To Steen's Mountain - Day 1

8:06 PM, Lake Chickahominy, Oregon, September 4

How remarkable it is to sit in dry, brown central Oregon and watch the sun set ruby red over a lake.  As the red fades to a soft orange, the coyotes start their evening song, only to be interrupted by flight after flight of Canada geese seeking a resting place for the night.  It's so quiet here that you can hear the sound of the heavy goose bodies hitting the water, creating almost a roar of waves.

Birds are a vocal lot.  Tonight, sandpipers warble to one another, geese keep up their constant conversation, but the ducks have gone strangely quiet. Maybe, like me, their attention is drawn to stars and planets as they emerge from overhead gray, the Big Dipper coming visible.

I'm on my way to Steen's Mountain, a place where I've spent little time and a place I want to get to know better.  The first night's journey has brought me to Lake Chickahominy, a reservoir which is fed, appropriately enough, by Chickahominy Creek.  If you check your map, this place is about smack in the middle of Oregon, and only 5.6 miles from Riley.  Riley, Oregon is a one-building town, home to the "Riley Store and Archery".  The store is something of an oasis in these parts, as it's another 30-some odd miles to Baker to the east, a little further to Wagontire to the south, and even further back west to Hamilton, which wouldn't do you any good as there isn't anything there any more.  If there ever was.

My little pop-up is parked in a campground on Lake Chickahominy, and it must be noted that for the very first time in my life I entered a vault toilet here that was clean and actually smelled good, sort of a minty, chewing gum kind of smell. Remarkable.

The lake must be good fishing, for whoever established this campground (only $5/night, many of the sites on the water) built a fish-cleaning station, which, it must be said, is closed, perhaps for the season.

I had forgotten how quiet in can be in central Oregon.  This campground is far enough from Highway 20 that car traffic doesn't impose much, and there is so little of it that there are long patches of only the sounds of nature.  Here, that's the breeze, the birds, and coyotes when they can get a word in edgewise.

Tomorrow, a quick stop in Burns, then south to Frenchglen.