Oregon, as many of you may not know, is not all green forests and rivers and ferns. In fact, if one looks at a map of Oregon, one might be surprised to find that a solid 4/5 of this great state is actually high desert (click on the map). This is the result of the rain shadow that the Cascades mountain range throws across much of northwestern USA.

Now, I live in the middle of the brown. In Bend. And trust me, the farther east you go, the browner it gets.

So all that said, a couple weekends ago my roommate James and I decided to go camping in the Alvord Desert in southeastern Oregon. The Alvord Desert lies along the eastern slope of yet another mountain range called the Steens Mountains (which cast a rain shadow of their own). According to the highly-reliable source of wikipedia.com, the Alvord receives less than 7 inches of rain per year, so it’s pretty dry.

And that’s where we went.

We set out from Bend on a Friday evening and made our way to Burns, 130 miles distant (see map). We were about 10 miles out of Burns when I mentioned to James that we should stop at Safeway and buy some beer for our trip, as I had forgotten to do so before leaving Bend. James, in typical fashion, turned to me and posited, “No, Jack. We need to go to a BAR!” Now, let me give you some background information on Burns, OR…

Burns is an agri-business society in Harney County. The population of Burns is 3,020 people, and it is shrinking. This is in no doubt due to the fact that cousins don’t typically produce reproductively-viable offspring. But I digress. Anyway, so as we drove into town, we kept all four of our somewhat travel-bleary eyes open for the seediest bar we could find, hoping to God that the chastity belts (”It’s an Everlast!”) we had purchased prior to leaving Bend would withstand the, ahem, “negotiations” which we expected from the local fauna/townspeople.

We settled on the “Central Pastime,” which came complete with saloon-style doors. As we ever-so-unobtrusively swaggered in, we were greeted by a vomiting drunk, a quasi-toothless bartender named “Belinda,” four walls covered with big game trophies (one of which was a boar wearing a cowboy hat), and the smell of stale tobacco. ‘Twas a scene that Kevin KIine would have loved had it been included in “Silverado.” We asked Belinda which beers she had on tap, and she responded, “Coors, Coors Lite, Bud, Bud Lite, and Amber Bock.” We wisely chose the amber, which was quickly served along with two food menus.

Now, there are a few things in this world that will provoke a man to do strange, irrational, and potentially fatal things.  Pretty girls, for instance.  Or the promise of cheese.  In this case, it was the delightful spelling on the menus.  I turned to the page titled “Appitizers” and quickly scanned them over.  I couldn’t resist it.  There it was right in front of me, and I gave in and ordered the “Chickin Gizzerds.”

Imagine the texture of a jellyfish.  Now deep fry it.  Voila.  Chickin Gizzerds.  We left Burns with no regrets other than that nagging sensation in your bowels that says “I’m those ‘Appitizers’ that you ate earlier, and I’m going to come back and haunt you in about three hours.  Prepare  yourself, sucker…”

The drive from Burns down through Frenchglen was uneventful, save for a near panic-attack on James’ part at being a little tiny bit inebriated and out in the middle of nowhere.  Believe you me, Central/Eastern Oregon on a moonless night is a dark, dark place.  That said, if you’re driving at 1:00 am through Frenchglen, Oregon on a dark, dark night, don’t stop.  Ever seen “The Hills Have Eyes?”  Yeah.  Just keep driving.

At any rate, panic attacks notwithstanding, we arrived at our campsite on the very edge of the Alvord Desert around 1:45 am, just in time to get a flat tire.  If we’d been 15 minutes later, we might have missed our appointment, but we made it on time and got the flat.  And then decided to fix it in the morning.  That decision was based upon the fact that it was an absolutely clear night with not a hint of moonlight, and the stars were so bright and numerous that it almost seemed like they truly three-dimensional.  Like you could reach your hand up in the sky and stir them up like the bioluminescent algae on the GBR.  So we did the only logical thing that one does in situations like that… we took pictures!!! Enjoy Scorpio, by the way…

DAY 2:

Nissan trucks are easy to fix.  Especially if you remember where your tools are.  Well.  I completely forgot about the existence of a removable wall (behind which the jack handle resides) behind the back seats in The Barracuda, so we had a jack but no handle to attach to it when we decided to change the flat in the morning.  That said, James and I, being Manly He-Men, decided to improvise our own tools for The Fixing Of The Flat Tire.  We wound up using two old sticks, a broken shovel, a jack, some peppermint-oil soap (for Teh Lubrications, you know?), a screwdriver, a tent stake, a Crazy Creek, and a lugwrench.  All before breakfast, too.

After a short amount of deliberation and some Very Manly Poses In The Desert, we decided to go back to a small hamlet called Fields to get the flat fixed and refuel.  Fields, according to Wikipedia.org, is small.  Yeah.  We rolled in and immediately noticed that the post office, bar, restaurant, general store, gas station, and mechanic’s shop were all in the same building.  We were both pretty haggard-looking (from all that Manly Posing…), and when we walked into the store/bar/restaurant/service station to see about getting the flat fixed, an old-timer named Jerry behind the counter looked us over, leaned forward ever so slightly and, in the most grandfatherly of tones, asked, “You boys need some breakfast or sumthin’?”  I thought James was going to cry.  Anyway, to make a long story short, we fixed the flat, refueled ($5.26 per gallon…), cooked some breakfast, played with Crash (that’s Jerry in the background), and set about adventuring again.  We found an immature great-horned owl (Bubo virginianus) in a little marshy area across the road from the bustling metropolis of Fields and James took about a trillion photos.

There was also a little shack there that, apparently, belonged to the man who started the community of Fields in 1881.  So we flawlessly executed a bunch more Incredibly Manly Poses and a couple of Moderately Manly But Still Quite Masculine Poses and cruised on out.  Our next destination was the Alvord Hot Springs and we hadn’t a moment to lose.

Well, the hot springs were under construction and had enough Dirty Hippie Cooties in them that we just decided to forego jumping in.  Instead we decided to drive around on the playa.  And take pictures.  And pose a few more times.  And have a heterosexual-life-partner moment.  And relish, after the life partner moment, in our manliness.  Abundantly.

Well, all good things must either (a) come to an end, (b) be paid for, (c) get better, or (d) end in a sandstorm.  In this case, all of the above.  We were blissfully performing acrobatics in the middle of the desert and completely ignoring the oncoming storm.  Well, it hit the desert and turned into a sandstorm 20 miles wide and 500 feet high.  Coming straight toward us at 65 miles per hour.  So we did the only sensible thing to do when you’re stuck in the middle of the desert with a huge sandstorm bearing down on you and all exits blocked: we drove straight into it at 50 miles per hour with James in the back of The Barracuda taking pictures.  Check ‘em out…

To cut to the chase, we survived.  And James’ camera didn’t get any sand in it.  But we went right through the heart of that storm.  In short, we pwned it.  And then it was time for lunch, so we drove over to Mickey Hot Springs.

Mickey Hot Springs are too hot to swim in.  They’re boiling.  And hotter.  In fact, Jerry From Fields told us a great story about (and this is a direct quote) “some city-slicker came up here all hopped up on them meth-am-phet-a-meeeens and got hisself kilt up in thar.  Yup.  Found ‘is body a-floatin’ round in thar about two days later.  Looked like a over-cooked lamb shank.”

So we didn’t swim.

But we did cook in them! Click here for all the pics…

Anyway, our time was drawing to a close, so we hopped back in the truck, drove north to Hiway 78, got another flat, took a picture to prove that we were there, and drove home into the sunset.

All told, we drove 600 miles, had two flat tires, chased a sandstorm, cooked in hot springs, visited a ghost town, and had one hell of an adventure.  Come with us next time.

The End.