Eastern Oregon

I started my week at Chickahominy Reservoir in Riley, OR. It is listed as a very nice lakeside campground. The cost was $8 per night, half price for Golden Pass (old folks) holders, like me. I arrived yesterday. No lake. It’s totally dried up. Not even a swamp or mud puddle. I’ve been constantly reminded the past few months what a terrible job we humans are doing at managing our planet. Most lakes I’ve visited are extremely low, or completely gone. It’s sad, to say the least. So, I was in a campground with about 50 or more sites, almost all of them are “pull through” sites meaning they have a small loop on the side of the main road where you can turn into the site, and if you continue on, it re-joins the main road. Thus, “Pull THROUGH” instead of backing in, or pulling in and having to back out. The pull throughs are big enough to accommodate even larger pull-behinds or 5^th wheels, so Cosmo and I had a lot of space. I drove back to the entrance where it is an honor system to pay. They ask for you to fill out an envelope (there were no envelopes in the holder) and list your campsite number (there was no number on our site, or most of the nearby sites) and put your money in the envelope.  I went back to my site and on the way, asked another camper what the deal was about paying. He told me what I already knew: “There aren’t any envelopes, and we don’t have a campsite number. I thought the guy in the big rig up front was the camp host, but he isn’t. He apparently just moved into that spot because it is big and has a covered picnic table. I think he is staying there permanently because nobody ever checks.”

So we didn’t pay. With no envelopes, I wasn’t going to just stick cash in the slot. It was blazing hot but there was at least a slight breeze. I opened all my doors and windows, so the van didn’t get unbearable. For the first time in many weeks, flies were not a problem. (I think they must’ve all died from heat stroke.) So the van stayed the same temperature as the outside, which was about 90 degrees. I sat outside, and read, then went inside and caught up on e-mails since I finally had good cell/internet service for the first time in a couple of days. The silence is eerie. I can see cars and trucks passing by on a distant road but can’t hear them. There is nobody close enough to be heard. I had a neighbor across and down the road when I arrived, but he left a few hours later.

The night sky was magnificent. Before going to bed, Cosmo and I did our nightly walk, and I could see the Milky Way. I paused outside, hoping to catch the tail end of the Perseid Meteor Showers, but didn’t see any. By the time I got into bed, I looked out the window and saw the nearly full moon, rising bright and orange as a Halloween pumpkin. Jupiter was next to it. Well, to me it looked a couple inches away. I guess in reality it was actually 389 million miles away. Still, I checked on them throughout the night, and they crossed the sky in unison, and I could still see them together as the sun rose.

We stayed there a couple of days. I would have stayed longer, but it was going up to 97⁰. I checked and the farther west I went, the less intense the heat would be. So we moved closer to Bend. It still got up to 90⁰, but that made a big difference. We got just outside Bend, at some BLM land called Oregon Badlands. At first it appeared that there weren’t many sites and most were taken, and the road soon ended with a sign that said “Private Property-Do Not Enter.” It was some sort of trucking company. So I turned around and as I headed back I saw a van down one of the dirt roads to the side. I didn’t want to encroach on his space, but in a few yards there was another road and I turned down it. It curved to the right and there was a big dirt clearing. It wasn’t very level, but I got out of the van and explored some.  I looked over the hill and saw the van I’d just passed and beyond him was a very big clearing.  I went back and pulled into the clearing. I was going to check with the van owner first, but he was either inside, all locked up, or had gone for a hike. I got level, and parked next to an existing campfire ring. I was surrounded on all sides by tall scrub brush and a few pine trees. I looked down and saw the guy getting in his van and he soon pulled off. He couldn’t see me from his vantage point, so I’m fairly certain he didn’t leave on my account. As Cosmo and I explored, there were many such clearings down the various dirt roads. There is room for a lot of campers here, but there were very few. At night, I could only see one other camper, about a half mile up the road on a hill. We weren’t far off the main road but there were trees and brush between us and the road, making it feel quite private. I could see headlights as cars entered the BLM land a mile or so down the road, but they disappeared into the darkness of the trees as they passed us. The night sky was amazing with a total lack of light pollution.

I spent much of the first day outside. I was once again able to open up all the doors of the van and let air circulate. It is amazing how much cooler the van stays when I don’t allow heat to build up inside. I listened to a mindless Sci-Fi Audible book outside and when I tired of that I came in and searched Google Maps to try to decide where to go next.

For the past months, I feel like I’ve always been on a mission. When I left Prescott Valley, AZ I wanted to get to Oregon and Northern California. I wanted to drive UP the California coast, but to get there would have meant driving across the burning desert. The temps were already in the triple digits; my window for doing that had already passed. So I decided to drive north and get new tags and driver’s license in South Dakota. It seemed to take forever to get to SD because I stopped (purposely) and enjoyed some nice spots along the way. From there, my new mission was to get my solar unit checked for dirt and cleaned out as necessary and on the way there, my fridge failed and I had to find a reliable RV dealership to replace it.  Now, chores and life maintenance is behind me for the time being. As Paul Simon says “I have no deeds to do, no promises to keep.” This is the freedom I sought from the beginning, and it is difficult for me. I’m usually a man with a mission. Now I can go wherever I want, do whatever I want or do nothing at all and that prospect can feel overwhelming to me. My plan was to stay in the south-central part of Oregon, visit Umpqua National Forest, then down to Klamath, Crater Lake and Shasta Lake. I’m still thinking that is the easy route, and the path that allows me some nice spots to stay for a week or so at a time. But the coast is calling, and although I hadn’t planned to drive that far, it could be nice if I could find the right spot. Most of the campgrounds on the coast are pricey and booked up. If I want to go there, I will have to plan ahead and pay. That takes some of the appeal away. I have no place I need to be, and so I’m not in any hurry to get there.

I spent 4 nights in the Oregon Badlands. The spot I had was not too far from the road but was hidden by some trees and shrubs.  I could see lights at night when cars and trucks (there is a rock/cement company at the other end of the road, and their trucks came and went all day and into the night) passed by, but it didn’t bother me. It felt reassuring that I would know when anyone was approaching. During the day a couple cars/vans pulled off on my dirt road, went past me and over the 4 days, a couple of them set up camp for the night, about a mile past my site. For the most part, I felt quite isolated.

We had two cloudy days, and I spent some time in the van cleaning (I really need to stop at a friend’s house, wash my seat cushion covers, shampoo my carpets, and do a major cleaning, top to bottom) and working on getting my blog up to date (www.ILiveHere.life) and making a YouTube video of some of the places I’ve been this summer (You can check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umcwj9L_udI&t=3s) I also spent time out in my chair, Cosmo next to me in his dog bed.  I listened to two Audible books. Cosmo waited for “the cows to come home” which they did often throughout the day. They came past us most mornings and headed back in late afternoon.  Several days, they relaxed under a tree just on the other side of a berm that separated us from them.

My next stop was downtown Bend where I got propane, stopped at Planet Fitness for a LONG shower (I’ve been doing mini-showers outside every other day because I am so removed from people, I can easily be naked outside without scaring or scarring anyone) and got a bagel at Big-O Bagel Company. I did some major grocery shopping so I could stay out again for a couple weeks if I wanted to. I think Bend could be a really fun small town. Driving was easy and every place I stopped from the RV place to get propane to the Safeway for groceries,  people were friendly. Everyone started up a conversation, including folks in the grocery store. Anyone I made eye contact with spoke, and either said “How’s it going?” or actually started a conversation about something. The town was full of young men, hybrids between lumberjack and hippie.  Anyone who had buttons on their shirts had the top few buttons open, exposing some sort of beads or necklaces on top of furry chests. Mostly all the men had beards and man-buns or ponytails. Everyone smiled or nodded or said hello. My kind of town. But towns don’t usually work very well for me. It was hot, so even running into Big-O Bagel Company I had to open the windows in the van and turn on the fan, and leave a sign saying that Cosmo was fine (for fear someone would break the window out to “rescue him.) I wasn’t comfortable leaving him for more time than it took me to get groceries. Doing things in a city is not easy or very enjoyable. Leaving Cosmo locked in a van for any duration doesn’t feel fair to him and is outright dangerous when it’s so hot out. I think that is the downside to not having any human companionship on the road; If I was with someone, I’d find an outdoor place to have lunch, or grab a cup of coffee. It’s just not the same going to sit at a table alone with a dog underneath, who wants to make friends with everyone who passes by.

After errands, I drove south to our next camping spot in the Deschutes National Forest. The drive in was easy on a paved road, and once the road turned to dirt and got rough, I quickly found a pull out that was level enough to set up camp.

We’re about a half mile from a paved road and during the day, we can see cars passing by through the trees. At night there is hardly any traffic and so far there have been very few cars come down the dirt road that we are parked off of. The temperature dropped somewhat and there has been a slight breeze most of the time. The forest is beautiful.

Lessons from the Road: What a different life it is when everything works. With my computer, internet and refrigerator problems solved, my solar checked out, and my new driver’s license and van tags, everything is taken care of for the time being. My biggest chore is to stop and get gas, or go to the grocery store. It also means that I’ve got no place I need to be, no deadlines. I can go anywhere I want and do whatever I want for as long as I want. Too many choices is sometimes difficult for me. When I became a vegetarian (50 years ago next month), when I’d go out to eat, my only menu options were usually a baked potato, a side salad (which I’d have to pick the bacon off) and whatever the vegetable of the day was (usually overcooked for several hours and limp and without any nutritional value whatsoever). These days, most restaurants have a large vegetarian or even vegan section. When I have more than two choices, it can take forever for me to decide what to eat.  Likewise, being in Oregon and having options of going to the coast, to a lake, to a forest, or driving north to Washington state is a little overwhelming. My brain shuts down from too much choice. I think my main lesson of the week is to just enjoy where I am and not feel like I have to “do it all”.  I can stay as long as I like and move on whenever I feel the urge.