Day One: The Boise / Oregon Ghost Town Tour...

The first day of the tour we decided to travel as far as Burns, OR, which is about about six hours away from my home in Springfield.

There's a very common misconception about Oregon.

1) That it rains all the time. It really doesn't.
2) That's it's all forest and trees. It's really not.

A good half (at least) of Oregon is desert - and by desert, I don't mean all sand like the Sahara. I mean what they call "high desert country." It's wide open space and lots of heat.

Here's what I mean...

Yes, folks, that's Oregon, and a WHOLE lot of it looks like this. But you know, I really LOVE it. I love the quiet and the open sky. When I was younger, I was really into the forest, and while I still appreciate the beauty of the trees, I think that the desert speaks more to me now. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's just the openess of it. You can see for miles and there's no hiding anything.

One of the most popular travel destinations in Oregon is a little tourist town called Sisters. It's right at the foot of the Cascades. There are lots of little shops and fun things to see. It's a nice place to spend an afternoon. But, NO ONE but no one has heard of Brothers, Oregon, and that's where these photos were taken... Here are a couple of my favorites...

This one of my little girl, Noelle, out hunting for rattle snakes (a daring one, she is).

And this, one of my favorite photos from the entire trip. This is SO eastern Oregon...

All of these were taken at a rest stop in Brothers, which has a population of about 50 people. Brothers is also SMACK DAB in the middle of the state. Right on Hwy. 20 between Bend and Burns.

At the end of Day One we stayed at the Comfort Inn in Burns and had a wonderful family dinner at Applebees. It was a nice, hot day to drive across the desert. What could be better? You'll see in my next post.

Day two was a day of REAL exploration!

David