Bend to Burns
The trek from Bend to Burns on US-20 is about 130 miles through the high desert. There are a few hills, there are a few curves, but otherwise it’s a straight shot with only four “towns” along the way. I stopped at a rest stop along the way and read a little about the history of the area.
It usually took about five years for a man to come, stake out some land, build a fence around it, plow it, wait in vain for harvest, lose all his money, get tired of jackrabbit stew, and give up.
The signs went on to say that there were so many homesteader shacks, that at night from nearby Pine Mountain, the kerosene lights looked like a sea of stars. Virtually nothing of that now remains, swept away and buried by the desert after being abandoned. Some settlers came through this area looking for a shorter route to the Willamette Valley than the traditional Oregon Trail, but the desert journey was very difficult for them. I paused to consider making this journey in a wagon being pulled by 2-mile-per-hour oxen. I cannot fathom it. 55 miles-per-hour is too slow. When the railroad came through Bend, another surge of settlers arrived, lured by government promises of cheap (or free) farming land. After realizing the futility of trying to grow anything here, most moved into Bend to take jobs at the recently-opened saw mills. The only successful homesteaders in the Oregon high desert were those who were fortunate enough to stake out land with a water source. Usually this meant drilling a well and installing a windmill to pump it.
Today, little has really changed. There are only two common activities on the land here: grazing cattle, and growing alfalfa for said cattle. The latter requires extensive irrigation, which is undoubtedly expensive, but apparently is still a profitable endeavor selling to ranchers who don’t have enough land to support their cattle. The grazing is hard on the desert ecosystem, and the alfalfa fields are hardly natural either. When the early settlers realized they couldn’t grow anything here, we should have all left the desert alone.
Burns
I arrived in Burns around 19:30. That’s 7:30 pm for those of you who are 24-hour impaired.
Burns is a nice little town of a few thousand people. Being the biggest town within a hundred miles or more must carry some responsibility. For being in the middle of nowhere, they seem fairly hip. There’s even a skate park with concrete half-rounds and the like.
Just before Burns is the town of Hines, which is essentially a suburb of Burns; what a strange idea. I took a short detour off the highway at Hines to photograph an old saw mill. I got the tripod out again, hoping to catch some nice colors as the sun descended, but it disappeared behind a hill before doing anything pretty. For some reason I got really trigger happy and shot more photos of the old buildings than anyone would ever be interested in seeing.
I found my motel near the other end of Burns, the Days Inn Ponderosa Motel. I admit to being a cheapskate when it comes to roadtrip motels, but it’s not like there’s a lot of options in Burns anyway. After checking in, I unloaded the car and surveyed the place. The room was… well, what do you expect, it’s Days Inn.
Fort Rock