August 3, 2011
We woke up a bit before 6am and drove the van over to Fort Rock just in time for the golden hour as the sun was rising. We had the monument to ourselves and it was neat to walk around inside this geological wonder. It used to be a island with a lake surrounded by an even bigger lake. Inside a nearby cave, they have found the world's oldest footwear. Neat. We made coffee in the parking area and prepared the van for a day of exploring.We continued along the Christmas Valley byway and stopped at a yard sale, where we were offered a chance to trade in our van for a horse and buggy. Tempting, but we passed. The family there recommended checking out the Crack-in-the-Ground, and since it was still bothering us that we missed the Hole-in-the-Ground the day before, we figured we should see at least one thing that was in-the-ground. The road to the less popular Crack was long, narrow, and terribly wash-boarded due to all the trucks transporting alfalfa out of the valley and the parking area was not signed. Luckily, the locals like to quickly haul ATVs up into the sand dune country where the Crack is, and when we pulled into a turnout to let one pass, we noticed a path with a kiosk off to the side that would eventually lead to the Crack-in-the-Ground. We walked to the crack, explored inside - it gets deep very quickly and is fun bouldering, but the Crack is also a scary place and when we saw some bear scat we decided we didn't want to meet any of the inhabitants of this giant fissure in the earth. So we hiked back out and drove back to the town of Christmas Valley. We supported the library fundraiser bake sale in front of the gas station - the gingersnaps were excellent. While driving to the town of Silver Lake and Thompson Reservoir for some midday fishing, we drove past the sign for the Cowboy Dinner Tree - a restaurant that is famous for serving you a whole chicken or 30oz steak as your entree. We had it in our minds that we would eat there and then be able to live on the leftovers for a few days of camping. Apparently we hadn't done enough research because we were surprised to see that it was only open Thursday through Sunday, and we had hoped to eat there that night (a Wednesday). This was a downer and while Max practiced casting again off the dock at the Reservoir, Emily tried to come up with an alternate plan. We finally realized that it was hard to plan because we were hungry, so we drove back to Silver Lake and stopped at the "deli" - a trailer with a grill outside. Max asked if he could mix the lemonade and iced tea. "It's called an Arnold Palmer" half-scoffed the teen waiting on us. The burger and BLT were delicious and we asked the pre-teen and teenager working there where we should try fishing. They suggested Summer Lake - so we continued along the Byway south.
Summer Lake is beautiful, but large and with a shoreline that is hard to get to. It didn't seem like the ideal fishing spot. Emily had picked up a tourism brochure in Silver Lake that advertised a hot springs at MM92 and since hot springs were on the top of our priority list for this trip, we thought we'd stop by and check it out. We were met by the friendly owners of Summer Lake Hot Springs, Duane and Melani, and proceeded to learn all about the hot springs - the bathhouse was 80 years old, the water comes out of a pile a mile down at exactly 112 degrees, we could soak for $10 each and camp for another $5 each. We explained that we had a cat in the van and as there seemed to be no shade trees anywhere, so we would go find somewhere to fish and then come back in the evening to soak and probably stay. Duane suggested Withers Lake, and then also recommended the Paisley Mercantile as a place we might be able to get some info on the good fishing spots in the area. The man staffing the mercantile sold us some postcards (one of which was Abert Rim, where we hadn't been yet - Max thought that was a bad idea - buying a postcard of a place we hadn't seen yet) and a cup of coffee. He also suggested Withers Lake and provided us with a photocopy of the National Forest map with our route highlighted. We set off to the lake and bounced along some dirt roads as we climbed higher and higher above the desert floor. At the lake, Emily tried recording sounds of the pond and rocks sploshing into the pond, probably scaring away all the fish from Max casting nearby. We started back down the hill just as the sun was setting. All the way down Government Harvey pass back to US 31, we kept catching glimpses of the setting sun over the valley floor and glimmering Summer Lake. The only wildlife we encountered was a bull in the middle of the road. After staring it down for a few minutes, Max beeped. It slowly ambled off the road, keeping an eye on us the whole way.
We pulled back into the hot springs at dusk and paid for our night's soak and stay. We got into another great conversation with the owners who convinced us not to go into Paisley for dinner because they would be happy to supply us some great fresh veggies that had just been delivered that day. Well stocked with onion, zucchini and green beans we feasted on Trader Joe's chili and vegetables before we went down to soak. The waters were perfect, and we had the pool to ourselves for most of the time. The stars were bright and beautiful on the walk back to the van, where we slept soundly.
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