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.

Day 1: Bend-Burns

Food in bellies, water grabbed, samples acquired, time to move along. Satiated, energy, let's get this show on the road!


We got past Bend and the landscape started to change even more. Uncharted lands! Here we were, Justin and Carin, Carin and Justin. The Groonins, exploring. Here we go! Is the first day of a roadtrip not the best? I think it is. You're all pumped and travel-fresh.



It looks...kind of like nothing!







And nothing, like this:





is so, so, so, totally something, when you are on a roadtrip, isn't it?






There's so much...nothing...that you, eventually, might start to worry about...something. Or maybe worry about the fact that you are worrying about nothing. or that this nothing might become something and lose all its nothingness.


It's like being in an old house in the middle of nowhere. lovely and peaceful and far away from the hoi polloi maddening crowd...but what if something happened? Is that something happening? It sounds like something happening. Who will find you Will you be eaten by the local wildlife? Should you have gotten OnStar? Why are you thinking about this?

There's no one on the roads. You don't see a speed limit sign. You take the car up to 80, 85, 95, 100--and you're still not passing anyone, or, more importantly, getting passed by anyone. It's loud from the wind and you wonder if you're going to be able to slow down enough if one of those "livestock" signs you see every often comes true, but there's no one on the roads and the land starts to reflect the sky like water...

...and as it gets dusky and dry and you almost can't see anymore...you pull into Burns.

Pretty much every town we passed or spent time in, save Bend or Portland, or Ashland to a lesser extent, had one street, going through the town, with stuff on either side of it, for maybe .5 of a mile. And then you were done. The kind of thing where you really don't need to look up an address, because it will be on the street.

Our motel in Burns fit this mold. It was perfectly serviceable, with great water pressure and this weird paper towel thing that was under the brochure about the area and motel guide. I really don't know what this thing was. It was thicker than a paper towel, but not cloth. It was like a fancy paper napkin, but bigger and not luxurious-feeling. It was dry. I don't understand it.

Justin shows it off here: