Putting together a presentation for work and trying to research my favorite hot spots in Oregon has been a … challenge. I was going to say “nightmare”, but that isn’t exactly true: some of it has been fun, like perusing the photos I want to use. Ah, memories.
I’ve prayed over this and I feel certain I need to do something on our favorite tours of southeastern Oregon: Hart Mountain, the Steens Loop. the Alvord Desert, and the Succor Creek Byway including Leslie Gulch. I could link to any number of sites on those keywords, but most of them do not begin to reveal what I know of the places or my experiences there. Most of the sites or blogs I have discovered have been written by drive-bys: no serious off-road types or hikers or hunters or wind sailers or primitive campers. Hit and run, consider it an experience.
I haven’t even scratched the surface of the experience in 20 years of primitive camping and hiking and exploring! It’s too vast, too wild, too incredible to summarize. And I intend to summarize this experience for people who probably won’t even go off roads once in their lives? Oy vey.
I’m including a couple pictures of a certain western denizen certain to keep city dwellers inside their comfort zone. 
He’s not a very old rattler and I took this picture from the safety of the F-250. He was on the side of the road in the evening (when they are most active) and we stopped long enough to snap a picture on our way down to the Alvord Hot Springs. Then we let him go his way (or her?) and we went our way. I think it’s a rather pretty rattlesnake.
I have another one in a photo, taken in Leslie Gulch while we were hiking on a hot day. He’s wisely curled up in the shade:
He’s also very pretty, a newly shed skin somewhere and an appetite. He’s a little too tightly wound up for me to want to venture much closer!
Anyway, I am having fun revisiting some of Oregon’s best spots – and the dangers that are inherent with the Great Basin and high desert. I’ll try to blog more as I muddle through this.
It should be noted that neither one of these rattlers was disturbed. They didn’t even shake their little tails. We stayed a respectful distance and then let them live whatever lives they had to live – after all, they are a part of the ecosystem!
