Long Weekend to Eastern Oregon

I thought about doing this trip day by day, but I think I'll just summarize a bit...

Marian and Earl joined us for a quick trip to the Steen's Mountains in the southeast corner of Oregon and a look see at the Fort Rock area set-up for riding the quads. It was a long hot drive that first day. We tried to stop for lunch, as we passed through the beautiful Klamath Marsh Refuge, but didn't find a spot big enough until we were back in the central Oregon high desert.

By the time we reached French Glen it was close to 100 degrees outside and not that much cooler in our coach. Instead of staying in the beautiful BLM campground, we opted for the "rustic" rv park to be able to plug in for air conditioning. Rustic AKA weeds...unlevel parking spaces...frogs popping out of shower heads...picnic tables busting as more than one sat on the bench (now that's another story...lol). But we did have a pretty little common nighthawk, who chose to perch on a branch next to us nearly the whole weekend.

We spent the next day touring the mountains. Norman and Earl gadded about on the quads, and Marian and I took my air conditioned pickup. I don't know exactly what the guys did along the way. Marian and I stopped to look at the flowers (with the flower book)...

visited with a pastel artist out working in a meadow...

toured campgrounds...

took each other's pictures in a patch of snow...

got mud all over our shoes...

read all the signs along the way...

looked at all the viewpoints...

laughed and gabbed.

By cracky...I think I have these pics in the correct order. Whaddadeal...got to remember to learn how to do this blog in a different way. The pics are a challenge.

Any-the-way...we traveled from the marshlands...to the juniper/sagebrush level...through the aspen...and on to the rocky ridges and snowpatches. It is the most awesome landscape. We didn't stay long enough to do the area justice, but it is definitely added to our "got to go again" list.

The highlight for Norman and I was being able to add the "highest cache in Oregon" to our 'found' list. It was at the summit of the Steens at 9733 feet. The picture shows a road behind us, but unfortunately there was a gate. We did only have to climb the last few hundred feet.

We grabbed a couple more caches along the way...got lots of mosquito bites (ugly little bugssss)...and the outside our vehicles turned brown with all the dust. Speaking of the dust...we tried to settle in for a couple nights in the off-road vehicle areas outside of Bend. But the roads are only paved so far then it was more dust. Norman was sorely disappointed and not about to add more dust to our already covered motor (something we have to think about with a diesel engine in the back).

We spent one night at a Walmart, before re-thinking our plan and heading to East Lake. Norman and I haven't been in this area since the kids were wee ones. Instead of dirt roads and only one campground at Paulina and East Lakes, the road is paved and is lined in campgrounds.

From here the fellows were able to access the off-road area without taking the rv's into it. Marian and I spent a leisurely day reading, chatting and hiking the area. Norman and Earl hooked up Earl's trailer w/quad to our pickup and drove over to ride.

I give up...everything keeps popping up in all the wrong places...my editing is going to pot in a handbasket right now...so...here it is folks...enjoy...we sure did!