Mr. Pencil, me, Morocco.

Preface: I’ve been to all 48 contiguous states. I have been to nearly all multiple times. I plan on going to Alaska next year. Hawaii might be harder.

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For me, I’m going to have to say it’s a toss-up between Kansas and Oklahoma. The landscapes are long in the face and don’t seem loved by the inhabitants, particularly. The High Plains in general are a tough thing to love easily, but the Dakotas seem to have more blasted serenity than their southern neighbors.

Kansas, the last time I was there, last April, was smattered along its entire freeway length with anti-abortion billboards, all struggling to best each other in terms of shock value. Kansas also has toll freeways, which seem entirely inappropriate.

Oklahoma seems like Kansas, only greyer and even more stubbly, though I haven’t been there for some time. I’ll grant you that the panhandle is fascinating if not lovely. First the strip of land was eschewed from Texas because it was above the latitude boundary for having slaves. It was never loved, a no man’s land. Then it was finally, slowly homesteaded, but then blown to scoured bits in the Dust Bowl.

I would love for someone to show me the joy and the beauty in either of these places. I know there is something to be found–this country, despite its political-social shortcomings and bursts of insanity, is a staggering quilt of landscape–I just need to be shown. Kansas tried to show me, a little bit. It was late dusk and I was gunning for KC. And suddenly fire. Snaking, low lines of fire only a foot or two high: the prairie burning. It was surreal and unforgettable, but sadly in an area with no exits from the freeway (hence no photos).

Today was one of knowledge, seeing and experience: the kind of day I hold as the highest value in my esteem.

We are staying in the Hotel Condon, built in 1920 and recently restored–carefully, tastefully. There is a pervasive obsession with the Rat Pack here. Most of the time the public areas are bathed with Frank Sinatra tunes. Paintings of Sammy Davis, Jr. That kind of thing.

There are vintage mid-1940s Life magazines scattered around. In one that David was reading, there was a multi-photo series of an ornery “Jap” being burned alive. Everything urging you to buy war bonds. Times have changed. I thought a lot of my grandmother Pearl*.

This morning was cloudless and perfect after so long in the dimness of Portland. There were birds singing. We went across the street to a gift shop in an old storefront that has a tiny outpost of Powell’s Books in it. Peculiar. David bought a three-foot tall Cymbidium orchid.

We drove east to Heppner, where 250 of the town’s inhabitants died in a freakish and tragic flood in a single day in the early 20th century. You can still feel how it defines the town. We wandered around an outdoor display of farming equipment and rail paraphernalia.

Lunch was in a diner where I got grilled cheese on their homemade white bread. Perfect: greasy, with no pretension, American cheese straight from the plastic wrapper. We read real estate advertisements and got too many warm-ups on our coffee. Across the street at the Shell station, teenage boys fueled ATVs and made fun of each other.

Back west, then south towards Spray, through peculiar Hardman, Oregon. Hardman, it seems, is a ghost town. Except not. People still live there. Mixed into the blistering and bent and broken ghost houses. Some of the ghost-looking houses are still occupied. Even a newer, corrugated steel shed has a “ghost front” tacked onto it. In another context, it might sound like a gimmick. But there’s no reason for it here: the town has no services, no possible tourist implications. It’s all alone out there, and ghosty. And eerie. This article has some more details.

Time for the learning part of the day. We visited the Cant Ranch, a sheeping operation from 1920. We hiked the brief “Island of Time” trail in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (Sheep Rock unit). I wanted to spot a fossil so badly but, of course, did not. I did find one interesting rock. Alas, not a fossil (I don’t think).

FOR GOD’S SAKE, SIR, CONSIDER THE OREODONT!

Since this afternoon, I keep randomly ejaculating “Consider the oreodont!” It’s my new thing. It’ll get old fast, all right.

On to the Thomas Condon Interpretive Center where we spent an awful long time gawking and bothering the rangers about things. I sat down and studied minerals and their cleaving angles for a while. David and I pondered a complex and comprehensive (and very large) geological map of Oregon. We discussed the fossilized mammals: “miohippus” (a.k.a. “middle horse”), mice-sized deer, “bear dogs”, rhino things, elephant things, and something identified as a “skunk-badger-weasel”. And, of course, oreodonts. I CONSIDERED THEM.

And then there’s this silly picture. We’re not exactly sure what the goal was here.

* Pearl was a nurse, in Liverpool, England, during World War II.

Yesterday’s drive into Condon, was during the long-shadow part of the day in the dryland wheat farming hills of north central Oregon. Wind farms have been expanding ferociously in this corridor, and ones of truly epic proportion are clustered in the dozens, hundreds in total.

Here is a quick, 20-second clip of the beautiful shadows they create right at low-sun. The blistering wind chill–I’d estimate the wind was gusting upwards of 30 or 35 miles per hour–kept me from photographing as much as I’d like. There will, I hope, be a few acceptable shots once I develop my film.

p.s. Yes, sorry, I had something on my lens.

Mr. Pencil and I are heading out this afternoon on a weekend trip typical of us: a rambling, informal Oregon-exploratory thing that usually leaves us dusty and informed.

We’re headed to Condon, a small and mostly forgotten town in the midst of the Oregon wheat hill country. That is to say: about 2.5 hours east of here. We’re going to stay in the old brick hotel and foray out to the John Day Fossil Beds, mystery hot springs, mountain ridges.

I’ve got my earplugs*, journal, books, and camera gear packed.

* My cardinal rule of travel is to go nowhere without earplugs. They are what make travel sane and possible.