Thursday: Travel day. Time for us to begin our trip home. We left Bend, after gassing up at an Arco, buying a couple of grocery items at a store, and checking our map ... which showed several options to get to Nevada City. After some debate, we decided to head south via Hwy 97, which turns into Hwy 395 in California. (395 is the major highway on California's eastern perimeter, although it's usually only two lanes.) This would be new territory for us, oh boy!
Just south of Bend, we tried to get in to see Lava Land's lava crusts, but the ranger dudette at the entrance gave a scornful glance at Tergel and said, "You wouldn't be able to get THAT in there." I smiled, said, thanks, and pulled out. We skipped Lava Lands completely.
And in the process, we had more time to explore Oregon's fascinating outback. Heck, we didn't even know Oregon had an outback, but we were here, let's explore! We stopped to eat our sandwiches at a wide parking area, corner of Hwy 97 and the Fort Rock Road, with the above kiosk. OK, we turned off the highway -- we'd take a peek at Fort Rock.
Within a few minutes, we spotted this Uluru-looking anomaly in the middle of the high desert, like a desert mirage. We pointed in wonder; what is it? Turns out Fort Rock is NOT a fort, but it is, in fact, the rock you see. The closer we got, the bigger it got.
From the other side, it's caved in. We continued on to the park entrance.
This is Fort Rock State Monument. In simple terms, it's an old "tuff ring" set in what was a shallow sea in prehistoric times. Sagebrush bark sandals found in a nearby cave are the oldest ever discovered, dating back around 9,000-13,000 years. From Wikipedia: The ring is about 4,460 feet in diameter and stands about 200 feet high above the surrounding plain. Its name is derived from the tall, straight sides that resemble the palisades of a fort. It used to be several hundred feet higher, but has eroded over the millennia. Gosh, you never know what amazing sights are around the corner unless you get on the road less traveled. Jimmy and I are very fortunate that we have the opportunity and time to explore America.
As seen from the air.
I hiked up a bit to look into the bowl, blown away by the size of it. Way down there is Tergel with little Smartie, parked dead center, pretty much by itself, aside from the camp host (honest). You can see there's not much else around. I expect the host might get lonesome in the outback. Can you find Jimmy in his aqua-blue shirt?
Don't know if you can see white spotting on the rocks (not the square plaque). It took us a few minutes before the light came on -- guano. We asked the camp host, who was a friendly, helpful fella, if crows or ravens were responsible. Nope, nesting Peregrine Falcons. And he's been listening for weeks to the babies calling for their dinner. He also figured they'd be fledging soon. We didn't see any flying, darn it.
We wandered the outback, me driving Tergel, dawdling along like I had all day, which I did. The speedometer rarely got above 50, but I didn't want to miss anything. We had the roads to ourselves, anyway, our favorite way to drive. The heady scent of sage kept us company along this stretch. That cloud mass looked ominous and I remarked to Jimmy that I didn't want to get caught in that thing.
At Summer Lake, we pulled in to Ana Reservoir RV Park and set up camp. The lake is on one side, with a long, tall ridge on the other, Winter Ridge, a thousand feet up. Summer lake is bordered with green grasses and sages, and the whole picture is quite scenic. It seemed like a good place to stop for the night, and it was early enough that we could scout around. Not sure if the photo above is a former church or school, but I liked the way it looked. This is John C Fremont country ... he was exploring here in Dec. 1843.
Then there's this, looking even more ominous.
I couldn't get a good picture, although I tried. Etched onto the black rock was this white rock (I guess) high on the ridge. It looked like a village had been carved on the rock, in the fashion of Mesa Verde or Canyon de Chelly. Or painted. Eventually, we gave up trying to figure it out. Strange, but can you almost feature a white village?
Ahh, Out and About and on the reservoir. Beautiful.
Ospreys had nests nearby.
This guy seemed to be using the power pole as a lookout.
That big, bad storm moved off to the northeast and spared us. After dinner, however, Jimmy looked out the window and saw what looked like rain sheeting down and closing in. A reasonable assumption given the clouds. No rain fell. Nothing happened. The weird cloud seemed stationary and then sort of evaporated. A short time later, I noticed a really fine dust, like grit, on my keyboard, then the table, etc. Too bad I had all the windows open. This cloud was not rain, but dust stirred up by winds. Another guess, but probably correct. Never saw anything like it.
The next morning we continued rolling along south on Hwy 97, between ridges and mountains. Lots of alfalfa fields in these parts. With the windows open, the scent of freshly-mown alfalfa sailed into our noses ... kind of pleasant. Bucolic. Above, two young bucks were helping themselves to the alfalfa!
Somewhere along the way, in a depression between mountains, was an acre or three of gorgeous Black-eyed Susans. We'd seen the massive clouds, so we knew rain was falling somewhere in the Outback. Looks like enough fell here to spark a mega bloom. Just my luck! I stopped Tergel in the highway (nobody coming, either direction) to snap a pic. Wheeee -- made my day!
If you have the chance to drive along Oregon's Outback, I hope you'll do it. It was great fun. We could easily return to see more.
Tomorrow, I'll wrap it up.
