Final soak in the hotness & where's the Antelope?

Good thing we tucked in pretty early, because the sun came peaking over the car & started eating up our shade around 7am.
We que’d up some pop tarts & EmergenC for breakfast & headed back down to the springs for a morning soak.



AHHHHHH…..



Keeping Stella out of the sun proved to be more of a challenge in the morning than in the evening, but Topher rigged up a sweet nursing station for me with the umbrelly




where I put the whammy on her & she’s sleeping soundly now for her afternoon nap. Hopefully we can put on 3 or 4 hours in the car & make it to at least Lakeview.



Thing is, there really isn’t a straight shot to Lakeview from the Alvord Desert. You can go south to Denio & cross into Nevada & then over, or you can go around the Steens & up to Frenchglen & then out into the Hart Mountains. The Denio route is longer, but is a paved road. The Hart Mountain route is an unimproved gravel road, but it is through a wildlife preserve & is a national scenic backway.

We had to get gas too, & Topher had heard rumors of killer milkshakes in Frenchglen, so we went that way. For no other reason more compelling than the killer milkshakes.

Frenchglen, however, proved to be a three fold downer. The giant mean lady with tinted coke bottle glasses at the “gas station” (which was literally two pumps in the ground & nothing else) said the milkshakes were in Fields, which we missed when we took the road to Frenchglen. She also wouldn’t let us keep the car running while we pumped so we could run the AC for the babe. She also didn’t take anything other than cash, so we only got as much gas as we had cash money for. Oh well, I guess if you had to sit on your ass all day, day in & day out, waiting for the 2 cars that came through to fill up & ask you why you only accept cash, you’d be a poopy pants too.

Frenchglen does have a cute little hotel though, & the surrounding area is green & lush & beautiful, at the base of the Jackass Mountains (no joke), so I guess it has that going for it.



We just crossed into the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge & we’ve seen 2 antelope. Trouble is, they were both on the outside of the Refuge. Don’t they know they’re supposed to be on this side of the invisible boundary!?? Silly antelope.
Oh wait, Topher just saw two antelope & there’s a black & white eagle hawk….& a horse.



All this land for two antelope, that’s a fat spread! In my next life, I’m coming back as an antelope. Especially if I can live here. Gorgeous. Big skies, lush country, Johnny cash on the stereo, takes me back to Simpler Times.





Oregon rules.