“Now wait a minute,” you may be asking yourself. “This route isn’t southeast into Nevada. This route looks to be headed southwest into California.” Right you are my astute map readers. The same band of roving merry makers that had settled in John Day had moved their silliness to Winnemucca. Every hotel that we looked up was booked. Another sign that the desert wasn’t where we were to be headed this year. So we did some hasty Internet surfing and came up with a new plan hoping to throw them off our tracks.
Our first destination of the day was way out on US Route 20 at a place called Camp Gap that was built by the CCC in the late ’30s. It is an interesting place, clicking on the link will have more about it. Today it is essentially two stone buildings and a water tower. It is interesting to walk around and see the remains of a settlement out in the middle of no where. If you go be prepared to drive right past it. We did while we were looking for a sign which we were led to believe would be there.
After stopping there and wandering around for a bit we ate our lunch purchased earlier in the day. When we finished we back tracked to US Route 395 and began the tortuous journey south. I say tortuous because for the vast majority of the route it was mind numbingly boring compared to the others we’ve been on so far. It became seriously interesting around Lake Abert. Interesting in that in true Oregon fashion the guard rails are missing on some truly steep drop offs. We’d encountered some earlier in the week, but these were more exciting in that we’d already been on the road for a long time and were becoming pretty weary — especially after long periods of straight nothing. Luckily the novelty of turns in the road was soon remedied and we were back to the straight nothing.
We arrived in Lakeview with plenty of time to spare so we went for a wander about town. We’d stopped here last year on a Sunday while on the way to Alturas for dinner. That time everything was closed and the place looked like a ghost town. Today, it wasn’t a ghost town at all. People were hustling around all over the place. Like the creatures of habit we try not to be, we ate at the same restaurant that we did the last time. Shame on us because it really wasn’t that good then, and still isn’t that good now.
Today we also made an executive decision. We’re done with the stinking desert and all of the nothingness it brings. While it was interesting we need to head back to civilization with the next series of jumps. We’ll be dipping down into northern California and spending a little time poking around there. Then begin the trek north probably stopping over in Bend and Portlad. Essentially, the marathon mile days are behind us.