Okay, so yeah, it's been a while .... again

It's not that nothing is happening over here when time lapses between posts ...... it's just that sometimes the motivation level drops off.  But there was this:

In April we headed to the eastern edge of our state to help Favorite(s) Daughter and S-I-L, with their remodeling job of their current new-to-them house.   As sad as it is to have them move five hours away (as opposed to the previous three), it is parentally gratifying to see them in a situation better suited to their needs.  And who knew how pretty this portion of our state could actually be?  When you've spent your entire life only zipping through on the freeway, it never occurred to me to that there'd be any reason to ever move there.  But after living in the "high desert" (see previous post), my perspective has shifted.  They definitely found *pretty*.

From there we spent a couple of weeks southward in search of warmth and (not necessarily in the following order) finally found it in Death Valley, one of our favorite haunts .... although I'm not totally sure why.  It could be that these are the actual colors, or that they sell humongous ice cream cones, scooped right out of the hill in the lower picture .....

(Just kidding.)

We also did the iconic drive down the mid-California coast (Big Sur area) 

and were blown away by the views ..... not to mention the gas prices.  Yet again, I am reminded that Oregon does not walk away with every natural beauty contest.  If California could fix its problems, I'd be tempted to live there, in spite of the unfortunate fact that it (or rather a certain piece of uneven pavement) gave me a slightly broken foot which sent us in search of a pair of crutches the next day and promptly eliminated any hikes we'd hoped to do.

We're still trying to figure out Nevada, which .... is just there ..... kind of in the way of the more enjoyable states.  Although we did visited a car museum in Reno.  (Surprisingly, I've come to learn that car museums are quite interesting.)  

And, had the elevation not been so high making it too cold ..... we would've spent the night by this odd structure.  Click here if you're slightly curious.

Stokes Castle

We drove home via a portion of Oregon that was new to us, up through the town of Lakeview.  This town, I assume, got its name because of its proximity to massive Goose Lake, as shown on all the maps.  Maybe the lake was there once, but it's not there now.  It's just a huge empty flat grassland. 

It was Easter morning when we stopped by a couple of recently-heard-of-by-us natural landmarks between Lakeview and home.  The ancient volcano, "Fort Rock", abruptly rises up out of the nearby farmland, and was unexpectedly impressive. We learned that every Easter, for nearly 70 years, the local Christian church holds a sunrise service there, complete with a bonfire.  We arrived in time to see them hauling away the burn barrel, and we both decided we'd like to attend the service sometime.

Nearby "Hole In The Ground" (its official name) is a huge indentation that I'm sure people would love to think was caused by a massive meteor, but it was another volcano.  The road(s) to it are a maze of rutted, winding dirt roads that are more comfortably done with a higher clearance vehicle than what we were in, although we did fine.  You need your GPS to get to it because there are no signs.  Worth seeing once, in my opinion.  But not twice.

Also in that same vicinity is something called "Crack In The Ground" (I'm not making these names up) which appears to be a type of slot canyon (yes, Oregon has a few) ..... but alas, my wounded foot forced us to save that hike for another trip.

And coming this summer, the plans are still a GO ...

to drive to ........ 

Alaska!