Silver City

On Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend, I headed out, leaving M at home with two weeks of papers to grade.  I stopped to admire the big trees at Federation Forest - figuring I'd spend most of the next two weeks in high desert, sagebrush steppe, and prairie - places where trees were small and often missing.  I stopped at Chinook Pass to admire the snow drifts - the pass opened the day before.  And I stopped at the Nile landslide along the Naches River - the first of many geology-inspired stops.  The observatory at Goldendale was closed.  But Stonehenge in Marysville was open.

I stopped at the Crooked River Canyon and then drove out to Smith Rocks before grabbing dinner in Bend.  Then I headed 30 miles east, turned off on a series of dirt roads, and pitched the tent next to the car amongst the sage and the junipers.  Sunday morning I swung by Malheur Lake, but decided against Steens Mountain (too early, too much snow).  I turned left at Burns Junction, had lunch at The Pillars of Rome, and found a latte in Jordan Valley.


The road up to Silver City was the toughest driving of the trip, a good test of my new Subaru, and the source of most of the dirt that was still plastered to the car when I got back to Seattle. The red dust of Wyoming simply didn't stick.


There's still some modern-era silver mining near Silver City, but the old mining town itself is pretty much a historic backdrop for an ad for Jeeps and ATVs.  And on a nice Sunday afternoon, it was crowded.