but the timing was not right for this trip. We left at noon feeling
a lot cleaner. The Refuge's Headquarters were within a mile of the Springs and
looked on the outside like a cluster of ranch buildings. Continuing south toward
Plush, we never did see any of the 2.000+ pronghorns (there are no Antelopes
in North America) that were suppose to live around here. They say you either
see a lot of them or none. There are also suppose to be bighorn sheep, bobcats,
mountain lions, skunks, coyotes, beavers, porcupines, . . . We only saw lots
of birds and bugs.
Going
down Hart Mountain the scenery changed dramatically from desert to shallow lakes
as we passed Crump Lake, Hart Lake, Anderson Lake. Eventually the road came
to a fork and we turned left, finally reaching pavement! One could get lost
easily around here as every few miles there would be an intersection with not
a lot of signs posted and every intersection looked alike. Somehow Dale made
it to Plush without much direction. Plush was a tiny town with about 60 mailboxes,
a park and a few buildings. Continuing south, we turned east on 140 and then
south on 395 thru Lakeview. We decided to continued south another 12 miles,
so the kids could say they had been to California on this trip. We had heard
of a place called Stringers just south of the border that sold wine and jelly
made of wild plums. The drive took us past flat farm country and Goose Lake,
which was quite a large lake. We tasted the plum wine at Stringers and bought
some pickled garlic. The man at the winery told us that he doesn't get a crop
of plums every year due to the weather. He said it tends to get quite cold and
temperatures get below freezing at night, 9 or 10 months out of the year. We
were there on a nice day, with temperatures in the 80's.
We went back up north, stopping in Lakeview at Chevron and Safeway. Lakeview
is quite spread out. The businesses were at one end of town and residences at
the other. After leaving Lakrview we were going to be taking the Steens Bypass
road again , east on highway 140. We turn left on the road to the Hart Mountain
National Antelope Refuge again . This takes you past some the same three lakes
was saw earlier as you climb steep hills, then plateaus and flat land before
reaching the hot springs and national forest headquarters once again about twenty
miles later.
The
sun kept going behind clouds as it was geting more overcast as the day went
on. We passed the hot spirngs at 3:00 and drove east as we did see one Pronghorn,
our first, just befoer reaching the refuge boundries. Last time we drove through
here we didn't see any. We went south to Fields where we saw a couple more deer
or pranghorn along the road.At Fields we turned north and took the Fields-Denio
road. If you went south you would eventually reach the OR-NV border and the
town of Danio, which is just south of the border. It was now raining off and
on now. We came around a bend in the road and saw a large brown lake bed. We
weren't sure at first if this was an ugly brown-colored lake or if we were looking
at sand. It turned out to be the Alvord Desert. We drove out on it. It was hard,
compact sand with lots of cracks. It was kind of an erie feeling as we heard
thunder in the background and saw dark clouds mixed with some white fluffy ones.
We
stopped at the Alvord Hotsprings on the east side of the highway. You can see
the small corrogated metal enclosure for the springs from the highway. There
is one pool outside of this enclosure and one inside with a little changing
area. There were about a half dozen people here; discussing other hotsprings
(Brichenbush west of Salem, one near the OR/NV border, Laird in BC, and one
in Yosemite. One woman was from Alaska. We talked to her about our trips up
there and asked her when the best time to go in the winter. She suggested February,
before breakup. The sun came out as we left, but not for long. We had to stop
several times today for cattle crossing the road. We turned northwest at hiway
78 toward Burns. We hit one heavy rainshower, but it didn't last long. We drove
through the Crystal Crane Hotsprings Resort near Crane. It didn't seem to be
completed, but people were staying there. It didn't look too exciting. Saw several
cabins, horses, an outside pool and maybe a restaurant.
We got to Burns around 8 pm. This was the largest town we'd seen since leaving Klamath Falls this morning. We found a hotel room with no problem, the Silver Spur Motel for $46. But finding a place to eat was tougher. One of our guide books had warned us that it was hard to find a good meal in this town. We ended up eating at the Happy Camp Casino which had terrible food. For some reason they wouldn't let you order alcohol with your meal. We got out of there as fast as we could. We stopped at the Central Pasttime Tavern for an expensive pitcher of beer, $14. This was where the younger crowd hung out as they were pretty busy. We stopped at Bob's Seldom In Tavern for one more drink and this was an older, local crowd. We should have asked about Bob. Some guy was going off the deep end about his ex-wife and kids. Luckily his mother was there to keep him out of trouble. I ate a pickled egg before leaving and tasted prettty good. Cindy wasn't real impressed but we I was starving.450 miles today (100 gravel) and 1150 total