Day 2: Burns - Steens - Alvord

So when we left Burns, we headed toward the Steens mountains and Alvord desert. We were basically following this route.

Notice how long it says it takes? Notice the number of miles? Seems kind of off, huh?

We'll get to that.

A little bit out of Burns, take route 78 and it looks like this (I say route 78 because there's a route 78 in New Jersey that I used to take to get to Justin's house and it looks nothing like this):

I think that's Crane, Oregon.

We didn't see any cranes.

Thn we passed New Princeton. You tell me if this resembles what I will call Old Princeton, which is in New Jersey and where many horrible things from my childhood happened to make me the stable individual we know today.

I'll take New Princeton, thankyouverymuch.

Yeah. Again: New Princeton kicks Old Princeton's ass.

There were many times on this trip where one of us would say to the other something to the tune of, "Wow. Landscape." In fact, the conversations would usually go something like this:

"This is Oregon?"

"This is the U.S.?"

"This is earth?"

It was like that. You could have totally set a science fiction movie in some of this landscape (oh, please don't. leave it alone. it's amazing.) It was this weird, alterna-planetary look. Just the way the land shifted, undulated, the vastness...I am not doing it justice, but a lot of the time Justin and I didn't talk. Not like we were angry, but because we were...watching.

When the landcape is the entertainment, you know it's a good place.

Also of note: The roads.

We were surprised (and pleased) by the quality of the roads. Smooth pavement, no potholes, well-maintained. Wow, we said to each other, this is where our tax funds go instead of repairing the SE Division potholes. (Of note: I think they are doing that now, though not because of my blog.)

And then we got to the Steens.

And the gravel.

The 50 miles of gravel.

In case you were wondering why the drive is said to take 5-7 hours, here is your reason.

Even Nellie was like, dude, sorry, but I got nothin':

This is the Nav screen. Usually it shows something.

But we weren't lost, we were just slowed down. It was all very zen. And very, very dusty. Poor Nellie. She was so dirty. Poor Nellie.

This is Mann Lake, with the Steens in the background. It was kind of a mud lake. Mud Man lake? Lake Mann mud? Lake Made Mudd?:

Occasionally we'd pass an irrigated landscape/ranch-type place. Would you consider living out here? I might if I had a plane and could fly it. Like, when I wanted fro yo.


And then...on the left, we approached the Alvord desert. It was frigging bright! Much more so than it showed in this photo.

This shows you what we were driving on. For 50 miles:

I don't know how we missed the turnoff for the hot springs, but I'm not so sure that we would have gone anyway -- 140 degrees on your bum plus 98 degrees on your head? Hmm, I don't know. I'm becoming increasingly heat-intolerant. Oh, hi aging!

Here we are taking a breather to check it all out, plus get some snacks out of the trunk to hold us over until Fields.

And then it was onto Fields, for lunch.