Meet Me In the Middle (of Nowhere)

Posted by: steve | From: September 1, 2007

Click on image for video.

(Warning: Long driving sequences (some rough bouncy roads) contained within. Possibly boring, nauseating, beautiful, patriotic, rousing, and radical. Also some humans contained, not ONLY just driving.)

Filled with some sense of purpose that to honor this country or to honor what was my inner american's desire for a true 4th I decided I needed a Hunter S. Thompson inspired spirit quest (to go to the desert away from literally everything with some fireworks and a cooler full of beer).

Mike joined me for the trip and we started by taking 26 west over Mt. Hood (with a detour for some mountain mini golf) we then traveled through the Warm Springs Indian Reservation and south through Madras. The streets were lined with American Flags and we listened to TERRIBLE political parody songs on NPR. We went south through Bend (where Mike switched from long pants to shorts in the high 90s temps and bought a funky hat). We continued south to virgin territory for the both of us. We tried to visit the Lava River Caves but were thwarted by conservative operational hours by the state park service. Just north of La Pine we took a left and went on a small road deep into the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. We curved and climbed passed Paulina Lake and East Lake. Then it was onto a very rough and ready bouncy and crusty dirt mountain pass road. It was thrilling. The road smoothed out but was still dirt for many many more miles. Eventually we found ourselves at the South Ice Cave which was strange and thrilling and alien and slightly frightening. We shot roman candles into the ice cave, ate ice cream sandwiches, and tapped into the cooler resources for the first time of the day.

Back onto the dirt road we drove and drove and kicked up dust until we reached the Central Southern Oregon beacon which is called Fort Rock. We turned left at Fort Rock and continued onto a place called Christmas Valley. We were searching for some famous dunes east of Christmas Valley.We drove and drove and somehow missed our turn. We were losing light. Eventually we turned around and came back and turned off to a "shortcut". We went deep into the high desert brush outback through some mild dunes, but eventually a fence blocked our shortcut and it was getting dark. We found our mini dunes and hunkered down for some fireworks and carousing. We were many miles from any humans. We saluted the sky and the silence. We hooped, hollar'd, and got quiet.

Then we turned around and went home. We drove through the dark and saw hundreds of jack rabbits and almost drove off the dirt roads. We drove 5+ hours back in the dark and got home after 430 in the morning. Thank you America.

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