All righty...

So last time I took you to Silver Creek Falls where everyone and their mother goes.  THIS time, I'm taking you to the Eastern Oregon High Desert.  And let me tell you, not many people venture out this way and for good reason.  My boyfriend has a few friends who are rock hounds.  And successful rock hounds with their own shop.  They heard I had a pickup truck and was looking for adventure, so we went with them, in my truck, which holds a lot.  Oregon is a huge state.  I think the first day we drove for about 6 or 7 hours and still weren't close to any borders of any other states.  The rock hounds were looking for a jasper claim the first day, so that's where we  went.  No pictures of that here, only the journey.
Funnily, these first few photos are some of the first I took, and I thought, oh the desert is beautiful...we hadn't even gotten close to the real desert.

There are still trees, but they slowly became more of a scarcity which someone would shout out if spotted.

There were a few pockets of water on our first day driving through.

Like I said, the first day was for the jasper.  We camped about 10 miles away from the site.  Dirt road.  That day I thought, oh jeez, 10 miles on a dirt road can't be good.

Strange little fecund valleys popped up with cattle or vibrant green grass (or both) growing.

Golden Eagle...

I can't believe my memory is so bad, but I'm pretty sure we camped the first night and then the next morning went to the jasper field.  So all this is what we saw on the 10 mile stretch there.

And then we left that area and went elsewhere.  Much much elsewhere.

Sage, that's it.  We saw a coyote, heard a bunch the second night, saw some jack rabbits, but other than that, this was it.

Oh and dust devils.

Oh and this little Sage Thrasher who was at a rest-stop where there was a pump for water.  So every time some one pumped water, it would pour on to the ground and the Sage Thrashers would show up looking for an easy thirst quencher.

We ended up, the second night, at a miners' camp for Sun Stone.  Now, apparently, Sun Stone can only be found in this one place in Oregon.  No where else...on earth.  It's amazing because you can walk across the desert here and at the right time of day, see the ground glitter with these fine stones.  Most are small on the surface, but the miners' have found some decent sized pieces and make a great deal of money from digging 4 to 6 months out of the year.  The sunset on our second night.  We were offered little campers to sleep in.  Chris(boyfriend) and I took one look and felt the hot sticky air in the ones offered and decided to chance it in our tent with ventilation and comfy air mattress.

Just to give you a little perspective of just how vast this place is.

Everyone found Sun Stones.  It isn't hard.  You just walk, look at the ground and eventually you see an outcropping of the little buggers.  Like I said, it isn't hard.  It was hot.  I had to stop a number of times because of the heat from the sun (I think it only got up to 85 while we were there) and I still got a nasty sun burn.

It goes on forever.  The mining camp, from a distance.  I didn't want to offend the residents there by taking tons of pictures of just how desolate and desperate this place felt.  The outhouses were so bad I opted to use the wilderness once the sun set.

So I mentioned that the first day I was told that we'd be traveling 10 miles on a dirt road.  Well, the second day, and the third, on our way out, of course, we traveled 60 miles into the mining camp on dirt roads, and that was after at least 80 on pavement....from the first campsite.  

Really such a stunning experience.  I am so glad we went.  I want to go back in the spring when the desert flowers are blooming, but other than that...no need to go back.

Our first sign of civilization...

love to all and all to love,

beth