Central Oregon

A quick weekend trip to central Oregon in the middle of the biggest heat wave so far this year - sounds like a good idea! Luckily, cooler temperatures were found at Waldo Lake (Gem of the Cascades!!), where a thunder storm rolled in the same time we did, with the Jeep providing a safe haven for thousands of unhappy mosquitoes who sheltered from the rain courtesy of windows left down while we were pelted on the choppy and totally deserted shores of the second deepest lake in Oregon.

Kees leaping for safety and the call of dried cranberries for all

EC pondering the question of the WWII airplane hidden at the bottom of the lake (according to my friend Gary, anyway)

After getting totally lost trying to find our way back to the Cascade Lakes Highway (about mile 12 on the bumpiest dirt road with HUGE boulders randomly scattered about it that we eventually decided was the safest bet in the direction we mostly wanted to go in; out of nowhere a dusty old white Volvo with a dusty white dog hanging out the window blew past our relatively sedate 20 mph in the opposite direction, leaving me to to marvel at both the wonders of Swedish manufacturing and the faith of youthful males - honestly, a tank would have gotten a flat on this road) and several hours later we found ourselves at Paulina Lake Campground for the night. Not our normal type of camping experience; but it was late and the Jeep was making funny noises. The boys settled into a baseball game, and we feasted on roasted corn, bacon wrapped pork-chops, and some lovely cilantro rice before zipping ourselves into the tent to hide from the mosquitoes for the night.

Note the four-wheeling trails dug with the pulaski for matchbox trucks

Sausages, eggs, pancakes, and Holland Rusk toast

In the morning we rose early and tossed together some breakfast to fortify us for the day ahead and then made the quick trip into Bend after coming down off the crater to pick up some Seafoam for the tank in the vain hope that the engine sputtering was bad fuel. We were the second car in the parking lot at the High Desert Museum, and were lucky enough to make it though all the exhibits inside without even seeing another person. The boys were satisfyingly as awed by the spectacular dioramas as I was at that age, and we took our time wandering through the permanent exhibit as well as the traveling show, Sin in the Sagebrush - a look at brothels in the early west. There was a disclaimer at the entrance warning parents of possible offensive material, but it provided nothing but humor for me. EC inquired why a lady of night would need the small derringer pistol displayed in one of the boudoirs, and I explained the ratio of men to women in the old west and how it might have affected some gentleman's better judgment. He nodded sagely and said "Just like now - a pretty lady's always got to be careful".

The first diorama in the series

The were more excited than they look - lesson: never ask my children to look at the camera

My kind of picnic basket

The leather-worker shop in the village

The boys watching The Lone Ranger inside the reproduction 1960's reservation house

Practicing cursive with the schoolteacher outside the pioneer cabin

The working steam powered sawmill at the High Desert Museum

So deep is my lockout training that I feel guilty about entering the lumber line on a historical reproduction

EC with the rattlesnake

Kees with the lynx - there was the world's most adorable bobcat, too

After an excellent morning at the museum, we headed back down Hwy 97 towards LaPine to Lava Butte and drove to the top of the cinder cone, where the boys chickened out of eating the cricket and bee in the middle of the insect lollipops that they had chosen for short-lived souvenirs from the High Desert Museum. After the cinder cone we got to the most highly anticipated point of our trip - the Lava River Cave. Oh, joy! Oh, rapture! Oh, blessed relief from ninety degree weather! At the entrance (or "topside" as we spelunkers like to say) we rented a propane lantern to guide us on our journey and plunged into the cool dark depths of the longest lava tunnel in Oregon. After a couple sets of stairs down into the collapsed tunnel mouth we rambled the sandy floors almost a mile into the earth, at depths of up to ninety feet underground. At points the ceilings of the cave were almost sixty feet high and fifty feet wide, and the echoes were marvelous. The temperature was probably somewhere around fifty, and so cool that one of the original discoverers (besides First Nation people) Leander Dillman, used the cave as venison storage in the summer months. It also messed up most my pictures, since the flash in the cave would reflect off all of our frosty breath in the air, making it look like we were on set for Ghostbusters. Interestingly, the book I have on the history of the cave says its name was changed from Dillman Cave after a crime of "great moral repugnance" perpetrated by Mr. Dillman - but I have no idea what that may have been. I'm betting it didn't have much to do with getting his meat cool. Or wait...

Looking out over Mt. Bachelor from the top of Lava Butte

Entering the depths of darkness

Descending yet further

The light at the end of the tunnel - the little white dots in the fog of frozen breath are lanterns coming towards us as we return to civilization

After emerging from the darkness back into the furnace, we traveled up to Sisters (the smuggest little down in America), stopping to change the fuel filter, and then over the McKenzie highway back towards home, stopping to dip our toes in the water and wash all the gasoline off Andrew. 635 miles later, we drove back into the blessed mist of our own dear coastal weather and parked the still spluttering Jeep in it's spot in front of the cabin. Trip accomplished!

The boys at the end of the "gopher tunnels" in the High Desert Museum playground