High Plains Drifters

Columbia River at Maryhill

We are on the road again; this time en route to Las Vegas from our Kirkland home. We are ambling and rambling our way through Washington, Oregon and Nevada.  After securing the homefront and the usual flurry of 'final things' we were on the road heading for Oregon after crossing the Columbia River at Maryhill, WA and Biggs Junction, Ore.

Wind Machines

We are eating picnic lunches along the way (cost and time saver) and we had a great first meal along side an Oregon wheat field that had a view back at Washinton and the wind machines that grow out of the hillsides near Goldendale, just above the Columbia.  While I find Greek windmills enchanting, I find the slow creaking of these gigantic monsters almost unnerving; especially as we drove past them.

Heading to Lakeview, Oregon

While we didn't have a set destination for our first day, we'd been thinking that La Pines, south of the better-known Bend, Oregon sounded like a good stopping place.  Sometimes what you think about a place before you get there and what you find once there are two very different things.  We voted to keep going. . .only in these wide open spaces there are miles and miles between outposts (I feel for those pioneers who came west).  So two hours later we bedded down for the night in Lakeview, Oregon near the Nevada border.

We'd seen cowboys, cattle, critters and plenty of wide open spaces. Dramatic landscapes, towns so small they were but a service station, cafe and perhaps tavern at an intersection.

We traveled 537 miles in 10 hours - about the same amount of time it takes for us to fly from Seattle to London. We'd seen some beautiful scenery in Oregon and after resting up we'd be ready for day two: destination Tonopah, Nevada.