Al & Bill's Excellent Adventure

Al & Bill's Excellent Adventure ‘07



As has become our custom over the past several years, my buddy Al, and I busted loose, when we could and headed for God's side of the mountains.  We try to get in one or two escapes a year that include some significant back country hikes (significant for a couple of fellas bordering on old coot-hood).  But life was just too busy for the "Gray Rovers" this year.  Plans were discussed all Spring and Summer for epoch feats of wilderness survival and adventure that would brighten fall life like the orange Aspens against grey sage hillsides.  But alas, the mundane tasks of urban life dominated until November was all that was left to us.  Nevertheless, with strong faith that the desert of Southeastern Oregon would bring some respite from the concrete gray skies of the valley and the mists of the surrounding rain forests, we loaded our assorted clatter into Al's pickup and set off on a Thursday afternoon for our beloved Oregon outback. 

The afternoon began in light rain which followed us up the Canyon of the Clackamas River, through the forests of the Cascade foothills, past the shores of lakes abandoned by Summer's campers and boaters, through the Ponderosa of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation and out onto the edge of the high desert .  .  . where the rain continued.  But at least here the sky was not a monotone slate reaching to the ground and obscuring the boundary between the two; there were gashes filled with deep blue, and there were lenticular clouds hovering with sun-silvered edges, and Ty Curtis Blues guitar was compelling our feet to tap out a bass rhythm on the floorboards - life was good.

Three hours of gravel and asphalt, fir and pine and Juniper and Sage brought us to base camp - Mom's house in Bend.  How strange to say "Mom's house" instead of "Mom and Dad's house."  Dad's passing in March left me with a "short circuit," and Oregon lost another of it's Reub Long era desert rats.  Somehow, dad was connected, spiritually, to the desert, and I, likewise, to my father.  I didn't expect this and wasn't even aware of it until he left, but my father's many years of exploring and loving Eastern Oregon and its mystery made a connection between the place and the man that, now broken, leaves a fracture in my own relationship with the land.  But I consider it a new part of my humanity, a "beautiful scar," if you will, that will stay with me in all my own explorations.  It has touched my friend Al, as well, who came to love my folks in the short time that he'd spent with them.  It was our hope that we could take something of my father's to the top of Steens mountain and hide it there, in a cleft of rock, in his honor.  We even had a photograph with us, dating from the 50's, of my dad standing on the edge of a cliff on the East escarpment of the mountain and looking out over the Alvord desert.  We planned to locate the exact spot where he stood and have something of a ceremony there.  However, a November start meant that there was a very strong chance that the road to the top would be closed by snow when we got there, and mom informed us that such was the case.  Thus we made plans to spend our long weekend exploring the object of my father's immortalized gaze, the desert on the East side of the mountain, and we vowed to come back after the snows next year and find that hallowed ground.



Friday morning dawned with an even grayer sky and a howling wind, but there were only occasional spits of rain, and even then I was unsure whether they were falling from the sky or being blown off the Junipers.  Neither Al nor I really cared what the sky was doing; we were just glad to be on the desert-side of the Cascades and blowing east with the weather, farther and farther from what has become unrecognizable in the last twenty years and deeper into that which has not changed, at least in appearance, since the spirits of the first cowboys and those of my pioneer ancestors started accumulating there.  One of those ancestors, my great-great uncle, was with the First Oregon Cavalry in 1864 and spent his time chasing disgruntled Indians from his base at Camp Alvord.  Other of my "great-greats," passing through on the Oregon trail, stopped and homesteaded the arid  Northern Great Basin, apparently not possessed of the good sense to move on to the lush Willamette Valley.  If any or all of them loved the Oregon desert country as much as my father, then I suspect they're still wandering out here, and maybe that's what draws me.

Al and I share a common mindset - that we gladly take whatever the day gives us and consider it part of the adventure.  While I can't claim to have ever been a cowboy, I think there was enough cowboy handed down from those forebears for some of that positive fatalism to be passed on to me. Al has some roots in desert as well, and I guess he picked up the same constitution, because  rain, snow, sun or busted truck; our brief forays into the outback always give rise to abundant  tears of mirth, some very deep discussions and a general sense of renewal. 

Another common bond is our love for the spontaneous, often fueled by pouring over maps as we drive along.  This would result in our first departure from the "plan."  A few miles East of Glass Butte (so named because it is virtually made of obsidian), our position aligned favorably with one end of a dashed line on the map, veering off the highway and heading southeast.  It appeared that this would take us across some desert we hadn't seen before and dump us onto highway 395 some twenty-five miles north of yet another interesting dashed line.  The latter, called the "Hogback" road, promised either to take us to the foot of Hart Mountain or get us stuck or lost about a hundred miles from any civilization.  As the light rains we were experiencing off and on had only recently begun, the back roads were still pretty dry, and the bottom hadn't dropped out of the desert yet.  An aside; this country is famous, after a snow melt or Spring thaw, for taking the most invincible, monster-tired off-road beasts and hopelessly resting them on their frame rails to be recovered only at the next good freeze.  So we motored blissfully along, our joy at new discovery accompanied by more good blues guitar on the CD player.  Eventually, we found ourselves at the promised location, the foot of Hart Mountain on the road that would take us up the massive fault block and across the Catlow valley to the Steens.  A few switchbacks up this road brought us to a viewpoint where we stopped to look out over the immense Warner Valley and the seemingly endless chain of alkaline desert lakes that form the remnant of what was, some thousands of years ago, a vast inland sea.  As far as the eye can see in any direction, the mountains and their foothills are marked by what is called the "Warner Bathtub Ring."  This is a very noticeable high water mark, sometimes defined by a different color to the rocks, sometimes by very clearly discernable wave-cut terraces, that indicate a former depth of close to 400 feet and an expanse of thousands of square miles.  This is ranch country and what ranch country ought to look like - views that don't quit till they come up behind you.  If you hang around here long enough, you'll encounter those scenes from the Tom Mix movies of a lonely rider pushing strays through the sagebrush. 



It was here, in the midst of this intimidating vastness, that fate augmented our spontaneity.  We had taken in as much of the panorama as our mortal souls could contain, and headed back toward the truck, I some hundred yards ahead of Al.  As the pickup came into view, something didn't look right to me.  Was it just the unevenness of the terrain, or was one side of the truck lower than the other?  I looked at the left rear tire then walked around to compare it to the right rear.  In the moment it took to return to the left side, the tire had become perceptively flatter, and as I stood there watching, I could hear the hissing while the rim settled against the ground.  As Al approached, I smiled and commented, for the unseen audience, something regarding Al's blissful ignorance of our new situation.  Ordinarily, having a flat tire would hardly have been worth noting except that we had another seventy-something miles of the same sort of road ahead of us until we would see pavement again - and that with no spare!  This would be our first "imposed" change of plan.  We had originally intended to cross the Catlow and then head South along the Western terminus of the Steens until we came to the pass that would take us through a canyon and on to Fields Station, there to enjoy a famous Fields burger and shake.  (There are those among the cognoscenti who will travel the four hundred miles from Portland to Fields for the burgers and shakes.  And yet Fields is too far from anywhere to be a tourist stop.  It still primarily serves the ranching community scattered over the thousands of square miles considered the local neighborhood.  In fact, it is not uncommon to find a small aircraft parked near the café, left there by some rancher who has come into "town" - the café / store combo and an old motel with a few rooms - for a meal or some groceries.  They just land on the highway and taxi up to the store.) However, were we to stay with "plan A" another hundred miles of gravel road would be added to our no-spare route, and this did not seem particularly wise.  Thus we opted for "plan B."  As soon as we hit the paved two-lane, we would head north to Frenchglen and on, another sixty miles to Burns, a town large enough to have a tire dealership.   

Just as the last light was fading, we pulled into Frenchglen, a desert hamlet with a seasonal population peak of around twelve.  The old hotel, built in the 20's in the classic "American Foursquare" style, was closed for the season, as was the only other business, the Frenchglen Mercantile, so there was really no reason to stop.  Nevertheless, it is our tradition, whenever we pass through Frenchglen, to take pictures of one another sitting on the old wooden bench in front of the Mercantile.  You might think that this place got its name from some Parisian visitor's discovery of an oasis in the desert, but like most of this country, the history is tied to livestock.  Pete French, a cattle baron of the late nineteenth century and his partner, Dr. Glen made this valley, with its abundant water and grasses, the headquarters of their empire.  Big ranching lived on here after Pete met his demise the movie way, at the hands of a pistol packing, disgruntled cowhand, and you can still eat lunch at the old hotel with the occasional cowboy from outfits like the Roaring Springs Ranch.  However, you're more likely to end up chatting with a group of bird-watchers from Portland (depending on the season).  The locals know better than to hang out here during the Spring and Summer months when the place is overrun with folks who think beef comes from the supermarket.

Our customary bench-sit accomplished, we continued north on the small, winding blacktop which follows the Blitzen River to Malheur lake, another huge, alkaline remnant of an inland sea.  In the absence of a full moon, the blackness of the desert night renders this open rangeland a veritable minefield of "stealth cattle;" the Black Angus standing in the middle of the road often remains in full cloaked mode, like an Imperial Death-Star, until it is too late for the unsuspecting traveler to escape its gravitational pull.  The not uncommon result is death for the Angus and the traveler.  Thus it is a very good practice to navigate under "impulse power" alone.  Around milepost twelve or fourteen out of Burns Al found that he had cell-phone reception and called in to the local tire store to inquire as to their hours.  It was six o'clock, and they were just closing, but in typical back-country neighborliness, they volunteered to stick around the additional half hour it would take us to get there, and they would fix the flat for us.  We pulled in around 6:30, and while the young fellow worked on our tire, Al made a call to Crane Hot Springs to inquire as to whether or not one of their little two bed cabins might be available.  We were in luck, and there was a vacancy. 

With a viable spare now securely ensconced in the carrier, we forged on through the darkness and rare, but ceaseless, desert drizzle toward Crane where we would prepare a meal in the communal cookhouse and rest our weary bodies.  Crane is another of the desert's compelling oddities.  When I was a lad, my father and I would make the long trip from Bend, across the desert to the canyon of the Malheur river where we would jump shoot for ducks.  On the way, we would stop in the middle of the vast sagebrush plain, no signs of civilization anywhere, to have a look at Crane Hot springs.  It could only be found if you already knew it was there or you saw the steam rising in the cold, Fall air.  Apart from the steam, it had the appearance of a nondescript stock pond - perhaps forty feet in diameter.  Invariably my father would tell me the story of the woman who committed suicide by wading into the boiling waters of the spring - just the sort of gruesome (but true) story that a young boy never tires of.  Sometime within the last thirty or forty years - a span during which I did not, again, visit the site - some ambitious dreamer developed the Hot Springs into a very pleasant base camp for various desert adventures.  They enlarged the "pond" to probably about eighty feet across with a very gradually sloping bottom to about six or seven feet deep.  They then brought in loads of fine black cinder sand and lined the bottom and shores with it.  A pumping system was rigged that sprays the water up onto an inclined backstop, of sorts, where it is cooled by the air and runs back into a large galvanized stock tank.  From there, the water is pumped through a nozzle and sprayed out onto the surface of the pond to cool further.  The result is a huge bathtub / swimming pool under the open sky with a water temperature just cool enough to be on the hot side of comfortable. 

We got settled into our little "house on the prairie," and then hauled our kitchen-ware and rib-eye steaks over to the cookhouse.  There was a couple there just finishing up their meal and relaxing with a bottle of wine, and we all hit it off quite well, had some great laughs and talked about our plans for the next day.  This adventurous pair had been tearing around the better roads in their Mini Cooper, sometimes at speeds in excess of 100 mph!  Being "city folk" from West of Portland they were to be forgiven their ignorance of the stealth cattle - not such a big problem during daylight hours.  But at those speeds and in that car, a surprise daylight encounter with one of the desert's denizens of high velocity, an antelope, would probably leave all parties in an unrecognizable state.  But, perhaps a bit of danger and even foolishness is not such a bad thing.  In a thousand years it will seem rather inconsequential whether they died in their Mini at age forty-five or in their beds at eighty-five.  We laughed on for some time and then decided to hit the hay.  But newly awakened by the cold night air and the scent of wet sage, another idea came to my mind.  I decided it would be immensely satisfying to walk, naked but for swimming trunks, through the rain and cold, from our cabin to the dark but steaming pond and wade in.  It was a fascinating foray for the senses - I felt the rain and breeze on my exposed skin, the sharp cinders on my bare feet, and then, as I waded into the pond, the darkness and swirls of steam enveloped me and rendered me invisible.  As I waded deeper and deeper I passed through pockets of very hot water where they diffused up through the sandy bottom, and visions of the boiled woman returned from my childhood.  Then, as I got up to my chin, the greater volume and depth served to mix the water to a more uniform but delicious temperature.  With the hot water to comfort and relax my body and the cold rain on my head, I felt that I could float in this condition until I dissolved.  After absorbing and storing all these sensations as best I could, I waded back into the wind and rain and returned to the cabin.  My soul temporarily sated and my bones turned to rubber, I oozed into my bed and partook of the sleep that almost always eludes me when I am away from home.

The next day dawned  .  .  .  grey and rainy as it had been for most of the trip.  But just being out here in the desert meant that our spirits were still high.  And here at Crane Hot Springs we had amenities to brighten the start of our day - there were showers!  It should be noted that most of the various facilities at Crane take their water supply from the hot springs - including the toilets.  Imagine, if you will, some of the possible olfactory implications of having steaming hot water in the toilet bowl!  Well, the showers have their own interesting characteristics.  As with many hot springs, the waters at Crane are mineral rich.  Outside, in the pond, the cleansing breezes disguise this fact.  However, the showers don't get frequent use, so the water in the pipes has time to "outgas," so to speak, and the result is that bathing is accompanied by the rich aroma of sulfur.  You exit the shower smelling something like a burnt match.  Nevertheless, this is a vast improvement on the fragrance that usually accompanies two desert rats after a few days camped in the wilderness.  With our distinctive personal bouquets established, we dressed and headed for the cook house to turn out a batch of our traditional A&B breakfast fare, maple smoked bacon from our favorite meat market, eggs, toast and potatoes, and again, we encountered our new-found friends who had already eaten.  Another hearty round of laughter and good conversation ensued.  We poured over maps and discussed plans for the day.  Our friends decided that they would follow our lead and head South down the Alvord valley toward Fields Station.  Their Mini-Cooper would not be suitable for the side trip to Mickey Hot Springs, but we hoped to run into one another later along the main road. 

Al and I gathered our clatter and headed down the winding two lane black top toward our Elysian Fields.  The light rain followed us as it had, ceaselessly, during the entire trip.  However, as soon as we ventured into the rain shadow on the Eastern side of the nearly 10,000 foot high Steens, the rain stopped, and the sun broke through the clouds.


While much of the state of Oregon is desert, this particular area is known for its six to eight inches of precipitation per year.  This is not due solely to the Steens but to a series of North / South oriented fault-block mountains arranged in parallel from West to East.  These include Winter Rim above the huge, alkaline Summer Lake, Abert Rim, the longest, highest exposed fault block in North America, Hart Mountain, another Aspen decorated, canyon-cut monolith and home herds of Pronghorn Antelope and Bighorn Sheep (which, by the way, are already becoming the Spotted Owls of the desert).  As the weather fronts traverse the State West to East, these ranges ring-out nearly every last drop of water before any can reach this corner.  We continued south, looking for a low, rounded mountain that sits in the middle of the Northern end of the Alvord valley and splits it into a sort of "Y" shape.  We looked at our maps and determined that we should soon be finding, on our left, the turn-off to a dirt road that would lead us in the direction of Mickey Hot springs.  And shortly, there it was, a couple of ruts pointed roughly in the correct direction.  In places, the ruts had filled with "desert talcum," a dust so fine that it seems a cross between a liquid and solid; it squirts out from under the tires in a virtual spray and offers no support.  It appears reasonably solid, like sand, but may fill a rut, like opaque air, so as to disguise a sharp bolder lying in wait to hole an oil pan or flatten a tire.  We proceeded with caution and made our way through a few "pools" of this stuff, eventually emerging onto a rockier footing.  After some distance, we came to a wide spot where there were a couple of signs on an old rock crib that anchored a barbed-wire fence. 
One sign read "Danger, injuries and deaths have occurred here .  .  ."  There was some explanation about people falling through the seemingly solid crust into the boiling water beneath.  This certainly served to accentuate the overall spookiness of the place.  Other than the fence and the signs, there are no indications of human presence here (I'm pretty sure it's a suburb of heaven).  The wind moans across the barren hills and alkali flats, kicking up clouds of white dust, but when it pauses, there are other sounds.  Hissing can be heard all around, and gurgling noises come from indeterminate directions.  The ground is bleached, with sparse patches of alkali tolerant grasses sticking up here and there.  Reaching down and placing my palm on the ground, I found it quite warm to the touch and wondered if the footprints I was being careful to follow were made by someone significantly lighter than I.  Here, the water table varies greatly with the annual snow-pack in the Steens, and it appeared that this was a drier than usual year; as Al and I walked beyond the fence, we came to a large, deep crater in the ground.  It was ringed with a Travertine crust and had obviously been filled with hot water in wetter years.  A large, dark crack in the bottom looked like it might yet be a gateway to Dante's place, and as I listened carefully, between gusts of wind, I could hear a slight hissing coming from the darkness.  We walked on down a gentle slope toward clouds of steam we could see rising from the ground and paused near the edge of a small pond whose waters were clear as air and roiling with superheated currents.  I could not immediately determine the direction from which an odd, intermittent "blurping" sound was coming, and I searched the ground all around us.  Then, in the middle of a flat expanse of white, crusty ground I caught a brief movement.  There was a spot, darkened with liquid, and as I watched, an occasional splurt of mud would squirt from its center with the very sound you'd expect from boiling mud.  We walked further and found various holes and fissures with steam jetting from them, and one small pool was actually spraying out boiling water like a very lazy geyser.  Other crystalline pools were scattered about the area.  We noticed, as we stood silently listening, that the general hissing all around us would slowly grow louder and then fade again as though some sort of eruption were imminent.  This was a place that I would suspect the earliest inhabitants of the area avoided, a place where the underworld intruded into the world of man.  It would be interesting to know what the Indians called it.  It definitely has a sense of "presence" to it, a sense that it is somehow "occupied." 

Having become not only satisfied with the odd beauty of the place but somewhat "creeped-out" as well, we decided to backtrack to an even more primitive set of ruts that we had passed coming in.  These veered off the main track and headed due south, and it appeared that they would lead us directly to the Northern end of the billiard-table flat, hard, dry Playa known as the Alvord Desert.  This twelve mile long, seven mile wide natural race track lies at the Eastern base of the Steens and in rare, wet years has been known to briefly return to its status as a huge, ankle-deep lake.  But most of the time it serves as a place where the artistic concept of the vanishing point finds its definition.  We planned to drive its length (at whatever speed might seem appropriate - no limits here!) and then leave it at its Southern end where we would rejoin the main road to Fields Station.  At first, we stayed to the Eastern edge where widely spaced sage and other bushes spill out onto the flat from the surrounding hills.  These make for an excellent slalom course, and Al soon had me giggling like a girl as he squealed the tires swerving in and out of the natural pylons.  After enough of this sport, we broke out onto the bush-free expanse where there is nothing to dodge and nothing but innate fear and horsepower to limit your speed.  Yet we remained conservative and held the speedometer at eighty as we took an arrow-straight heading across the expanse.  It appeared that we were driving on glass or water as the winds had scoured the dust from the surface and polished it to a sheen that blindingly reflected the pure desert sunlight.  And the thought occurred to me that here a business could be made of giving the blind the opportunity to drive at high speed with complete impunity.  Shortly, we found the exit ramp from this autobahn, a little track through the grass growing on the "shoreline."  It led us back up to the main gravel road and on our way to an anticipated Fields-burger and milkshake.  In a few more miles we found that our culinary dreams were not to be fulfilled.  The proprietor of the Fields Station restaurant had closed up shop for the day - not for lack of business but to prevent business!  Yes, this is how things are done out here.  It so happens that this particular day, the little hamlet of Denio, which straddles the Nevada / Oregon border, was having a fund-raiser for the local school.  There were burgers being sold and various entertaining events, and the good neighbor in Fields did not want to draw any business away from this worthy cause.  We chatted with her a bit, then she sent us on our way to Denio for the only other available meal in the area that we would not have to kill and cook ourselves.  When we arrived, most of the town was gathered at the community center / library.  Having arrived at the tail-end of the event, we suffered the remaining cold, dry burgers gladly and observed the goings-on.  There was an indoor turkey shoot employing air rifles and paper targets set up at the far end of the basketball court.  This was a popular event attended primarily by the local young folks, pretty much all of whom you can be certain are well acquainted with much more substantial firearms.  And I was quite relieved to see that, even in the twenty-first century, none of these kids were sporting tongue piercings or trousers with the crotch at knee-level. There was a sale of "vintage" paperback books, apparent surplus from the library, and outside was the "cow-pie" lottery.  This is an event ideally suited to the ranching community who are intimately familiar with the gastro-intestinal habits of their four-legged charges.  In this game a pen is set up and divided into numbered squares.  The entrants purchase a square, and their fare is added to the pool.  A bovine, in this case it was a rather lonely looking calf, is inserted into the pen, and the rest is a waiting game.  Whose square will receive the blessing .  .  . and when?  I wonder if the "athlete" is fed any kind of a special diet in advance of the game or if there are side bets on when the mark will be made or if it will straddle any lines.  You know, there is the small statistical chance that four different squares could share the .  .  .  game piece equally.  And then, of course, there could be additional betting on the anticipated consistency - would this be one of those dryish, lumpy cow cannon balls or something more on the order of a Jackson Pollack painting?
We waited for a while, but there were no indications that the critter would make his choice anytime soon. 


Sunlight was fading; no, actually, it was putting on a pretty spectacular show in the broken clouds over the Pueblo range to our West, and we decided we would make our way back up the valley in search of the wide spot in the road that marked the trailhead down to the  popular Alvord Hot Springs.  We planned on a soak under the stars, and then we would traverse the width of the Alvord desert and camp on its far edge - I so wanted to watch the sunrise light-up the Eastern flank of the Steens and finally strike the spot where my father stood nearly fifty years ago.  It was pretty dark by the time we reached the stretch of the main road where it skirts the Alvord.  About all that could be seen was the glow of the moon reflecting off the white alkaline expanse.  We kept looking for the wide spot we assumed would look familiar, and we were about eight miles past it before we realized we had missed it.  We stopped and turned around to start backtracking and were almost immediately greeted by a strange noise emanating from the back of the truck.  We thought that some of our gear had shifted and was rattling around, so we stopped, again, to investigate.  This time, the right rear tire was flat!  So, we had clearly made the right decision, the previous night, to get our spare patched!  Another little aside here - the previous day we had been discussing the likelihood of encountering the brain-sucking aliens that are known to frequent these lonely parts.  Apparently when they can't find suitable brains, they go for cattle entrails.  Otherwise, why would we keep hearing these stories about cattle being found in the desert with their insides neatly, surgically removed?  And then, this night, on this "dark desert highway," having just fallen victim to our second flat tire in as many days, it occurred to us.  The brain-sucking aliens had come looking, and finding no one but Al and I, and no cattle in the immediate vicinity, they were left with no options other than to suck the air out of our tires!  Once again, we set up the jack and then started probing the opening near the rear bumper in an effort to engage the little winch that would lower the spare to the ground.  Having practiced the previous day, it did not take us forty minutes this time.  By the time we finished the change-out, it was getting pretty late and pretty cold and we were losing some of our enthusiasm for a camp-out.  In a way, the aliens had sucked it out of us.  Furthermore, given our recent track record, we did not want to risk any further driving in the opposite direction of civilization.  We opted to turn around once again and head back to Crane Hot Springs.  We knew that none of the little cabins were available, but we figured we could just throw our tents up on the available flat spots set aside for that purpose and fix a meal in the cookhouse.  We had a few chuckles about the idea that our new-found friends would likely invite us to roll-out our sleeping bags on the floor of their cabin.  They were more or less newlyweds, and the idea of us snoring on their floor painted a rather humorous picture. 

As we climbed the highway up out of the Alvord valley and the protection of the Steens, we were, once again, greeted by rain.  Arriving at Crane Hot springs, we surveyed the standing puddles on all the flat bits of ground and quickly made the decision to wimp-out and find a motel room in Burns, twenty-six miles west.  First, though, we stopped by the cook-house and found our friends there.  We chatted long about the day's events and how we had somehow just missed one another on the road between Crane and Fields.  Once again, we laughed heartily at one another's jokes and comments, but Al and I high-fived and laughed ourselves to tears when our friends nearly begged us to camp out on the floor of their cabin.  We warned them of the various noises and aromas that could accompany such a slumber party and politely declined.  After a bit more mirth, Al and I said our goodbyes to our friends and headed into the rain and toward Burns.  Arriving at something around nine p.m. we both commented that it was still pretty early and that Bend, where we could stay at mom's for free, was only a hundred and thirty miles away.  And so we pressed on into the light-absorbing blackness that is a high desert night under cloud cover.  Back on paved road we had reasonable hope of actually making it to Bend.
Without being able to see our familiar landmarks, the two hours of driving seemed to fly by very quickly.  We pulled into the long driveway leading to mom's several-acre oasis amid the housing developments and crept quietly in through the back door, found our beds and crashed.

Upon awakening, we were more or less back in the "conventional" world again - houses, traffic, television.  All that remained to conclude this mini-adventure was to traverse the desert, mountains and forests between Bend and the rainy side of the Cascades - all pretty conventional, uneventful stuff .  .  .  or so we thought.  As we pulled out of Bend, the rain that had dogged us everywhere except the Alvord continued.  Terrebonne .  .  . rain, Redmond .  .  . rain,  Madras .  .  . rain, Warmsprings .  .  . SNOW!  The snow evolved from random splotches on the windshield to a light dusting on the ground to packed snow on the highway, snowplows, sanding trucks and backed-up traffic.  It got deeper and deeper as we approached the summit of Blue Box Pass and Government camp.  As we drove along, Al, an avid long distance motorcyclist, relayed several stories of having gotten trapped out in the snow while riding , and just as we passed Government Camp, and the pavement became just bare and wet, here came two motorcyclists, oblivious to the conditions they were about to encounter.  Suddenly I felt so warm, cozy and safe in Al's pickup!  And then, a few more miles, and we were back in ordinary, seemingly ceaseless Western Oregon rain - the sort that hangs the Douglas firs with Spanish moss-like beards and carpets the boulders in green fuzz, the sort that you never see in the deserts of Eastern Oregon - yeah, right!