One dusty day about two years ago, I, solo, in the Catlow Valley, after suffering misdirected starts and inaccurate maps, found the ghost town of Blitzen, Ore.

You can see photos from that endeavor here.

This time I brought David. This time at sundown. This time someone had graded the mud-rutted road enough that it was passable and didn’t require a mile-long hike to reach the scattered, dying buildings.

Blitzen was a prosperous enough town in the early 20th century. Homesteaders came optimistic of the farming potential of the valley, disregarding ghosty thoughts of droughts and isolation. It built: a hotel, a store, a school, post office, families. Then dryness hit the region and harvests failed. Folks packed up. The highway got relocated to the west, along Catlow Rim. A standard story. The store was the last to falter and it closed its doors sometime around 1942.

Now Blitzen–a town named after lightning–is dying into the sage plains. It’s tough to find–you cannot really make it out from the highway, and it may well be on Roaring Springs Ranch land; the no trespassing signs are ambiguous–and far, far from anything safe or settled.

In the past couple of years since I first found it, another of the few standing structures collapsed. The hotel is tilting, tilting. A pair of enormous ravens live in an enormous nest in its upper floor.

(The hotel).

(Detail of the hotel).

Tags: blitzen, catlow, ghost town, oregon

Lakeview, Ore., named for its vantage over “formerly larger” Goose Lake (now shorelined some 15 miles from the town), is the county seat of the eponymous Lake County in south central Oregon.

With about 2700 folks, it’s a veritable bustling metropolis, when considered against the vastness of Lake County–fully a third of the county’s population lives within town limits. Heck, Wikipedia even goes so far as to claim Lake County has a population density of zero people per square mile, which, though romantic and apparently apropos when dashing around the emptier parts of the hinterlands, isn’t exactly accurate (it’s more like .88 person per square mile).

New Jersey, which is roughly the same size, packs 8.4 million people. So there you go. And I haven’t even started on Harney County.

Here’s what I can tell you about Lakeview after my first visit there, ever.

1. Lakeview claims to be the “Tallest Town in Oregon” which turns out to obscure its slightly more complex technical claim, which is that it has the highest elevation of any incorporated town in Oregon with year-round residents. Phew. Coincidentally there was an article in The Oregonian today about Greenhorn, a town in northeastern Oregon that clocks in at 6300 feet (compare Lakeview’s measly 4800-ish). Not my war to fight.
2. Literature about Lakeview boasts very friendly people. But really, what town doesn’t have a chamber of commerce that boasts of its friendly people? Yet Lakeview was alive with old-timers in Stetsons and happy-eyed teenager and every single one of them was astoundingly courteous. With cheer. There must be something in the water.
3. Lakeview has Oregon’s only “active geyser.” In 1923, a fella called Hunter was starting work on a therapeutic hot springs resort a few miles north of the town. Guess what happens if you drill through rock that overlays a fairly sizable hot spring? Such a hole might just provide the only escape the pressurized hot water has. Zoinks! And thus Lakeview ended up with a “geyser.” Information about Old Perpetual (no, I am serious) claims it erupts every few minutes, but in our experience, it was more like every thirty seconds.
4. Lakeview has a welcoming, tidy and comforting downtown. Despite the fact that pretty much the entire business district burned down in 1900, there is still a quiet, historical feel to things. Recommended.

Watch the video:

Tags: oregon, steens, Travel

North of Eugene, above tract houses so cheek by jowl they appear tesselated, a single mylar balloon is escaping. It’s metallic and draws the eye because there are no clouds and it is sunny. Likely someone below, likely someone young, is momentarily sad.

I-5 south near Eugene; I am driving.

“You know what I’m going to do?” asked David.
“What?”
“I’m going to start an algae oil colony. Normally you need glass tubes but I don’t have glass tubes and I don’t want to buy them. But I can still have an algae colony in our garage. I can get plastic tubing and run it between buckets. I need to order some algae!”
He poked on his phone for a while.
“What’s the name of our school?” he asked.
“Um…Pencilhaven?”
“OK, I have to put it in this form. To order the algae, I have to tell them about our school.”
“OK.”
“What do we teach?”
“Um, classical history?”
“That’s not on the list.”
“Medieval history.”
“No no no, like…math, earth science, physics or reading?”
“Earth science and reading?”
“OK, what grade level?”
“High school?”
“It’s either a specific grade or ‘college.’”
“OK, college. Don’t you think we’re taking this ruse a bit far? Getting a bit specific in our subterfuge? Not that anyone would think that Pencilhaven is a fake school name. Better put our address as 123 Fake Street.”

Car conversation near Millersburg, Ore., I-5 Southbound

“You know what I’m going do to?” asked David.
“…?”
“I’m going to go to the bars near us: Roadside Attraction, Squeez, that creepy bar and grill we never go into.”
“[acknowledging sound]”
“I’m going to ask them what they do with their used frying oil. And then I’m going to take it for them.”
“Uh huh?”
“And then I’m going to put in our garage.”
“No. Hell no.”
“Damn. I was afraid of that. Anyway, I’m going to put it in our garage. And then I’m going to filter it and sell it to people with greasels or to make biodiesel.”
“Jesus. Wouldn’t it be easier just to collect empty pop cans and take them to the store?”
“You can’t make money that way!” — mock indignation.
“Yes you can.”
“Oh my GOD! I’m going to do that!”
I sighed. “Have you heard that recently, because of high gas prices, used cooking oil theft is actually on the rise?”
“Awesome!”
“So you’re going to go steal cooking oil?”
“Oh, I’m not going to steal it. I’m just going to collect it.”

Tags: David, mr. pencil