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

To get to where we’re going this weekend we are going to travel through the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge in southeastern Oregon, where I have not technically been. We were driving south on I-5 near Salem and I had anticipation.

I asked, “Do you think we’ll see ‘lopes?”
“Probably,” said David, “unlike bighorn sheep, which we won’t see.”
“Right, because they don’t exist,” we both said at once.
“The biggest biological hoax ever played on the American public,” swore David. No one ever sees Bighorn Sheep.
“I don’t know why I’m asking. I always see antelope when I go where we’re ultimately going.”
“Right, with their one long horn.”
“Yeah, and their…wings.”
“And the glitter they leave everywhere.”
“You can tell it’s them from the soft nickering sounds they make when they’re grazing in the fields of ambrosia.”

Tags: oregon, steens, Travel

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.

–

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).

Tags: kansas, oklahoma, states, Travel

SATURDAY NIGHT, CONDON, ORE.

It’s very late and very dark. I’m asleep because that’s what I do often when it’s very late and dark, in our hotel room in Condon.

Off to the side of the bed I suddenly start hearing some shambling, scuffling noises. Then some exhalations of exasperation and then a timid, persistent thumping, hollowly, the sound of pummeled wallboard. Somewhere in the wilds of our room, David is tumultuously afoot.

Gruffly, me: “What are you doing?” No answer immediately. More low, impact noises. Then a clattering of hangers and a low, guttural, braying sound of despair.

“What are you doing?”

A pause. A slight crash. “The doorknob’s off…I can’t find it…did it fall out?” A confused Mr. Pencil. His voice is muffled by a bathrobe.

“David? Are you trying to get to the bathroom?”

“Mmmmm.” Patting up and down the wall, looking for a door that very much wasn’t there.

“You’re in the closet. What are you–I’m so confused.”

It seemed pretty funny the following morning. Don’t worry, he did eventually find the bathroom.

Tags: humorous, oregon, Travel

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.

Tags: condon, heppner, john day, oregon, Travel